"So You Think You Can Dance" Goes Political

Being a regular viewer of the Fox network TV show "So Think You Can Dance," I meant to comment on last week's utterly inappropriate display of anti-war preaching, but never got around to it. Luckily, Michelle Malkin has done the honors in "Anti-war dance and slash" and, in the process, links to Newsbusters and Duty In the Desert on the same subject.

In addition to judge Mia Michaels' disrespectful fashion statement (Marine Corps Dress Blues with upside-down emblems), all ten contestants performed the same number choreographed by the insipid Wade Robson and set to John Mayer's pitiful anthem "Waiting on the World to Change" (keep waiting, John). And in case the message was lost on the audience, the dancers all wore T-shirts with peace signs on them.

Apparently, unhappy viewers let their thoughts be known for both Michaels and producer Nigel Lythgoe apologized the following night for any offense caused. But Robson refused to apologize, maintaining that the piece was simply a "cry for peace" and, similarly, Lythgoe's semi-apology reeked of highhandedness. As he put it, "Art should be allowed to make statements."

Making statements about "peace" (a condition that's never entirely existed in the history of humankind) is all well and good, but doing so in a setting and manner that assumes one's audience is on the same political page (how many military personnel or their family members watch the show?) is thoughtless and arrogant. Not to mention just a tad unbalanced. Would that the self-proclaimed do-gooders of "So You Think You Can Dance" would expend as much energy exposing the barbarity of Islamic terrorism.

Considering its new found politics, occasional displays of inappropriate smuttiness (something I commented on last month at SFGate), and the elevation of hip-hop dancers over the classically-trained (sort of an affirmative action for dancing), "So You Think You Can Dance" is really starting to wear out its welcome.