Tags
anthony bryant, being humble, bitches get shit done, gender policing, humility, inawhilecrocodile, keep your head up, nigel lithgoe, self esteem, self worth, so you think you can dance, sytycd
On the May 28 episode of So You Think You Can Dance, a dancer named Anthony Bryant’s audition offered an unfortunately clear case study for how gender policing works and why humility is a privilege.
Let’s be honest, SYTYCD is not exactly a bastion of social justice to begin with. Their treatment of “Ribbon Boy” is far from unique in terms of sexist incidents on the show. And don’t even get me started on the apparent glee with which the costume department partakes in racial stereotypes, appropriation and orientalizing. Oof.
BUT. I am a sucker for the dancing, so I still occasionally catch myself watching the show. We all have guilty pleasures. Mine, unfortunately, led me to witness some pretty explicit gender discrimination.
“Ribbon Boy”:
Anthony Bryant had auditioned in past years, including with this ribbon dance, which Nigel Lithgoe, SYTYCD producer, judge, and chief of the gender police force, deemed “not masculine enough.”
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This year, Anthony delivered a stunning audition piece, presenting the judges with undeniable skill, body control, artistry, and talent. I’m no television dance competition judge, but to my untrained eye this was an equisite work of art, and certainly strong enough to earn him a ticket to the callbacks in Las Vegas. Instead, the judges told him he was brilliant but needlessly strange, and yellow-lighted him for choreography. Anthony replied, “Oh. I actually don’t want to continue then.”
The show made him out to be a drama queen, ignored any legitimate reasons he might have had for refusing to go through choreography, and even encouraged viewers to make fun of him on social media using the hashtag #inawhilecrocodile.
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Gender policing:
So You Think You Can Dance in general, and producer/judge Nigel Lythgoe specifically, constantly repeats the idea that women dancers must be feminine and male dancers must be masculine. Choreography that juxtaposes the “manly” and the “feminine” (in the narrowest sense) is exhalted, and individual dancers are praised for their adherence to traditional gender roles.
The reactions to Anthony are no exception to this rule. The judges object to his “dress” costume as being too weird. In their flashback of past years we see explicit gender policing as Nigel informs him outright that the reason they aren’t choosing him is that he isn’t masculine enough. When he speaks out against this criticism, the show mocks him by echoing the word “ribbon” (ribbon, ribbon).
And as if that weren’t enough, in the very next segment, the judges make fun of a guy wearing high heels. “I loved your dancing… from the waist up.” In the past, the judges have also denigrated partner dancers who didn’t follow a male/female pairing. As part of a dance community that consciously rejects gendered dance roles, that irks me.
Look, SYTYCD is a TV show, but it’s also a job. It’s the promise of a steady gig for a year or more if you can make it into the final ten and go on tour. That means this gender-based discrimination isn’t just hurting the dancers’ feelings; it’s hurting their job prospects.
The privilege to be humble:
Shortly after Anthony’s audition, they had an audition from another brilliant male dancer, whom they equally praised. They told him they were sending him to choreography, and when he accepted without a fuss, they gave him a ticket to Vegas and explained they were just making a point about how important it is to be humble.
Bullshit.
As Peggy McIntosh pointed out over 20 years ago in “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack“ (which is a classic and you should read it right now), it is a privilege not to need to question whether something negative in your life is caused by bigotry. This other dancer, the “humble” one, had never been subjected to the judges’ antagonization about gender presentation, and thus had no reason to suspect their judgement was based on anything except his skill.
Let’s explain this with an overwrought analogy: Your sense of self worth is a glass of cool, sweet water in your hands. This water gives you life! Then, someone tells you it’s muddy, there’s debris in it, it’s no good. People who live near creeks, rivers, aquifers, can afford to dump that water out without too much thought- there’s more around. But if you live in a desert, you’re gonna take a damn close look at that water yourself to decide whether it’s ACTUALLY potable before just taking someone’s word for it and pouring it on the ground.
Let’s not underestimate the bravery it takes to insist upon your self worth when a world full of bigots continually shames you, denies you employment (as in this case), calls you a freak, and threatens your safety for a part of your identity that hurts no one. When you’re facing discrimination you don’t have the privilege of being humble, because no one is going to stand up for your value unless you do it for yourself.
When people tell you to be humble, they’re really telling you to accept their oppression. They’re wrong. And like Anthony, you shouldn’t listen to them.
Ugh I hate it when people use “humility” to shield privilege like that. You see that a lot with experienced attorneys, and particularly judges, telling young women how to dress (side note: you would not believe how often this comes up in career panels in law school. Gross).
Also, can we talk about how Hugo Schwyzer is, like, the worst? Except for the “like” part? Or maybe I should wait for the links thread this weekend.
Eww. I’d much rather be dancing than sitting around watching a multi-million dollar TV show about dancing, that’s for sure. I’m afraid these shows do much more to waste people’s time than to contribute to the world. I want to see everyone actually dancing, not just idolizing the most technically perfect and showy dancers, while becoming couch potatoes themselves. But to make matters worse, the only dance show I watch is the gender police. Great. This is depressing and disempowering for gender non-conforming dancers like me. There’s a popular video on YouTube of two gay dancers auditioning for the show in a partner dance, both dancing in a pretty feminine way. All of the judges praise them for how beautiful their performance is, and not only that, sappily tell them how brave they are for getting up there and performing on national television and being who they are. I knew there was a good reason why that made me uncomfortable. Seeing the above videos makes that clearer. It makes me uncomfortable to see these heterosexists on a heterosexist, gender normative show condescending to these gay dancers to tell them they are brave. Then they go and rudely tell the next gender non-conforming dancer that he’s not masculine enough. Well, thanks, Nigel Lithgow. Wait, let me bow down in humility.
Did you know that the season 2 and season 3 runners-up were both gay? But their dancing was more gender conforming than these other guys’. Also, they never ever got to perform any intimate same-sex dance on the entire show. And at least one of them, possibly both, were technically better dancers than the winners… I think that they lost partly because they were competing in a gender normative world where they couldn’t fully express themselves. They had less of a stage presence, and what more could you expect from people who are suppressing that important part of them so the world could see them as straight? If I were them, I would be horribly sad that my entire performance on the show was a lie and that I couldn’t even present myself as a role-model to people like me.
And as for genderqueer/trans people? Hard to even think of on a show like this. It’s sad. It’s depressing. And it’s terribly, terribly boring.
Also, I don’t fucking need cis straight people to tell me how brave I am (especially when they are potentially doing it to make themselves look like the compassionate human beings they’re not). I need them to fucking represent people like me on TV, in movies, in positions of power and empowerment. Then *maybe* I will tell them how brave *they* are. You know? Because it’s almost like they’re sitting there saying, “MY GOD, you are so much braver than me to get up before the world and be yourself… because I don’t really have the courage to let you.”
Similarly depressing: the fact that the only really mainstream queer films require that a queer person be murdered in the film. Harvey Milk. Brokeback Mountain. Boys Don’t Cry. The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Soongava (the first Nepali lesbian film). Like, thanks for reminding us how depressing it is to be us… we feel SO empowered and brave now. “Sure, queers exist… until they’re murdered.” So straight people can pity us and feel compassionate but not actually do anything to enlighten or empower? And homophobes can feel gratified that we died. “Don’t be queer! Don’t come out of the closet! You’ll be killed!” Not ALL of those movies are bad, but it’s depressing that they’re the only type of movie.
Kudos to Anthony for remaining true to himself, to his creativity, and to his talent. He is an AMAZING dancer. His poise, grace, and elegance is stunning. They should be slobbering all over themselves to have him on the show because he’s just that damn good. Ugh, it’s so damn annoying that mainstream media/entertainment wants everyone to be so cookie cutter, obviously male and female, instead of letting truly talented people blur the lines and create something exquisite. Not that I’m partial to blurring lines or anything. 🙂
I don’t watch this show but I watched the videos you linked. He’s an amazing dancer and I’m glad he stood up for himself.
What an incredible person and dancer. I don’t think I could watch SYTYCD again after watching how the judges treat him. And the directors/producers. Listen to the “dramatic demon” music they put behind his comments about self-love and self-respect. How about some “you’re awesome and brave for choosing who you are over what others are trying to make you” music?
Until SYTYCD grows up, I’ll be watching this instead:
Just looked at the comments below the video I linked. TW for intense homophobia. *facepalm*