I just finished my final final of college! I'm not feeling the least bit sentimental about it right now, but I'm sure there will be some mushy blogs in the month to come.
The end of the semester means that I finally have time to deconstruct this article I stumbled upon on facebook. I've been waiting for weeks. Here's a link to it: http://www.buzzfeed.com/steffirina/date-a-girl-who-dances-op3t The article, called "Date A Girl Who Dances, is written by Steffi Carter. At first read, I was embarrassed by her portrayal of dancers, but through further examination I found it littered with red flags as it relates to feminism and dance culture.
Let's jump right in, shall we?
The Title: "Date A Girl Who Dances"
YES. All about this. I am a girl. I dance. You should date me. Absolutely on board.
Well. It's downhill from here. You absolutely should read the whole thing, but I'll give you my highlights.
"Date a girl whose eyes get glassy when assaulted by new music because she can’t help choreographing, casting, living and dying in her mind."
I can't shake the image of me at my first death metal concert. This is about the only time I have every been truly assaulted by a piece of music. And by assaulted I mean it was so suddenly loud that I almost fell over. I humiliated myself in a room full of folks that looked like they could eat me alive and I've made it a goal to not repeat the incident. I personally feel like I can handle listening to music. I mean, I can do the fucking splits. Music does not make me catatonic.
"Find a girl who dances. You’ll know that she does because she will seem to move endlessly. She will sway to the sounds of the city, fidget every few minutes, crack her knuckles and her neck, roll each wrist and cross the other leg just so she feels even. She will forget herself and where she is, the length of her skirt and the strangeness of what she’s about to do when something falls from her lovely, articulate hands to the floor. She will not bend at the knees because she does not have to, folding instead at the waist to execute the kill. That’s the dancer. When she straightens, she will laugh at herself, and her collarbone will beg you waltz with her."
Ah. The illusive, mysterious dancer creature. A rare breed. Certainly not human. Certainly not fit to navigate the city without getting lost in the bustle. Very strange. Personally, I prefer to bend my knees to pick stuff up. Unless there's a cute girl behind me and I'm having a good butt day. What I'm getting at here is that I'm interpreting most of these qualities as negative and kind of crazy. I absolutely like to roll each wrist to feel even, but for me that's a residual ocd type habit that I personally don't want to glorify. And this "finding the dancer" game has a predator/prey feel that I am NOT into when it comes to dating.
"Such proximity to a pedestrian has reawakened an awareness of her abnormality; she had nearly forgotten, again, that not everyone needs a tutu to feel alive."
Mmm. Abnormal. Flattering.
"See if she cries when she doesn’t make the cut, and learn to anticipate what she needs before and after that audition. Remember what needs massaging, and when. Understand that it is a rare treat indeed for her to really be at rest, to have a day off from running to and from rehearsals, and to take a break from being beautiful."
Oh the patronizing! I can't! Please ladies, can we stop perpetuating this stereotype that we can't stand on our own two feet? I mean yeah, I have wept my way through many a post-callback situation, we've all been there, but give yourself some credit here! Many dancers can push their bodies very far physically and the professional performing world is full of bullshit that we just have to take. You're pretty damn strong. And this bit about taking a break from being beautiful? Please. The connection to female beauty standards doesn't bear deconstructing.
"Technically, she was never trained to talk. She was trained to listen. Let her speak when she finds her voice. Do not ask her to make sense."
Pardon? Never trained to talk? This tells young female dancers that they should keep quiet. Women's voices have been historically undervalued if not completely ignored. There have been WAVES of feminists who worked their asses off to give women more of a voice and I REFUSE to forfeit the progress we have made because I also happen to express myself through dance. Some of the most articulate people I have met are dancers. Setting the bar this low should not be something to aspire to.
"It’s easy to date a girl who dances. Give her ibuprofen in bulk for her birthday"
For the record, I prefer M&Ms and chewing gum. I can handle my own medical supplies thank you.
"Look at her. Stare."
But actually, please don't. I prefer not to be objectified. Thanks.
"Because she’s unreal. The human equivalent of a black cat, with that same mesmerizing and vaguely alarming quality in the way she slinks toward you."
Jesus. I am very real. I am not a fucking ethereal fairy thing. Side note, what about my slinky walk is alarming? The last thing I want to do when I am slinkying towards someone is alarm them.
"Date a girl who dances because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who adores everything you do, every little thing about you...This is a woman who rehearses for weeks on end for maybe one minute onstage — do you think she does anything because it is easy?"
That's right. Hey dancer, you thought this article would be about how great you are? Nope. It's about the other guy. He deserves you. You deserve...it's not in this article. Now go back to your slinking. This also suggests that the dancer is the one that puts all the energy into the relationship for very little payback. Do you really want that?
"You want a girl who bites off more than she can chew because she is the most flexible, most sensitive, most ambitious, most big-hearted of the bunch."
Well. I do happen to be pretty flexible. So if you're into that.
"You deserve a girl who doesn’t break easy, a girl who’s prepared for a bit of pain for the sake of of beauty."
Please God ladies, don't idolize pain in order to be beautiful. It's not healthy. Don't glorify pain in relationships either.
"She’ll embody the ebb and flow of that tide between well-established vanity and soul-crushing insecurity"
That's right, that triple pirouette makes you vain and soul-crushingly insecure. Best of both worlds really.
The End. But Not Actually.
Ok. That's the end of the article, but I have a few more general comments.
Firstly, I get it. This is a buzzfeed article. It doesn't need to be politically correct. And if you read the article and identified with it or liked it, you do you. I'm not going to tell you how to feel about something (she says after finishing a very opinionated blog). But at the same time, when an article like this gets a lot of attention, we need to acknowledge what it says about dancers and women in our culture. By othering dancers as these mysterious, inarticulate, mentally unstable, non-human creatures we are creating a potentially dangerous standard if universalized.
Also, this only addresses girls. And I understand that the title specifically implies this, but if you refer to "dancer" as only female, you're ignoring all the men and gender non-specified folks. They do exist. For the record.
*Before we end, I want to acknowledge that I'm throwing around words like "crazy" and "unstable" pretty casually. I want to be clear that I am not making a statement about mental illness. I have dealt with mental illness personally, with my family, and and among my friends and the topic itself needs more understanding an acceptance. But understanding and glorifying are two very different things. This article has a tone of glorifying this stigma of dancers as "crazy." And I don't like the stigma that creates for the community.
So yeah. Something to chew on. Mentally I guess. In response to this, I intend to write, "Date Me: A Dancer, The Un-universalized Take on Date A Girl Who Dances." Basically it will be the most self indulgent thing to grace the internet.
May the 4th be with you. A day after the fact.
Kaitlyn
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