More on Let's Dance and cross-dressing

(For continuity's sake, here's what I've posted as a comment on my last post on Let's Dance:)

I think it was definitely at least in part because he passed that he was taken seriously. (And by the way, thanks for bringing that up, as I hadn't thought of that at all and I'm looking at passing in terms of theory at the moment.)

I would be lying if I said there wasn't any humor in it at all - at one point, he does kiss on of the male judges. Part of his success might be in that Noel Fielding is in "real life" a rather androgynous person (though he doesn't look "girly," exactly). A lot of people, judges included, thought the dance was gorgeous, and if you've ever seen the original Kate Bush video for "Wuthering Heights" (there are two; Fielding uses elements of both), he's actually surprisingly good.

Actually, the audience is really interesting as he goes through the dance - it opens with giggles and people finding it funny, and then it sounds like they're taking it much more seriously, as a genuine performance. Once you get about two-thirds of the way through and he's doing the more technical stuff, they get pretty loud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du4uH1fC9B8
(That's the dance, if you're interested.)

(And this one is Jarred Christmas, though I find his performance less interesting:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKc3Vwg1tAM

I think another part of this is that Noel Fielding took the dance very seriously; he has a lot of respect for Kate Bush. They've actually got a scene where they play a message she recorded for him, and he's visibly touched. That was interesting, as well - that he felt a connection with the song and that he elected to do something "beautiful" rather than something "sexy" (which is also true of several other men who have successfully cross-dressed for Let's Dance - it's ALWAYS something sexy, and very often by Madonna).

I'm so glad you commented on this one, as it's pretty much my favorite post thus far. I think I'm just going to go turn this into another post now, as I've got more I want to say and this comment is getting ridiculously long.

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Now then.

I took another look at the men who have cross-dressed, and it's all mostly sexy stuff. This makes sense, in a way; Let's Dance for Comic Relief is, in fact, intended to be humorous. Makes sense. Cross-dressing/drag here is a way to be funny, and I can't help but wonder if some of it isn't actually negatively impacting the gender binary. There are certainly other ways to be funny in dancing; the winners from this year, for example, did an extraordinarily cheesy (but quite good) tap routine.

I want to take a quick look at some of the other male contestants who have done drag. I've covered Noel Fielding, who's more or less the odd one out here in that his female performance is meant to be "genuinely" (for lack of a better word) feminine, or perhaps it would be better to say that it's his goal to genuinely pass.

Some of the others' performances are similar to Christmas's dance. His is rather extreme, as he isn't really passing. So I have to question these...

The winner from 2009 was comedian Robert Webb, who performed in - you guessed it - a leotard. Shocker. He did Flashdance, and interestingly enough, both he and Christmas came onstage fully covered/clothed to do a dramatic strip-down, revealing said leotard.

Right, I should probably mention they all have introductions before their dances (I'm all over the place), and Webb's is him pretending to find Flashdance an incredibly sad film about a girl who is "living the dream" as a welder and then has to go to dance school. I'm not sure what to make of this; I know he's kidding, and I've never seen Flashdance, so it's hard to make too many judgement calls. I do think it's interesting that he deliberately points how the main character is "transformed" from a welder (a "man's job") to a dancer (a "woman's job").

(And then again, we have Christmas's intro where he waxes his legs... Fielding's intro is about his inability to dance and never even hints that he's going to be dressed as/performing as a girl.)

But yeah, Robert Webb. His dance starts off with him pretending to weld, and then his torch "fails" so he is forced to literally throw it aside, rip off his clothes, and dance "properly." And in fairness, the audience definitely appreciated his dancing ability - he was really good - I just don't know where to factor in shock value.

And then a year or two later, Russell Kane did "Crazy in Love" dressed as a woman. And people loved that, absolutely loved it. That was really overtly sexy, even though he wasn't wearing a leotard. Out of Christmas, Webb, and himself, Russell definitely passed the best (obviously I am not including Noel Fielding here).

I'm also not sure why Fielding passed quite as well as he did, to be honest. With Russell, he did look feminine, and he could pull off the traditionally-female "sexy" dance moves. With Noel, I think it's still fairly obvious he's a man. It's his face. He has a very square jaw and a strong jawline, and even in a wig and dress it is still possible to tell he's a man. The thing is, though, that rather than experiencing the jarring feeling of looking at someone performing as a female and being able to see it's a man, he really does seem like a "genuine" woman performing as a woman... he just happens to be biologically male.

UPDATE-ish thing: was watching Robert Webb's dance and they're complimenting not only his sexiness in the leotard but also on the complexity of the dance and dance moves (I guess pirouettes and such happened??). But they've definitely mentioning his girly legs... Maybe passing at least a little is a requirement in being taken seriously in a cross-dressing gender performance?

By the way, a little more on the girls - Katie Price cross-dressed as Freddie Mercury - wait for it - while he was cross-dressing. So she had the sexy thing going on (and I beileve an exagerated feminine figure), but also a mustache and fake underarm hair. I liked the idea, but the dance was a bit crap (and I don't even want to start analyzing particular elements of the dance, especially the girls dressed as cows thing). There were a lot of negative reactions to her performance, and I'm not sure if it was the lack of dancing or the fact that it was Katie Price (evidently she's not well-liked?), or something else entirely at work. Lulu's cross-dressing performance as Soulja Boy WAS well-received, though, and she only barely lost (to Noel Fielding, interestingly) and by a rather arbitrary judges' vote. (I say arbitrary because it was 1-1 and it took the third guy forever to finally yell out a name.)