nekare

The boy and I got into a bit of an argument of all things, about the Cell Block Tango dance sequence from Chicago. He said, and I'm quoting, that he didn't know I could abide by it when he "thought I was a raving feminist." Well, it's not like they're exclusive qualities - it's a beautiful, well coordinated, perfectly executed coreography, that fits with the theme and context of the movie, and I look at it as a way of these women to liberate themselves - and their sexuality - from the men that scorned them, even if in a drastic way. Is it problematic? Yes, but not for the dancing itself, but for the way it's sold as a way to attract men, with the outfits and the red and whatever. Somehow the boy started equating that 'style' of sexy dancing (and there he made it easy to be seen he knows shit about the subject of dancing, there's no 'sexy' style, wtf) it with pole dancing, and, ah, no.

The difference is that with pole dancing the specific reason for it is to turn on a man, as to get money from him. And when you present a coreography as sexy as that, you're not doing it for a man, or even to the audience, as a dancer you're doing it for yourself, because you want to feel sexy and hot and powerful, and that's an expression of sexuality that shouldn't be repressed, even if people watching might feel that it's all about them, because it's not. It will always be about the dancer and what she or he is feeling as they move. A lot about sexyness in dancing is about pushing the limits as to how sexual you can be as opposed to in a more normal situation, in which it's not about repression, but about undertanding that you can't go and move your hips around when you're in the supermarket, for example.

I don't even exactly know where I'm going with this. Just that the fact that he could consider a dancer doing that somewhat (not exactly, of course) the same as selling your assets annoyed me. And what the hell, it totally isn't, dancing is about expressing yourself, is about giving yourself to the moment. And it's been a way for women to express their sexuality for years and years and years. And that shouldn't be taken away.

(I get that I can't quite generalize about women that pole dance like that, I know that there must be a lot of women that still feel powerful while doing it, and all the more power to them, but as a whole the activity doesn't sit well for me.)