I checked out the third episode of this season’s installment of Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance.” This show is essentially a dance version of American Idol featuring breakdancing, popping, hip-hopping, and a variety of other dance styles as unique as the individuals doing each performance.
Now, I haven’t caught a whole lot of American Idol or any previous season of this show, but the trend seems to be you have all the tryouts at the beginning to weed out the worst of the worst contestants. The dancing in this show came from the Chicago tryouts and ranged from quite talented tapdancers to amusing (The Sprinkler, The Lawnmower, etc.) to incredibly awful ballet-like routines.
Please answer me this: do people lie to themselves so much at the encouragement of their friends that they’re incredibly unaware of how untalented, unfit, and incapable they are of leading the life they’ve been told they should go for? Dancers of 10+ years and numerous self-styled dance instructors fell prey to vicious reviewers who tell them to stop teaching, stop dancing, and find a new career.
Now, admittedly, they picked some of the more absurd contestants to show. People must get off on watching other people sharply slammed by pseudo-celebrities based on the parts the production company chose to air on TV. One woman who couldn’t have weighed less than 180 pounds danced around the stage in a leotard while jumping, twirling, and spinning off balance. The judges slammed her and all she could say afterwards is “I just didn’t do my best performance today.” They told her she shouldn’t be a dancer, that she’s terrible and talentless, but she tells herself to keep trying.
Here’s the thing: some people aren’t meant to be dancers (or whatever specific profession they’re delusional about). If you’ve studied something for 10 to 15 years of your life and still suck at it you’ve either got no ambition or drive to do what needs done to improve or you don’t have the natural physical ability or emotional capacity to do it well. Move on and find something else.
However, watching myself, I wonder how I’d handle myself on a similar type of show targeted towards my specific interests. “All-American Geeks” or “Pop-Punk Wannabees.” What would the judges say to me?
Do I lie to myself about my abilities like some of the leotard-wearing rejects, or am I the person in the audience who could impress the world but cower at home at the behest of self-doubt?