So You Think You Can Dance creator and judge Nigel Lythgoe (he’s also a producer on American Idol) has angered GLAAD with comments he made on last night’s season premiere of the hit show.
The same-sex dance team of Misha Belfer and Mitchel Kibel were met with criticism from Lythgoe for their effeminate samba. “I think you probably alienate a lot of our audience. I mean, we’ve always had the guys dance together on the show, but they’ve never really done it in each other’s arms before. Do you know what? I’d like to see you both dancing with a girl.”
Later, like almost every idiot in Hollywood, he carried on later on his Twitter account where he Tweeted “The same sex ballroom guys did remind me of “Blades of Glory.” However, I’m not a fan of ‘Brokeback’ Ballroom.”
GLAAD is mad. President Neil G. Giuliano said, “It’s unacceptable for this kind of blatant homophobia to occur. Fox Entertainment and Nigel Lythgoe owe Misha, Mitchel and the whole LGBT community an apology.”
See, this is where Lythgoe should have apologized and moved on. Nope, he then Tweeted, “I am very sad the word ‘homophobe’ is being used. That is someone who hates homosexuals. I dislike effeminate dancing! Wake up and listen!” and “I believe overtly effeminate dancing destroys the opportunity for many male dancers to be supported. Being gay doesn’t mean effeminate.”
Not being gay, I may not have the clearest perspective, but effeminate dancing doesn’t offend me. It just doesn’t. What’s Lythgoe’s problem?
sure, then why make a reference to breakback mountain if it’s not about being gay?
When I saw the show last night, I didn’t think there was anything homophobic about the remarks. Not liking to see two guys dancing together (one of whom is straight) is completely different from not liking two guys to be together sexually. At the time, I applauded Nigel for being honest, especially since his views were shared by the other two judges. What’s more, they gave the guys a second chance to go through the choreography round, in which round the men proved that they were really not very good dancers. HOWEVER, now seeing Nigel’s new comments, it’s clear that his comments on the show were motivated by something other than the fact that the guys were terrible dancers and seeing two guys dance together doesn’t provide the proper dynamic. It’s odd that he would be so homophobic (I agree with misscogito that the “Brokeback” comment makes his homophobia clear) when he has been in the dance world his whole life.
OK, so my first post didn’t show up. I’m trying again, so excuse me if my previous post shows up and I repeat myself. At first I was really pissed about all the controversy. Having seen the show, the way I perceived Nigel’s comments (and the other two judges’) was that they had nothing to do with homophobia and everything to do with the fact that the men’s dynamic together wasn’t’ right. There’s a difference between not wanting to see men dancing together and not wanting to see men being together sexually (especially since one of the partners was straight). Moreover, the guys sucked, which they proved when they were allowed to go on to the choreography round. HOWEVER, after seeing Nigel’s twitters about his previous comments, I think that it was motivated by homophobia (I agree with misscogito about the “Brokeback” comment). It’s odd that he would be homophobic, having been in the dance world so long. It’s sad, but it’s also sad that people can’t express their views without being pushed to apologize for them later (and by the way, apologies that don’t come voluntarily from the offender himself are worthless).
And of course my previous post shows up at the same time as my new post. Sorry, everybody! =)
I think Nigel is also forgetting that having opposite sex couples dance alienates a lot of people who don’t agree with that rigid gender binary. Instead of thinking that everyone is socially cookie-cut and would reject anything out of the ordinary, maybe he should realize that this actually opens up the doors a bit more and gets people intrigued who would otherwise have not been interested.
He didn’t make any homophobic remarks, I don’t understand why people exaggerate things to the extent that they do. The judges on the show stated an opinion, and the dancers that they were critiquing as judges obviously didn’t understand that, hence why they’re bringing it up weeks after their audition. They tried to dance the samba, and it didn’t work. They were critiquing them because they didn’t have a lead-follow pairing going on, which you need in any ballroom or latin dance (they even admitted to switching around the leader position different times during the dance). They wouldn’t have been so hard on them if they had distinguished a leader, but they failed to do that. I think people are just taking offense to it because one of the guys is gay. GLADD should get over it, homosexuals shouldn’t be on the receiving end of special treatment just because of their sexual orientation. And, if you had watched the show you would know that they were much more harsh to the girl who auditioned after them, with the light sabers and lion costume. Oh, and Nigel isn’t a producer on American Idol anymore, he left to focus on SYTYCD. Overall, failure reporting on your part, Wendie.
um, did you not see miss cogito’s and harriet’s comments??
I don’t get where people all of a sudden came to the conclusion that homophobia translates to “hating gay people”. Homophobia is a fear of homosexuals… hate would involve the prefix miso-. Sorry I just can’t stand when people broadly misuse words.
It’s true that the roots of the word would mean “fear of homosexuals,” but often the meanings of words encompass more than just their roots. We often hate or discriminate against the things/people we fear, simply because hatred and anger make us feel like we have more power. Hence the bullying and crimes done for the sake of “homophobia,” and the expansion of the meaning of the word “homophobia” to encompass discrimination and/or other behavior that is inspired by the original fear.
the meanings of words change, Abbi. Sorry I just can’t stand when people don’t know simple facts like that.
check out any dictionary. most of them have the definition as how it is often being used- as prejudice/dislike etc etc towards gay people
whose comment had the word hate in it?
his problem is that he’s a bit of a fuckwit, that’s what.
If you guys have a problem with the ‘heterosexist’ blueprint of the cultural art form that is dance, then take it up with the whole artistic institution.
Wendie, your posts are usually good but this one was fucking lame. I know it wins you points when you jump on the PC bandwagon with all the idiots on the internet, but don’t forget that things like this make you look like an idiot, too.
We weren’t complaining about the “blueprint” before, but now that Nigel rubbed these comments in our faces, we ARE speaking up about it and letting him know that he should actually see it as an opportunity to get a previously unreached percentage of the population rather than immediately dismissing it because it’s different from the usual norm.
And what’s up with people dissing Wendie because they disagree with her? She’s not my fav by any means, but it’s annoying when people start using the writers name if they didn’t agree with and makign it personal- “Sasha, this was a bad post” “Wendie you failed.” Just because YOU didn’t like it, doesn’t mean it was a bad post. Wendie did a good job and her entry was well written. She didn’t jump on any PC wagon and the only person who looked like an idiot here was you.
ONe last thing about Nigel- “I dislike effiminate dancing” Really? REALLY?? Because men wearing tight form fitting pants and shirts with the first 4 buttons undone to reveal their waxed smooth chests isn’t effiminate at all???
yeah cuz dance is like ONE cultural artform. all the same, across every cultures. and what is this “artistic institution” you speak of? sounds fancy.
A person who works as a writer for their bread and butter shouldn’t be getting lauded for putting their words in the right order and refraining from making spelling and grammatical errors. If you think that this is enough to merit a gold star, then your standards are too low.
This blog simply provides perspectives on celeb gossip that has already been reported elsewhere. In this case, Wendie offered her ‘opinion’, which is fine and good, but it was based on a complete misinterpretation of the original information. If your commentary is a misinterpretation, then yes, you should be held accountable.
If anything, you people should be getting up in arms about that dude’s sexism, not accusing him of being homophobic. If you call him a sexist, then fine, that is corroborated by what he said, even though he is basing his comments on the conventions of the art form of dance that he was trained to know, teach and judge. Unfortunately most forms of partnered dance require a lead/dominant/’male’ component and a follow/submissive/’female’ component. This is the heterosexist aspect of the art form that I was referring to earlier. Lythgoe wasn’t saying ‘you’re dancing effeminately and I dislike that because I hate gays’ he was saying ‘you’re dancing effeminately and I dislike that because it means that no one is dancing the lead role.’
If you want to fight for equity between genders and sexualities you are not helping the cause by jumping to conclusions and accusing people of homophobia when you don’t understand the context of their comments. In this case, you all seem happy to bypass context and vilify Lythgoe for his opinion — hilarious, Mercedes, since you just accused me of calling Wendie out and painted that as a bad thing to do, and then went on to do the same thing by chastising Lythgoe. According to your logic, you should be applauding him for stringing his sentences together in a meaningful way rather than getting upset about what he actually SAID using those words.
Anonymous, this is ‘Dancing with the Stars’. It’s a Western television show that appropriate elements of dance from across cultures, Westernizing them by presenting them in a Western context.
Now, art is a cultural institution that exists in all cultures and dance is a form within this institution. (‘Institution’ in this case is a concept for a tradition what a particular form that is passed down from generation to generation.) As a result, everything that you see on DWTS can be considered an Americanized form, so it does make sense to refer to ‘dance’ as an art form, and to expect people with reasonable intelligence to recognize that ‘dance’ covers many different forms.
it’s not dancing with the stars.
That said, although the types of dance that are pulled into this competition are not all from one cultural origin, they are judged according to the judge’s expectations, which are based on (1) that form’s standards, and (2) the judge’s training and background. These tend to be Western standards, or Western interpretations of standards from other backgrounds.
As such, if you have a problem with this guy’s comments, maybe you should lobby all dance schools the world over to stop ‘feminizing’ the submissive role and ‘masculinizing’ the dominant role. This way when two males dance together and neither one decides to lead and some ‘meanie dance judge’ speaks about the issues he has in their partnering, he won’t use gendered terms. Would that fix things? If it does, can’t you see that the problem you have is based in the art form’s inherent ‘sexism’ and not in the judge’s ‘homophobia’?
Can you now see why Wendie was incorrect to accuse Lythgoe of homophobia?
1st of all- it’s called GETTING TO THE POINT
2nd- it’s about time he opened his mind up to new ideas and new ways of dancing, perhaps ones that are different from the ones he was tuaght and ones that would not be solely be based on “leaders” and “followers”
3rd- he was not merely critiquing the dance, he brought homophobia into it when he made such comments as the brokeback mountain joke. He was not professional about it and his actions seemed laced with an anti-gay attitude.
about the Wendie thing- you attacked her for jumping on some bandwagon and trying to get points when that was way off the mark. Lythgoe’s comments can and are being interpreted for the homophobic remarks that they are and she was spot on in catching it and reporting it to all of us. The spelling/grammar AND the idea behind it was EXCELLENT, you clearly misunderstood me when you thought I was merely talking about her spelling words correctly when in reality it was a nice, solid piece that I praised her for. overall it was you who missed the whole idea and just couldn’t see it the way everyone else was.
are you joking?? do you know how many professional dancers are gay??
Ok. I just watched it, and I love the show but I definitely think Nigel was being discriminatory.
I thought they were pretty average as dancers (but I’m no expert), but the way Nigel addressed them was offensive.
I thought it was particularly offensive when at the end he said something like “I’d like to see you each dance with a woman, YOU MIGHT LIKE IT” (with a little smirk on his face). I took that as him saying, being gay is a choice, and if you really try, you’ll like girls.
Just sayin’.
His problem is that they were average dancers. He said almost exactly the same thing as the other judges which was:
1) it’s a bit awkward to see two men dancing the samba together, when there’s such a male-female dynamic built into the dance. It was hard to tell who was leading, because the men kept CHANGING who was leading. I don’t care who you are, that’s awkward in a dance that’s made to be done with one partner leading the other.
2) they were going to have to dance with girls if they got on the show, so the judges wanted to see how they would do both dancing with girls and dancing a different style than they were used to.
Also, they just didn’t do a great job. People need to chill out.
I’ve been waiting SO LONG for dancing dynamics to change so that one person doesn’t have to lead and one person has to follow. It’s about time we change the old-fashioned rules already and find a way for 2 individuals to have equality in their dance. It’s an awesome step in the right direciton.
Hahahahah you are so lame
what the hell? care to back up your rude comment with a reason?
oh I get it. I misspelled direction. oooooh!!!! oh no!!!!!!
I guess this is why your perspective on writing is so skewed — your opinions lack critical strength, you’re overly dramatic and juvenile, and you can’t spell.
I suppose it’s better than taking 20 pages to get to one point, sounding so smug that you have absolutely no connection with the reader, and so cowardly that you choose to attack a person in different areas of a blog because you can’t handle discussing an issue with someone up front.
and YOU need to chill out. This is important and people’s comments are worthwhile about this topic.