During the presentation about gender across cultures we watched a video clip of a group of seven year olds dancing at a competition. Th video seemed to shock people; the girls were dancing rather suggestively and in very little clothing. After a moment I realized that their dancing was most definitely sexualized, I would not want my seven year old daughter dancing like that on stage. In fact, I danced for fourteen years and I never remember my childhood dance routines to be nearly so sexualized. However, there was something that I recognized from my dancing years, the skimpy outfits. For nearly every year that I danced I had at least one costume that I felt somewhat self-conscious in. This was usually because of the lack of fabric that I felt it had. The girls in the video were wearing very short shorts with a small black tutu and a lingerie style top. However, I remember one of my first costumes, I was younger than seven, being yellow spandex shorts with a yellow sequined tube top that didn't even reach the bottom of my rib cage. Dancing often involves little or very tight clothing for a reason. Dancing very often is about the movements and lines you make with your body. In order to get the full affect, you have to be able to see the body. Within the "culture" of dance, this lack of clothing is not only accepted, but necessary.
I thought that the presentation on culture was interesting and informative. The articles were relevant to the presentation and the multiple video clips really helped to illustrate the points that the authors were making. I also really liked the fact that they used relevant examples that we see in popular media today. For example, the article about Latina women referenced Ugly Betty, which recently finished it's last season and was very popular. On top of this they also mentioned the Glee character Santana Lopez and how stereotypical of a role it is. I think it is always good to have a modern and relevant perspective on concepts that are discussed in class.
No comments:
Post a Comment