Crying for "Strictly".

I like dance, a lot! I remember watching early episodes of 'Strictly Come Dancing' but ditching it when I felt it became too much of (just) a gimmick. The show has become immensely popular in the sixteen or so years since it started but I haven't been drawn back to it until they began to discuss same sex couples.

Unsurprisingly, there was the inevitable 'Backlash' from pearl-clutching phobics frothing at the mouth about 'morals', 'protecting children', 'family show' and the usual bollocks they always spout at moments like that. I think it has been a couple of years at least since same sex couples were proposed for the show, this season it happened. I was relieved that it was a couple of men: too often when they start this kind of thing it is with women; two women have always been more 'acceptable'/titilating than two men.

So I decided to watch the current season. The two men, a Black South African and a white Brit have been doing very well! Of course, they were always going to have greater scrutiny one way or another. It has been interesting watching them become physically more interactive in interviews etc; they're no more physical than other couples, but I was aware of their awareness of maintaining 'distance' which was affecting the performances.

They danced a stunny pasa doble dressed as pirates to the 'Pirates of Penzance' theme which was very enjoyable, but the thing that had me in tears was an opening dance performed by the professional dancers which featured the South African dancer as a ruler and the rest of the dancers as his court. Just when I thought he was going to be left in splendid isolation another male dancer escorted him to the centre to a pas-de-deux. When the rest of the dancers rejoined they were mainly in same sex couples. 

I'm not entirely sure why I cried. I do LOVE dance, the choreography and performances were excellent but I think most of all I was moved by the fact that they had taken it all so seriously: it wasn't a gimmick, they didn't make a joke of it and it was beautiful. I thought about how not so very long ago it would not have been possible and that if a same sex couple had appeared in that show they would almost undoubtedly have ended up as the running joke.

 

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