Monday, November 22, 2010

Get out there and vote!

Tonight's the last night to vote on "Dancing with the Stars." Completely ridiculous, I know.

Nonetheless - and I am generally not much of a conspiracy theorist - there really does seem to be some sort of concerted conservative effort to get out the vote for Bristol Palin. While undoubtedly she has improved considerably since the first episode, there is just no way to objectively believe that she is actually the best dancer on the stage. (Nor, I believe, would it even be fair to say that she has improved comparatively more than the other finalist, Kyle Massey.)

Bristol's freestyle tonight, as the infamous lawyerly platitude goes, truly missed the mark. She danced to a number from the Broadway hit musical "Chicago." While the "look" of the number was about right (evoking a prison cell), the costuming was fine and the dancing - to the completely and totally unitiated - seemed ok... it lacked the most fundamental essence it could possibly miss: Bob Fosse's style. Mr. Fosse (pronounced foss-ee) was one of the most quintessential choreographers to ever grace (and yes, I mean grace) the Broadway stage. He had a style that was so unique, so inimitable, that even a person who never took a dance lesson in her life (ie: me) could recognize it when I saw it. And I didn't see any of it in Bristol's dancing tonight. Think: doing an Elvis Presley number without wiggling your hips. Just shows a real lack of depth. Judge Bruno alluded to this in his comments when he said that dance was a difficult style to imitate. Judge Carrie Ann, to her credit, didn't try to dumb it down for the audience and mentioned Fosse by name. Judge Len, on the other hand, apparently already had lowered his expectations for Bristol so far down that he said he wasn't even thinking about the fact that team Bristol basically did the bunny hop when the music called for a conga line. What was Bristol's (professional!) dance partner thinking?

You have until 11am Eastern tomorrow. Maybe you didn't turn out for the November election (which yes, would have been much better), but there is still time to make this right. Vote Jennifer and/or Kyle!

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