Is ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Actually High Art?

Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. [Manage newsletters]( [View in browser]( [Image] with Kevin Fallon Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. This Week: - JoJo Siwa, Pennywise, and an existential crisis. - Y’all can’t be serious with this Buzz Lightyear stuff. - Cinema is back, baby! - What did Ted Lasso do to deserve this? - The world’s greatest photo. Is Dancing With the Stars Actually… Good? I regret to inform you that my nemesis is at again. This week, the [television program Dancing With the Stars](—the deplorable bane of my existence; the circus of glorious chaos I just can’t quit—pierced the zeitgeist, and possibly also my heart, with a slew of rousing, expectation-thwarting, at once baffling and brilliant performances that quickly went viral. I feel unmoored from my sense of reality. The things that ground me—what I knew about myself and what I enjoyed—have been knocked entirely off their axes. The question that has haunted me off and on for the last 16 years, as existential a question that I dare ask myself, has returned: Do I, against my better judgment and everything I believe in, actually like Dancing With the Stars? You may have seen the clip spreading around social media this week. JoJo Siwa, dressed as Pennywise the killer clown from It, [performed a jazz routine]( to a spooky remix of the Broadway standard “Anything Goes” and got a perfect score on Dancing With the Stars. It is a collection of words that should raise flags of utter nonsense, like a bot had malfunctioned and started to spit out phrases that have no place being next to each other in the English language. It’s like someone at ABC played a game of Mad Libs with their grandchild, and then on a lark made it come to life on a popular reality-TV series. It is absurd. It is alarming. It is art. I’m not even sure how much backstory to give about what is going on here, what it means, and why it is arguably remarkable. Surely by now, you know [what Dancing With the Stars is](, a long-in-the-tooth competition show in which celebrities on a sliding scale of “oh, that’s what they’re up to!” to “literally who???” learn ballroom dance routines and compete for a mirrorball trophy. JoJo Siwa is an 18-year-old, very online powerhouse who turned a stint on the reality show Dance Moms into extreme YouTube popularity and eventually a juggernaut empire of rainbow and beglittered ostentatiousness and excessive enthusiasm. The youths are obsessed, and, while many of us may not have been aware of her or her reach, she is shrewd casting for a series hoping to spike its level of awareness in the youth and social market. This year, Siwa came out as pansexual and is now the first celebrity in Dancing With the Stars history to compete with a same-sex partner, a progressive milestone for a series with a strong conservative base, but also such a long time coming that it is almost unbelievable that it hasn’t happened yet. Then there’s the dance itself, an exceptionally choreographed combination of menacing and unsettling contortions with elegantly executed gymnastics, pirouettes, and technique. Siwa goes in on the character work, managing to be a believable homicidal clown while skipping around a ballroom dance floor right up until the gruesome ending that had me squealing the first time I watched. But here’s the thing: This wasn’t an anomaly. The whole night featured similarly stunning routines, all of which are based on horror films—not exactly what you’d imagine to be the strongest vehicle for Dancing With the Stars asserting its relevance again. NBA player Iman Shumpert and his partner [did a modern dance]( as the [Tethereds from Us](, and it was similarly disturbing and artistic. They also got a perfect score. Peloton instructor Cody Rigsby—peak 2021: a Peloton instructor is on Dancing With the Stars—[performed a cha-cha-cha]( inspired by the Patrick Bateman[serial killer character in American Psycho]( (more words that I can’t believe I’m typing in this order) and it kind of slapped. Melora Hardin, of The Office and Transparent fame, [did a jive]( to the song “Hound Dog” inspired by Stephen King’s Cujo. It was lunacy. I loved it. So here we are wondering, yet again, is Dancing With the Stars actually good? It’s hard to stomach when this is a show that we hadn’t just dismissed as tired camp long ago, but actively abhorred and felt was damaging to culture. The show has a notorious history of troll casting—hiring disgraced and controversial public figures with the winking, mischievous idea that watching them struggle to do the Argentine tango amounts to good TV. It’s also doubled, however, as a platform for redemption, opportunity to manipulate the public to their favor with self-serving clip packages and monologues, and dresses shamelessness up in bedazzled costumes. Bristol Palin, Rick Perry, Sean Spicer, and Tucker Carlson have all performed. Last season’s casting of Tiger King’s Carole Baskin marked a new low. Glorifying a breakout character from a docuseries that traded in animal abuse and made her a star because of rumors that she had murdered her husband is one thing. Painting her as the “crazy cat lady,” as if this was going to be some wholesome viewing experience, is another. Producers knew the public’s unsavory hatred for her. This was bloodsport. She was being thrown to the tigers. Sometimes that agenda is obvious. Other times, I’m not really sure what the producers think they’re accomplishing with this kind of stunt casting. This season, [Olivia Jade](, whose parents Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli were implicated in the Operation Varsity Blues college admissions scandal, is a competitor. In the first episode, she doesn’t introduce herself as a person of current public interest because she was the poster child for wealthy entitlement, privilege, and delusion amidst a wild controversy. She argues that you probably know her as an influencer. Her dancing has been great this season. And yet… why? Dancing With the Stars is a series that I’ve, at times, watched religiously, sworn off completely, or dabbled in in spite of myself. There can be an earnestness that I find irresistible. That earnestness, of course, is in service of a kind of glorious, captivating schmaltz that warrants hours of investment each week for more than a decade: things like Dirty Dancing actress Jennifer Grey’s Hollywood redemption arc, Valerie Harper’s brave cancer battle, the thrill of an athlete like Emmitt Smith tackling gender norms and learning ballroom dance on national television, or the simple joy of that adorable Adam Rippon still being on our screens even after the Olympics are over. Episodes like the one that aired this week proved the potential of a series at a time in its run when it has no right to continue to produce content that was that good. But how do you reconcile that with the show’s more grotesque history? Well, I guess that’s the thing about a Halloween-timed, horror-themed episode: Grotesque is the point. The Week’s Biggest Political Controversy… Buzz Lightyear? Because nothing is pure or sacred, even Buzz Lightyear is now at the center of—I shudder as I type this—“discourse.” Implausibly, this is not even in reference to the, at this point, very expected and very tired debate about how Hollywood can’t leave anything alone. Listen, it is 2021. If you’re not bracing for every character, subplot, or backstory of a beloved intellectual property being mined for new content, you’re not being altruistic. You’re being delusional. Disney [released the trailer]( for its new spinoff film Lightyear, which is coming in 2022, and almost immediately it became a No. 1 trending topic and sent people into a frenzy. Politics, somehow, became involved?!?! [Alternate text] The new film finds Chris Evans, trading his Captain America shield for a spacesuit, as the voice of Buzz Lightyear, who Tim Allen had played in the four previous Toy Story films. Because nothing triggers impassioned knee-jerk responses quite like nostalgia, longtime fans of the Toy Story franchise cried foul at what they assumed to be Allen’s recasting. More, [they imposed an agenda on it](. Allen is an outspoken conservative, an anomaly in Hollywood that has proven to be controversial in recent years; some speculate that his series Last Man Standing was canceled for that reason. A classic case of Disney distancing itself from anyone who might rankle the woke liberals! Cancel culture finds its way to the sentient toy universe! What’s next?! The [anti-Evans-as-Buzz outrage built]( to the point that the Lightyear director felt [compelled to respond](. “I wanted the film to have like a gravitas to it and a seriousness to it, but also have an actor who could bring comedy with that seriousness. He was really the first and only choice,” said director Angus MacLane. The important context here is that—you’ll never believe this—people responded with anger without bothering to learn or understand what this project is. Lightyear isn’t about the toy that Allen voiced in the films, and will likely voice again in future projects. It’s not a prequel or an origin story of Buzz Lightyear as we know him in the Toy Story films. It is about the “real-life Space Ranger” in the world of the franchise that a toy was made to honor. I guess it’s sort of like if someone had a toy of Neil Armstrong. The toy is not the human. In the case of Lightyear, the toy of Buzz Lightyear is voiced by Allen. The astronaut that inspired the toy is voiced by Evans. Lightyear exists in a separate world from the one Andy’s toys inhabit. The film will follow the “real” Buzz’s journey from test pilot to celebrity Space Ranger. In any case, just a typical week in our hellacious online existence when a silly Buzz Lightyear movie warrants an explainer to discredit bizarre right-wing political outrage that a 90-second trailer inspired. At least after seeing the teaser footage, there is one thing we can all agree on as a nation: Young Buzz Lightyear [can absolutely get it](. The Movie Event of the Year It’s going to be a great fall and winter for great movies. I’m at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival right now where some of the best films I’ve seen this year—and that you’ll get to watch yourself in just a matter of weeks when they hit theaters and streaming services—are screening: Kristen Stewart’s transfixing turn [as Princess Diana in Spencer](, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s stunning directorial debut The Lost Daughter, the tender and heartwarming C’mon C’mon with Joaquin Phoenix, and the crowd-pleasing film about Serena and Venus Williams’ father, King Richard, starring Will Smith. The list goes on—Belfast, Bergman Island, The Worst Person in the World (Google all of them, and then make plans to see them)—but I can’t imagine any of them will compare to the greatest cinematic achievement of the year. Perhaps of modern times, even. I am talking, of course, about the second trailer for House of Gucci. ([Watch it here](.) I have not seen this full film; I don’t know of any critics who have. What I am referring to is the two-minute-and-25-second teaser showcasing Lady Gaga and Adam Driver’s performances in this telling of the story behind the assassination of Maurizio Gucci. I have no idea if the finished project will be any good. Frankly, I don’t care. Lady Gaga parading around in an array of outrageous wigs and dresses while speaking in her “It’s-a-me… Mario!” Italian accent and gesticulating like she’s a flight controller landing an airplane in a hurricane? It’s spicy marinara sauce as a movie. Only this won’t give me crippling heartburn. I Absolutely Hate This Me: Ted Lasso is a masterpiece television show that found a way to help us acknowledge the darkness in the world as well as our own pain, and develop the tools to work past that and better ourselves. Every human should watch. Also me, after [seeing this photo]( of Mitt Romney and Kyrsten Sinema’s Halloween costumes: Cancel Ted Lasso immediately and remove any evidence of its existence from the world. [Alternate text] The Only Good Thing It’s been a rough week (aren’t they all), so I think we all deserve to gaze lovingly [at this photo]( of Jennifer Coolidge vacuuming a farm’s grass next to some chickens to restore a tiny bit of that swiftly waning will to live. [Alternate text] [Alternate text] - The Harder They Fall: Regina King in a Western movie. Hello! Er… howdy! (Wed. on Netflix) - Last Night in Soho: Anya Taylor-Joy finally in a movie set in the 1960s, where she was beamed from. (Fri. in theaters) - Judy Justice: It’s been months since Judy Sheindlin was paid tens of millions of dollars to yell at poor people and normalcy must be restored to society! (Mon. on IMDb TV) [Alternate text] - Christmas Movies: It is not yet Halloween, yet channels like Hallmark and Lifetime are already launching their holiday movie slate. We must rise against this! (Sat. on Hallmark and Lifetime) Advertisement [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( © Copyright 2021 The Daily Beast Company LLC 555 W. 18th Street, New York NY 10011 [Privacy Policy]( If you are on a mobile device or cannot view the images in this message, [click here]( to view this email in your browser. To ensure delivery of these emails, please add emails@thedailybeast.com to your address book. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, or think you have received this message in error, you can [safely unsubscribe](.