Prancing is Dancing
Alexei Sayle wrote this hysterically funny piece the other day in The Guardian in which he 'deconstructs' from a Marxist point of view, the continuing class struggle in the UK which is cunningly disguised as Strictly Come Dancing.
Alexei Sayle’s Marxist demolition of Strictly Come Dancing
The TV show has taken a great popular art form and turned it into a travesty, argues the comedian – which is why you will never see this dance lover on Strictly
By Alexei Sayle - The Guardian
Last waltz … Judy Murray in the Strictly dance-off with her professional partner Anton du Beke. Photograph: Guy Levy/PA
Sometimes an idea just gets out there. So twice in the last few weeks two distinct groups of friends have suggested to me that I become a contestant on the celebrity TV show Strictly Come Dancing. They are aware that I am a keen dance fan, indeed that I presented several television shows on the subject in the early 2000s, and that I have a basic, practical knowledge of the art. I possess a smattering of tap, I can salsaas well as any North London social worker, and I’ve been known to attempt an Argentine tango when drunk. These friends suggested that an appearance on Strictly might help bring my work to a new, previously unaware audience. On both occasions after they said this, my mates were shocked when, rather than being grateful for the suggestion, I embarked on a two hour, Hugo Chávez/Fidel Castro style, Marxist denunciation, first of all TV talent shows such as Strictly Come Dancing and then secondly of the supposed skill that its contestants are being judged on – ballroom dancing.
My dislike of TV talent shows, though I give it an ideological gloss, is based, as ideology often is, on personal trauma. After I’d Mc’d the opening night of the Comedy Store in May 1979 – a night that revolutionised British comedy, destroying forever the sexist and racist standup that had dominated our culture – a stocky man in a suit with a gold chain around his neck approached the table where I was slumped with a couple of friends. He told me he was a producer from London Weekend Television, gave me his card. After that I went round the club showing everybody this card and telling them: “This is my ticket to stardom...”
A few days later, full of excitement I went to see the producer in his office. After complimenting me on my performance on the preceding Saturday he told me he was in charge of a new show called Search for a Star. He said he’d like me to take part. I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d been expecting but it wasn’t an invitation to be on some crappy talent show. Yet, at the same time, to be on TV seemed like such a huge opportunity so I felt compelled to say yes. Luckily that same week the unions called a big ITV strike that put the channel off the air for three months, and when the talent show appeared it was without me. Thanks to industrial action I avoided TV humiliation (that pleasure came later) and the eventual winner was a comedian who went by the name of Fogwell Flax.
Though our careers have diverged over the years, it still bothered me why Foggie did well on Search for a Star, while I would certainly not have. So I began to search for meaning in my rejection and, being a Marxist, I also looked for its significance in terms of class war. This task has become more urgent as programmes such as X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and Strictly have come to dominate prime-time viewing. In the documentary Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media Chomsky says the media’s function is to “amuse entertain and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs and codes of behaviour that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfil this role requires systematic propaganda.” Thus the propaganda role of the talent show is to promote the idea of simplicity over complexity, of popularity over talent, of banality over genuine invention because complexity encourages critical thought and critical thought is the enemy of authoritarianism. Or to employ another quote beloved of radicals, it was my distant relation film-maker Albert Mayles who stated: “Tyranny is the removal of nuance.”
Sometimes an idea just gets out there. So twice in the last few weeks two distinct groups of friends have suggested to me that I become a contestant on the celebrity TV show Strictly Come Dancing. They are aware that I am a keen dance fan, indeed that I presented several television shows on the subject in the early 2000s, and that I have a basic, practical knowledge of the art. I possess a smattering of tap, I can salsaas well as any North London social worker, and I’ve been known to attempt an Argentine tango when drunk. These friends suggested that an appearance on Strictly might help bring my work to a new, previously unaware audience. On both occasions after they said this, my mates were shocked when, rather than being grateful for the suggestion, I embarked on a two hour, Hugo Chávez/Fidel Castro style, Marxist denunciation, first of all TV talent shows such as Strictly Come Dancing and then secondly of the supposed skill that its contestants are being judged on – ballroom dancing.
My dislike of TV talent shows, though I give it an ideological gloss, is based, as ideology often is, on personal trauma. After I’d Mc’d the opening night of the Comedy Store in May 1979 – a night that revolutionised British comedy, destroying forever the sexist and racist standup that had dominated our culture – a stocky man in a suit with a gold chain around his neck approached the table where I was slumped with a couple of friends. He told me he was a producer from London Weekend Television, gave me his card. After that I went round the club showing everybody this card and telling them: “This is my ticket to stardom...”
A few days later, full of excitement I went to see the producer in his office. After complimenting me on my performance on the preceding Saturday he told me he was in charge of a new show called Search for a Star. He said he’d like me to take part. I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d been expecting but it wasn’t an invitation to be on some crappy talent show. Yet, at the same time, to be on TV seemed like such a huge opportunity so I felt compelled to say yes. Luckily that same week the unions called a big ITV strike that put the channel off the air for three months, and when the talent show appeared it was without me. Thanks to industrial action I avoided TV humiliation (that pleasure came later) and the eventual winner was a comedian who went by the name of Fogwell Flax.
Though our careers have diverged over the years, it still bothered me why Foggie did well on Search for a Star, while I would certainly not have. So I began to search for meaning in my rejection and, being a Marxist, I also looked for its significance in terms of class war. This task has become more urgent as programmes such as X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent and Strictly have come to dominate prime-time viewing. In the documentary Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media Chomsky says the media’s function is to “amuse entertain and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs and codes of behaviour that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfil this role requires systematic propaganda.” Thus the propaganda role of the talent show is to promote the idea of simplicity over complexity, of popularity over talent, of banality over genuine invention because complexity encourages critical thought and critical thought is the enemy of authoritarianism. Or to employ another quote beloved of radicals, it was my distant relation film-maker Albert Mayles who stated: “Tyranny is the removal of nuance.”
Unselfconscious beauty and energy … Northern Soul dancers. Photograph: REX/REX
And speaking of the removal of nuance brings us to Strictly and ballroom dancing. My hatred of ballroom dancing is in direct proportion to my love of pretty much all other forms of the art. In the 70s a good friend of mine from Southport Art College had been one of the Kings of Northern Soul at Wigan Casino. When he moved to London I would occasionally accompany him to all-dayers at the 100 Club on Oxford Street. My uncoordinated flailings on the dance floor were the least lovely aspect of these events but nobody seemed to mind, and I was always happy to be there simply because I always found myself so moved by the unselfconscious beauty and energy of the other dancers. There was something about the choreography and the avowedly working-class nature of the whole thing that always made me want to smile. (Wigan council found Northern Soul so challenging that they demolished the Wigan Casino and replaced it literally with nothing.) Similarly, if I am at a fiesta in some dusty town square in southern Spain when the band plays a sevillana and the entire pueblo (young and old, sleek teenagers and arthritic abuelas, schoolteachers and peasants) joins in with the steps of this ancient folk dance I am suffused with an overpowering love of all humanity – but if I accidentally see ballroom dancing I want to vomit.
Everything is wrong with ballroom dancing: the clothes, the music, even the expressions on the dancers’ faces, plus, of course, the dancing itself. The reason for this is simple: you get points for it. Ballroom dancing is an aesthetic pursuit, an art form, that has been turned into a competition the result of which is that everything is done to attract the attention of the judges. The competitors must try to fit within a set of rules and so a tawdry, flashy, kitsch aesthetic takes over. Imagine if actors got points for doing Shakespeare what kind of overblown, hammy performances you would get. Now ballroom dancing is not alone in promoting this repulsiveness: close relatives are figure skating and the disturbing Olympic event of rhythmic gymnastics (can anybody explain why it is only little girls in tight costumes who perform this “sport”?). All of this would not matter except a huge number of people are getting their perception of what dance is from watching Strictly, and this is disturbing.
If you see a couple performing a proper Argentine tango, you are watching a dance created in the brothels of Buenos Aires that reeks of melancholy and sex and is accompanied by complex music that has grown alongside the dance and is inseparable from it. Then you watch the ballroom version, all gurning faces and robotic, angular, hideous movement, which on the show is generally accompanied by awful music that has absolutely nothing to do with the dance; you are seeing a great popular art reduced to a terrible travesty. An Argentinian friend of mine said: “When I see ballroom dancing what I always think of is impotence.” And he is right, a dance between men and women is always to some degree about sex but there is nothing more sterile and uncarnal than ballroom.
Now, obviously, dance is not revolutionary in itself; art cannot directly affect politics, and, in fact, politics doesn’t seem able to directly affect politics. The audience from Giselle at London’s Royal Opera House are not going to storm into the streets and seize the telephone exchange no matter how elegant and authentic the performance, but what the celebrities who appear on Strictly are doing is taking part in the ongoing cultural war on critical thinking. Just as in as in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four where “War is Peace”, “Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength” so in Strictly ugliness is beauty, prancing is dancing and Judy Murray is Ginger Rogers. The end result is that when people are confronted by the truth they cannot see it because they have been so confused by lies. But watch out for my one man show Hot Tango, Cool Salsa coming soon to an arts centre near you.
And speaking of the removal of nuance brings us to Strictly and ballroom dancing. My hatred of ballroom dancing is in direct proportion to my love of pretty much all other forms of the art. In the 70s a good friend of mine from Southport Art College had been one of the Kings of Northern Soul at Wigan Casino. When he moved to London I would occasionally accompany him to all-dayers at the 100 Club on Oxford Street. My uncoordinated flailings on the dance floor were the least lovely aspect of these events but nobody seemed to mind, and I was always happy to be there simply because I always found myself so moved by the unselfconscious beauty and energy of the other dancers. There was something about the choreography and the avowedly working-class nature of the whole thing that always made me want to smile. (Wigan council found Northern Soul so challenging that they demolished the Wigan Casino and replaced it literally with nothing.) Similarly, if I am at a fiesta in some dusty town square in southern Spain when the band plays a sevillana and the entire pueblo (young and old, sleek teenagers and arthritic abuelas, schoolteachers and peasants) joins in with the steps of this ancient folk dance I am suffused with an overpowering love of all humanity – but if I accidentally see ballroom dancing I want to vomit.
Everything is wrong with ballroom dancing: the clothes, the music, even the expressions on the dancers’ faces, plus, of course, the dancing itself. The reason for this is simple: you get points for it. Ballroom dancing is an aesthetic pursuit, an art form, that has been turned into a competition the result of which is that everything is done to attract the attention of the judges. The competitors must try to fit within a set of rules and so a tawdry, flashy, kitsch aesthetic takes over. Imagine if actors got points for doing Shakespeare what kind of overblown, hammy performances you would get. Now ballroom dancing is not alone in promoting this repulsiveness: close relatives are figure skating and the disturbing Olympic event of rhythmic gymnastics (can anybody explain why it is only little girls in tight costumes who perform this “sport”?). All of this would not matter except a huge number of people are getting their perception of what dance is from watching Strictly, and this is disturbing.
If you see a couple performing a proper Argentine tango, you are watching a dance created in the brothels of Buenos Aires that reeks of melancholy and sex and is accompanied by complex music that has grown alongside the dance and is inseparable from it. Then you watch the ballroom version, all gurning faces and robotic, angular, hideous movement, which on the show is generally accompanied by awful music that has absolutely nothing to do with the dance; you are seeing a great popular art reduced to a terrible travesty. An Argentinian friend of mine said: “When I see ballroom dancing what I always think of is impotence.” And he is right, a dance between men and women is always to some degree about sex but there is nothing more sterile and uncarnal than ballroom.
Now, obviously, dance is not revolutionary in itself; art cannot directly affect politics, and, in fact, politics doesn’t seem able to directly affect politics. The audience from Giselle at London’s Royal Opera House are not going to storm into the streets and seize the telephone exchange no matter how elegant and authentic the performance, but what the celebrities who appear on Strictly are doing is taking part in the ongoing cultural war on critical thinking. Just as in as in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four where “War is Peace”, “Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength” so in Strictly ugliness is beauty, prancing is dancing and Judy Murray is Ginger Rogers. The end result is that when people are confronted by the truth they cannot see it because they have been so confused by lies. But watch out for my one man show Hot Tango, Cool Salsa coming soon to an arts centre near you.
