Is Tucker Carlson the Anti-Ginger?
Tracey suggested in the comments that "Dancing with the Stars" might be a good TV show to critique, dancewise, and included the question of "what would drive a conservative talk show host to do that?"
Personally, I think it was fame, but it certainly wasn’t a love of the dance. Tucker seems to have done the opposite of what Ginger Rogers was famous for–rather than falling into the dance and letting it take him, in spite of his lack of skill, he stayed in the gawking goofy "Oh, I’m a frat boy, I don’t really dance" zone.
OK, so I’m biased (I’m unapologetically liberal). I didn’t even watch the whole dance. However, like the books of Ann Coulter, I have seen enough excerpts to make a preliminary judgement:
He won’t dance. NOT that he can’t dance; he just doesn’t think it’s worth it.
If you click on the link above, you’ll see a moment or two of his performance, which apparently mostly consisted of him sitting in a chair while his partner danced around him (while I’ve got nothing against lap dances myself, I don’t think the show was called "Dancing Around the Stars"). Then he stood up, and this is the thing: he could have done it. He had enough of a semblance of rhythm, enough body-awareness that he could have put out a decent, even fine performance–he just didn’t care.
He had no presence. None. He was off in Foxland, already planning on the quips and excuses and such he’d offer his good old boys on his show as he continued to distort the–oh, wait, sorry. This is supposed to be arts critique, not political punditry.
Well, there’s the shame of it. In some alternate universe he put as much thought into it as he does into his signature bowtie, and produced a fine performance. But…he didn’t.
On the other end of the spectrum, if there’s any justice in the world, I’ll be able to go out to LA next May to see the beautiful and exciting Sylvie Quillem perform in Sacred Monsters. It’s not likely, of course, but if any loyal readers have frequent flyer miles they’re not using…and as far as I can tell, they aren’t coming through Chicago.
*Ginger Rogers was also a Republican; but I suspect she was more genuine in that, too.
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