Fort Worth Feminism

Ok, so last night as I was watching America’s Best Dance Crew (I know, I know), something incredibly wise and poignant came out of judge JC Chasez’s mouth (yes, the guy from NSync). When Distorted X, a group comprised mostly of beautiful women, was named one of the bottom two teams as a result of “America’s” vote, a disappointed JC told them that perhaps the reason they were voted one of the least favorite is because “society hates seeing a beautiful woman succeed.” I’m not sure if I have the quote exactly right but I thought it was right on and definitely not the type of message usually heard on MTV contest shows. This show has been consistently good in combating sexism by expecting the female dancers to be just as good as the male dancers and by not holding the female dance crews they choose to be on the show to pussycat doll-type standards. Some of them do dress and dance sexy, and that’s ok, and some of them don’t do anything particularly sexy, and the judges like that, too — as long as the dancing’s good. As for JC Chasez, it’s awesome that he articulated something so deeply ingrained in our society in one sentence on a show mostly viewed by young people (except I would expand it to “society doesn’t like to see women succeed.”).  Out of the mouths of babes…