This summer I supervised and worked with a university student, Laura Knox, who won a competitive McMaster University Undergraduate Student Research Award, which funds students to work with faculty on summer research programs.1 Her interest was in body image and media, and we decided to create a media literacy project around issues concerning media, gender, and identity construction. We planned a multi-session workshop for girls aged 10-13, in which they would discuss the media they use, while learning some critical media and self-development skills from the experience—a form of action research.2 The goal of the project was twofold—to learn, in an academic sense, about the meanings and uses of media in girls’ lives; and second, in a praxis sense, to “intervene” socially, to encourage critical media and social awareness and production, and encourage positive self-image/reflection. An external goal was to provide undergraduates a rare opportunity for sustained research on a topic of their interest and close work with a faculty member in their field. For me, the project was partly about the girls’ media literacy work, but also about facilitating my university student’s growth as a researcher and youth worker—roles that she enthusiastically embraced.

The process: Girls were recruited to participate in a two-session workshop, and to keep a media journal in the week in between the two sessions. All the girls were drawn from a sports camp, due to issues of access. This created an interesting section of girls who were keen to participate and who were athletic—two specific traits that are not necessarily common amongst all girls aged 10-13. Regardless, the workshops and journal activity were created to promote critical media awareness and self-identity awareness, and hopefully notice the links between media use and identity.

The journal: After planning the journal’s contents, Laura designed—media literacy in action—an original font and pictures, by hand-drawing words and flowers, and scanning them into PhotoShop to produce a colorful spiral-bound paper journal. She left the front cover blank so that the girls could decorate their journals to reflect their individual personalities and tastes. She also prepared a mini craft-bag for each girl, with stickers, words, and brightly colored flowers and stars to decorate the covers. Journal entries alternated between reflections on self and reflections on media usage. The entries included “Be yourself” (an opportunity to personalize the journal with a picture and basic information about the girl); “Watch” (a TV/movie viewing exercise); “Create” (your dream vacation, job, and bedroom); “Read” (magazine articles/advertisement critique), “Grow” (relationship exercise about family and friends); “Hear” (a song reflection); “Be yourself” (a list of favorite things). The final several pages of the journal were formatted with the theme “Grow. Create. Be. Stand. Discover.”

The workshops: Two one-hour workshops were created. In the first session, we planned a few discussions and exercises to discover what media the girls like, to find out what their interests were, how they use media, how they talk about media, and what types of criticality they seemed to possess about media and self. The nine participants were sent home with the journals. All the girls returned for the second session, in which they shared, voluntarily, the ideas and thoughts from their journals. They were excited about the crafty nature of the journals, and the opportunity to make a statement about themselves. Because of the emphasis of FlowTV, in the remainder of this piece, I will emphasize the television and film portion of the workshops and journal.

The exercise “Watch” instructed the girls to choose their favorite TV show or movie. “Look for reasons why you like it and see how it affects you by answering these questions.”

Of course, this is not a scientific survey, but I was surprised at the wide range of content that the group discussed. Favorite TV and films ranged from tween fare such as The Suite Life of Zach and Cody, The Clique, and Twilight; to comedies, e.g., Family Guy and Scrubs; to reality shows: Jon & Kate Plus Eight, Cake Wars, and Toddlers and Tiaras. Girls were comfortable sharing their favorites while not criticizing others’ choices, despite the differences in responses.

Some kids, even younger than in our group, enjoy, if not prefer, reality TV to “kids’ shows.” In my house, my two young children cried when Adam Lambert lost American Idol, regularly watch the Cirque du Soleil’s artistic performance TV program, Solstrom, and love the Japanese competition show Unbeatable Banzuke. A mother I know recently watched Supernanny with her two-year-old to demonstrate to him the necessity of staying in time-out when he’s sent there. It worked. The participant whose favorite show was Toddlers and Tiaras loved watching with her sister, cousins, mother, and aunts, and enjoyed how her family takes the moral high ground while viewing, and the shock factor of the characters on the show. Does this suggest that reality TV is today’s “real” family programming? Many educators, parents, and sporty girls are critical of the Princess trend (Disney and beyond), and many “family movies” are ones that are either actually fun for children and boring for adults, filled with adult humor and too adult for kids, or made for kids but are just too scary (a recent home screening of Madagascar demonstrated that small children can cue into subtle lighting, camera angles, and musical signals that “bad things are about to happen,” and emotionally intelligent or sensitive children can be frightened off by a G-rated film).

Most participants made general comments about the characters’ beauty and strength, and many perceived “strength” in a physical sense, and had to be redirected to understanding strength in a more abstract sense. A few of the girls anticipated this meaning of strength, and were able to discuss their movie/TV show in a more sophisticated manner, even if they seemed to over-attribute positive characteristics. They were much more interested in discussion that seemed more fan-based, such as the starter questions of who their favorite characters were.

What struck me, as well as Laura, was that the level of criticality was particularly lower when humor was involved. Many girls said they liked shows or characters because they were funny—which obviously is a good start in understanding one’s media preferences, and in society’s viewing habits as a whole. Laura, being an excellent moderator, probed deeper into the participants’ preferences towards humorous materials. Most girls, however, couldn’t explain why they thought something was funny, beyond the first level, such as “Stewie’s head looks like a football.”

What was also more difficult for them was relating media humor to their real life.

Laura: “A lot of you are talking about how your favorite character is always the funniest one. Do you find that at school there is always a ‘class clown’ that everyone likes and thinks is funny? Do you find that you are drawn to the same kind of funny people in the TV shows?”

Respondent: “Yeah, but not like an immature funny. Like, not people who mouth off and make jokes about people. Like those kind of jokes that aren’t true and that are mean. Jokes have to make sense and be about real life, not people.”

Laura: “So you are drawn to characters like that in television shows too?”

Respondent: “Yeah. Everybody likes somebody to laugh with and stuff and people like to be entertained and stuff. People like to have fun.”

As Laura analyzed in a later report, these responses are actually contradictory. While claiming to not like “immature funny” in life or on TV, the same participant discussed a program that could arguably embody “immature funny”—Scrubs. Could it be that they don’t understand the program? Or, it seems to me, it could be that they anticipate “correct” answers during the workshop and thought we would want them to appear to be sensitive, thoughtful, and kind, and not laugh “inappropriately” or watch “inappropriate” materials.

It also does reflect a problem in thinking critically about humor—and this is not just an issue at the 10-13-year-old age. I have developed several lessons at the university level regarding the nature of humor, theories of comedy, and attempt to present a critical pedagogy of humor. This could also be done for younger kids.

There is much more to be said for this project, but limited space leads me to conclude. Towards the end of the first workshop, one girl asked whether we could “hold the club” even after the second session. I was surprised that she would identify this as a “club,” but it makes sense—“just the girls” sitting around, talking about media, life, and getting intimate, giggling, and talking about silly quizzes to find out if you’re cool enough to hang with Hanna Montana. This was also evidenced at the end of the second session, when one of the girls suggested that they all sign each others’ journals. I was shocked. But I shouldn’t have been. Bonding is the stuff of girl culture. Which drives home the point that while of course there’s a necessity for media literacy programs to integrate Web 2.0 materials and technology, video and audio projects, even something as basic as a take-home journal and sitting around for a chat, can make small steps towards critical thinking about identity and media. Several of the girls commented that they had never really thought this much about TV or magazines, or really considered how different they were from their best friend, and were glad to have learned something about themselves. And that’s a good start.

Image Credits:
1. A group of girls watches TV
2. “Watch”—From Grow. Create. Be. Design: Laura Knox
3. Toddlers and Tiaras: an example of “real” family programming?
4. Scrubs: An “immature funny” favorite

Please feel free to comment.

1. I would like to thank Dean Crosta and Associate Dean Wright and the Faculty of Humanities UGSA Committee for awarding Laura a McMaster University Undergraduate Student Research Award. I also thank Laura for the opportunity to work with her, and all the work she put in making the media literacy workshops and journals successful.
2. This research was approved by the McMaster Research Ethics Board.

Some students, young professionals, and techno-savvy viewers are foregoing cable subscriptions and choosing to access TV programs in non-traditional manners. Portable screens, mobile watching, and an on-demand, in-control screen culture are ensuing. Quite a number of academics and journalists, as well as product developers and marketers, have picked up on this trend and have begun probing the relationship between changes in technology and changes in viewing practices. Some would go so far as to proclaim the death of TV, as “everyone’s doing it” and “you can get what you want, when you want it” becomes the mantra of the next generation.

However, there are several concerns that must be addressed when one is tempted to proclaim TV dead. Besides the obvious point that media formats exist even after new technological developments (books are still around, after all), here are a few points to consider regarding several blind spots in the enticing TV streaming and downloading myths.

1. “Everyone watches TV online”—They Myth of Ubiquitous Internet Television Viewing

International Telecommunications Union (ITU) research suggests that the digital divide is still strong. Consider the following statistics. The global Internet penetration rate for 2008 was only 23%–meaning, only 23% of the world’s population has access to the internet, and in some parts of the world, this access is in a public forum such as a library or Internet cafe, not on a hand-held device or laptop computer.1

Of course, the so-called developed world fares better than the “developing” nations, with 55% people are online in the former and only 12.8% in the latter.2

Regionally, it is unsurprising that North America has 73% internet penetration
Australia/Oceania 59.9%
Europe 48.5%
Latin America/Caribbean 29.9%
Middle East 23.3%
Asia 17.2%
Africa 5.6%

So, only 5% of Africans use the Internet—mostly in public settings such as Internet cafes, with mobile and broadband infrastructure overall as “negligible.” Geography also helps structure this context, with coastal countries’ access to undersea fibre optic cables affording them greater bandwidth that might be needed to access BitTorrent, or even Realtime or Windows-based videos.4 Access to Internet, then, does not mean watching TV online, either in the potential to download, nor actual downloading practices.

Beyond the global digital divide, in-country divides are significant. For example, in a recent presentation at the Canadian Communication Association, Nikki Porter demonstrated that within Canada, only 2% of the population relies on the Internet for TV, with young people and those with higher incomes more likely to view online content. Porter has dubbed this the “prime-time digital divide” and maintains that we don’t live in a “post-scheduling” world–that the technologically centered class, age, education differences still mean that network scheduling, and ostensibly advertising, is still important. In her words, the hoopla over online viewing claims are “based on statistical outliers,” succinctly naming this part of the myth’s equation.5

The same in-country divides could also be applied to each of the above countries–Internet access and computer ownership is tied to income, wealth of the country, social status, educational and skill level, and age. This provides a multi-tiered global divide of users.

While user-based statistics tell an important, and oft-neglected part of the story, the story is incomplete without also asking, what media-side and policy-side forces are causing differential, unequal access?

2. “You can get what you want, when you want it.”–The Myth of User Control

This part of the equation takes away all power from the media conglomerates that choose what to produce, how to produce it, and only then, what to put online–and where, and how. Television programs are a lucrative form of intellectual property for copyright holders, and corporate decisions about online access are not made lightly.

On official TV websites, content can be, and often is, made readily available. This is not the original model–networks took time to warm to a web presence, but decided that they had to incorporate the new technology to keep and grow viewers who were going online and would eventually go off-network to “illegally” access programs. Spoilers were a concern, but the real issue was ratings and the ability of networks to command advertising dollars and thus profitability (a la Viacom vs. Google over YouTube uploads, and the recent Pirate Bay ruling in Sweden).6

Various distribution deals are made beyond simple network postings, and each deal is a unique legal contract with its own terms and conditions. Blockbuster made a deal to distribute a digital movie library through TiVo (not to the entire population, just to TiVo subscribers), which structures access to that content.7

Even on pay sites such as iTunes, contracted deals are made between copyright holders and the distribution sites–you can’t just get “whatever you want.” NBC was unhappy with iTunes’ 99-cent-fits-all download price, and for almost a year removed its popular programs such as The Office and 30 Rock from iTunes’ catalogue. After Apple decided they would allow NBC to charge a higher price for HD programs, NBC returned forcing Apple into a tiered-fee policy.8 NBC recently commented that they actually earn more money from free download sites than on pay-per-downloads such as iTunes, due to the advertising revenue gained by delivering so many free-TV-show seekers. This is a healthy reminder that the “real” audience for TV shows is often the advertisers.

Similar restrictions to content apply to webcasting consortium Hulu, jointly owned by NBC Universal, News Corp. and Providence Equity Partners (a private equity firm), and soon to be joined by Disney, who had previously refused to engage a variety of online video platforms, including Hulu. Now, Lost, Desperate Housewives, and Disney kids’ and youth programming will be available.9 is still not possible to download CBS or CW programming on Hulu—CBS’s own online content provider, CBS Interactive, is in fierce competition with Hulu, thus not sharing its content with its rival.10

Further, online availability varies by country–from network sites to pay-per sites. In Canada, iTunes is relatively new, partly based on having to negotiate separate content deals from its American division. iTunes Canada’s director of marketing, Peter Lowe, states: “‘It’s complicated because different networks and production companies have rights to content in different places around the world and you ultimately have to work with the person who owns the content to deliver it….Unfortunately, there is no one rule that you can apply.’ In the United States, Apple and Microsoft typically negotiate download deals directly with a television show’s producer. In Canada, however, television networks often hold the internet rights to shows, which adds a layer to negotiations.”11 In Canada, programming is mostly available on Bell Canada’s Bell Video Store, and Microsoft’s Xbox Live. Hulu–the entire site–is not available in Canada, nor is YouTube’s streaming of ABC programs.12

It is impossible, even, to download The Daily Show from Comedy Central’s website while in Canada. If you attempt to do so, you are immediately redirected to the Comedy Network page–the home of Canada’s cable comedy channel, owned by giant CTVglobemedia. While Comedy Central is not carried in Canada, Viacom has an exclusive distribution deal with the Comedy Network for the entire Comedy Central library, including The Daily Show, and including online streaming content. 13 Just as some American content is internationally limited, so, too, is Canadian content. For example, the CBC drama Being Erica, airing on CBC (and co-produced by CBC-TV and Temple Street Productions), is distributed internationally by BBC Worldwide, and leased in the U.S. not by a major network, but rather by SOAPnet (owned by Disney), which is most well-known for playing reruns of soap opera programming.14 Online streaming content for Being Erica, is available on the CBC website from within Canada only, but SOAPnet does not stream video of the program–it’s not part of their distribution deal. Again, each deal creates another layer of structure to access.

Some governments also structure access–China simply decided to censor YouTube in March 2009 claiming political propaganda, but rather than block an individual video, the entire site was disabled, thus blocking all content to all videos.15

If you can’t get “what you want” through official channels, why not simply “pirate” it (or liberate it, depending on your philosophical position)? The ability to circumvent “legal” mechanisms and utilize other approaches for locating and downloading programs is premised on the fact that first, one wants to do so, second, that one knows how to do so, and third, that one is technologically equipped to do so. Students in Canada are only briefly miffed that they can’t watch The Office online at NBC because of international distribution deals. They say they can simply download it by using a proxy server. The ethics of P2P TV and fears of being sued have been articulately addressed by Michael Newman in an earlier Flow article (2009), and is worth reiterating here. Additionally, the educational and technological privilege (tied to class) is also a factor here. Not “everyone” will circumvent blocked content.

3. “Television is dead.”–The Myth of the Post-Television Era

If you agree that online viewing is ubiquitous, and that you can get whatever you want when you want it, you might be prone to think that television is dead.

While we can point to the development of web-only content, such as extra webisodes of network programs, or made-for-Internet series, such as Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (which, not coincidentally, is produced by Buffy producer Joss Whedon and stars the cultishly popular actor Neil Patrick Harris), television is still a multi-billion dollar industry, a major distribution outlet for film, new TV content, news, sports, and educational programs. Advertisers still spend billions of dollars trying to reach consumers, and the ratings industry and programming execs still try to find new ways to count viewers to deliver to the advertisers. Union and non-union labor still work to produce shows, and producers/owners attempt to find ways of reducing costs and thwarting union organizing.

Besides, the “liveness” of television is also still a factor that has not been replaced by “on-demand” content. And local news and community access, while continuously threatened, are still a central feature of the TV system in a democratic society.

Add those points to the information discussed above, and there seems to be a pretty strong case that television is still alive and kicking–though possibly not “the same as it ever was.”

I am not attempting to argue that screen cultures shouldn’t be studied, or we shouldn’t give thought to the politics and experiences and implications for accessing TV in new-media ways—that would be absurd. I am simply bringing (back) into the conversation what I see as key issues that should be kept in the conversation as it proceeds—that within the political economy of global television, new technologies can facilitate and constrain, largely at the hands of the large conglomerates and that dominate the media landscape.16

Image Credits:

1. Hulu logo
2. Regional Internet Access Rates
3. NBC program The Office on an Apple iPhone
4. Notification of Hulu’s Unavailability in Canada
5. Message from comedycentral.com in Canada

Please feel free to comment.

1. ITU. “Information society statistical profiles 2009: Africa.” International Telecommunications Union. 2009.
2. ITU. “Measuring the Information Society.” International Telecommunications Union. 2009.
3. Internet World Statistics. “World Internet Users and Population Stats.” 2008.
4. ITU. “Information society statistical profiles 2009: Africa.” International Telecommunications Union. 2009. p. iii.
5. Porter, Nikki. “Time-Shift: Has the Digital Divide Come to Prime-Time Television?” Canadian Communication Association Annual Convention. Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario. May 29, 2009.
6. Sullivan, Tom. “Pirate Bay not necessarily a victory for Hollywood,” The Christian Science Monitor. April 29, 2009.
7. Stone, Matt. “Blockbuster and TiVo join to deliver digital movies.” The New York Times. March 25, 2009.
8. See: Stelter, Brian. “NBC shows will return to iTunes,” The New York Times. September 9, 2008; Barnes, Brooks. “NBC will not renew iTunes contract,” The New York Times. August 31, 2007.
9. Shields, Mike. “Will CBS, The CW heed Disney’s call to join Hulu?” MediaWeek Vol 19 (18): 6. May 4, 2009
10. Shields, Mike. “DIGITAL.” MediaWeek Vol 19 (19): AM9. May 11, 2009.
11. CBC. “TV download battle finally begins in Canada.” CBC.ca. December 12, 2007.
12. CBC. “Canadian iTunes store adds U.S. prime-time shows.” CBC.ca. May 28, 2009.
13. CTV. “CTV Strikes Multi-Platform Content Deal With Comedy Central.” June 27, 2007.
14. SOAPnet. “Being Erica.” 2009.
15. Helft, Miguel. “YouTube blocked in China, Google says.” The New York Times 24, 2009.
16. Quail, Christine. “Smoke Screens: Screen Culture Roundtable.” Visual Culture Symposium: Unthinking Television. George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. March 26, 2009.

Patricia Joyner Priest studied television talk show participants in the 1990s in order to understand why people chose to appear as guests on daytime television talk shows.1 She devised a typology of participants, with the largest category being “evangelists,” who appeared on talk shows in order to engage and correct audiences’ misperceptions about marginalized people and issues. The typology also consists of several less-populated categories, what Priest calls moths, plaintiffs, and marketers. Constituting a very small number of participants, moths clamor to the television spotlight for their fifteen minutes of fame. Plaintiffs appear in order to confront bullies or people who have done them wrong. Finally, a small group of marketers appear to sell films, books, or other products.2

Can a similar typology of reality television participants be devised? How are the motivations different from or similar to Priests’ typology? Is there a prevailing motivation or class?

This piece is based on participant observation and interviews at the Toronto and Montreal auditions for So You Think You Can Dance Canada (SYTYCD Canada) in May 2009, a participant observation of the SYTYCD Canada live tour in February 2009, and an analysis of the American and Canadian programs, with nods to other national adaptations.3 This exploratory typology is thus not necessarily generalizable to other programs, but its application will be explored further in future research.4

Dreamers: Unsurprisingly, most participants audition for the show to achieve their dancing goals. Rather than the successful achievement of a sustained professional goal, however, this motivation most often gets represented as dream fulfillment. “Making it” in the mythical world of dance and performance arts is further mystified by dreams discourse, thus sidestepping the fact that the dance audition is labor, a job interview, a path to earning a living. During the SYTYCD Canada tour, the opening sequence cues us into this motif. Finalist Arassay Reyes tells us, “The dream is now a reality. Dreams really do come true.” A voiceover of show judge Jean-Marc Genereux booms, “this is no dream,” as the dancers take the stage. At end of show, Nico Archambault, the SYTYCD Canada season one winner, has the last word: he thanks the audience and announces, “The dream come true for all of us!”5 The same discourse plays out further in comments by recent contestant Anna Dunn auditioning for the American show in Miami. Her father recently committed suicide, and dance is her coping mechanism. She laments, “he was the dreamer with me. My mom is more realistic, but my dad was with me dreaming. He would be so proud of me.”

Promoters: In addition to dream fulfillment, dancers are motivated by promotion and exposure—of self as dancer, and in the Canadian context, of the Canadian dance community as a whole.

On an online video of the Vancouver auditions, dancers note that they want the judges to notice them and later develop a fan base. Exposure in the Canadian market, specifically, is also important in building the profile of Canadian dancers; a number of dancers acknowledge that SYTYCD Canada can assist in this venture. Blake McGrath, a contestant on the American version turned choreographer and judge on the Canadian show, states: “I had to go to Los Angeles to make something of myself…. It’s not so much like that now. A show like So You Think You Can Dance Canada gives dancers an outlet they didn’t have before. Look at… Nico… Everybody knows his name.”6 This mantra is echoed in my interviews, where one dancer claims:

“You know actually I’m really glad there’s a Canadian version out here because I have a lot of friends who are trying to develop themselves professionally as dancers and it was very irritating to them to see it only available in the States for so long, so finally giving Canada an equal spotlight is really good for Canadians. I find that a lot of people resent being in the shadow of America too much and it’s nice to have our own, as you heard from the judges time and time again, through the auditions last year, they were very impressed and surprised at the talent up here in Canada, so, I’m glad they pointed that out.”

Other national adaptations of SYTYCD globally contextualize exposure. For example, Talia Fowler, the winner of SYTYCD Australia, season two (2009), is not satisfied with her new title of Australia’s Favorite Dancer, but announces: “I’ll get to perform a solo on [the American SYTYCD] grand finale with about 20 million viewers watching–that’s exposure,” the competitive American program and dance community being the end-goal for this dancer, indicating the show’s role in the international political economy of dance.7

Jokesters: A few people attempt to break into the show as a joke or hoax, as I discussed in my last Flow article. At the auditions, several dancers on the street appeared to fit this bill, though no one admitted to it. Enough said.

Junkies: Some people have make a career out of appearing on or competing for reality TV shows. This can be seen in the spin-offs of successful reality shows, but also in the average contestants playing the reality TV circuit. They often have another goal in mind, such as promotion and exposure and a career in show business, but the point to be made is that it’s less about fulfilling a dance dream, and more about their “entertainment” career—with entertainment being an amorphous category that lends itself to a variety of on-screen activities, which may or may not focus on dance.

One informant told me, “I’ve always been a performer, on stage, singing, acting, dancing. I sing and I act. I, you know. So it’s just something I love to do, I got an agent in 2001, eight years ago, and since then I’ve just been auditioning everywhere. Commercials, I’ve done commercials, I’ve worked for Much Music,” and has been a contestant on Keys to the VIP, and MTV online show, Date My Playlist. Another dancer I met was also on a reality show called Packed. The performance… commercials, other reality tv, the attempt to get noticed, and “make-it” in the celebrity-driven world of show business is palpable.

Pedagogues: Similar to Priest’s evangelicals, the goal of the pedagogue is educating the public about different forms of dance. One informant noted that the show is a great way to showcase a variety of dance styles from around the world, a move which has been incorporated into the program’s complex and not-wholly-unproblematic incorporation of multicultural dance (which I am exploring elsewhere). Perhaps more interesting is the rare moment in which the contestant attempts to correct social misconceptions, most recently about disability. Tiffany Geigel is a 23-year-old dancer with spinal thoracic dysplasia, a condition that causes her body to be small but with average length arms and legs. In her pre-audition interview, Geigel states: “I’m doing the best that I can to prove everybody wrong. People always assume that I can’t do anything. They don’t think that I’m actually a dancer. They don’t believe me. I still deal with the whole laughing and ridiculing, on a daily basis. From the moment I wake up, to the moment I go back to sleep, it’s the same thing every day.” After her audition, the judges help construct her story as one of inspiration for other dancers, before Geigel comments in her post-audition interview: “I didn’t really expect to even get there. I just wanted to make a point and show there’s people that look different but they can dance. I’m glad I came, I’m glad I did it. I’m really glad I did it.”

My research reveals several prominent motivations for SYTYCD contestants. Unlike Priest’s research, the motivations here tend to cluster around promotion and dreams, rather than public pedagogy, or Priest’s evangelists. The ways that these motivations are revealed and repeated speaks to today’s curious status of reality TV program participation and the political economy of contemporary cultural venues.

Image Credits:
1.SYTYCD Canada–Montreal Auditions

Please feel free to comment.

1. Priest, Patricia Joyner. Public Intimacies: Talk Show Participants and Tell-All TV. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 1995.
2. Ibid, pp. 45-71.
3. The author would like to thank McMaster University Arts Research Board for research funding for these trips, Marie Romeo for research assistance, and the dancers who took time to talk while preparing for their auditions.
4. The McMaster Research Ethics Board has approved this research.
5. The dream discourse is also tied to constructions of the nation, which I am exploring elsewhere.
6. Greenway, Kathryn. Montreal Gazetet. May 27, 2009.
7. “So You Think You Can Dance winner Talia Fowler plans to leave Australia.” The Daily Telegraph. April 28, 2009.

What makes a loser a winner?

Reality TV.

In many reality shows, competition is the driving narrative force–the goal of the show is to choose the best singer, dancer, chef, designer, or date. On competition shows (or gamedocs) the season culminates with an individual winner walking away with grand titles such as Canada’s Favourite Dancer, America’s Best Dance Crew, or Australia’s Next Top Model. Besides prominent titles, winners receive loot such as a million dollar cash prizes on Survivor, recording contracts for Idols, or Project Runway’s coffers to start a clothing line. Each show has only one winner, with much ado made about him/her and his/her selection. But what happens to the losers?

In addition to the selection of the winner, many shows are highly invested in the spectacle of the competition itself, and of the ritual casting away of the losers. A range of language and gimmicks is used to ritualistically whittle down the cast to the last (wo)man standing. Hosts weekly use such phrases as “booted off,” “eliminated,” “sent home,” “voted off,” “evicted,” or curtly tell contestants “you just don’t measure up,” “auf wiedersehen” or “you’re fired!”

Some “losers” win money—Survivor and Big Brother runners-up win cash prizes. Other “losers” appear as celebrity guests on other reality shows (such as Project Runway’s Santino’s guest stint as a judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race), while others still, such as Real World Hawaii’s Ruthie Alcaide, tour college campuses speaking about topics like alcoholism and diversity. Quite a few shows, such as Flavor of Love, create spin offs featuring losing contestants. Part of VH1’s slate of “celebreality” programming, Flavor of Love has created a total of seven shows—the original plus six spin offs, airing several seasons each of reality TV “losers.” Many reality contestants capitalize on their “exposure” on reality TV to launch various entertainment careers.

Losing has been incorporated into the success of American Idol in a comprehensive way (a programming model increasingly followed by other programs, such as So You Think You Can Dance). The show has been able to double the length of the season by airing the nationwide traveling auditions, Hollywood semi-finals, the final 36, and the final 12, all before the “real” competition between the final 10 airs. Needing to fill so many hours of programming, the series not only showcases a nation of talented contestants, but also highlights and even encourages embarrassing and poor auditions—some of whom are simply deluded about the level of their talent, while others hope to infiltrate the program with particularly bad singing, swear words, crazy outfits, or other bizarre schticks, with no hope of actually making the final group. The number of “joke” auditions seems to be on the rise, with people seeking self-promotional opportunities at every corner. In the current season, Nick Mitchell and his stage character Norman Gentle, an odd-duck contestant, made it very far in the competition, with Simon Cowell referring to his performance style as “horrific comedy”:

Click here to view the embedded video.

In fact, many audience members watch the audition episodes to see the “losers,” even moreso than previewing the potential winners. Thousands of YouTube and other vlog postings feature the worst auditions, viewer comments attached. Even Idol itself counts down the “top worst auditions” of the season.

In this clip, host Ryan Seacrest bemoans, “Dead last, out of 10,000 hopefuls, Jennifer’s rendition of ‘Genie in a Bottle’ left us hoping someone would put a cork in it:1
Simon: Jennifer, here’s a new word: that was extraordinary.
Jennifer: Thank you!
Simon: Unfortunately, extraordinarily bad.
Seacrest: Ouch.2

The witty judges’ “rejection” banter has become a trademark element to Idol.

Is the rejection all just fun and games, though? William Hung, from American Idol season three (in 2004) is an interesting case. An American engineering student originally from Hong Kong, Hung unsuccessfully auditioned before the judges in San Francisco. Known as the “Hong Kong Ricky Martin,” Hung has crafted a career out of being an American Idol reject. He has sold over 240,000 CDs globally,3 toured Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, has appeared as a keynote speaker at graduations, and has wallpapers and e-cards available on his website.4

Click here to view the embedded video.

His loser-success, however, must be examined in more depth. On Idol, Hung entered wearing a Hawaiian print shirt, slicked back hair, buck teeth, and thick glasses, and began singing Ricky Martin’s, “She Bangs.” His uncool appearance, accent, and awkward dance moves began. Rather than stopping his act after the first line, the judges allowed him to continue, at once humoring themselves at his inability to deliver a convincing pop star performance, and creating content for the weeks of audition programs. Simon rolls his eyes and rubs his forehead in frustration. Randy Jackson covers his face with a piece of paper, his body visibly shaking with laughter. Paula Abdul bounces her foot while she smiles and makes eyes with Simon. After Simon silences Hung, Randy continues to chuckle.

Simon: You can’t sing, you can’t dance. So what do you want me to say?
Hung: (pause) Um, I already gave my best. And I have no regrets at all.
Randy and Paula: Good for you. That’s good.
Paula: That’s the best attitude yet.
Hung: You know, I have no professional training. Of singing. Or dancing.
Simon: No! Well, there’s the surprise of the century!5

In reality, his singing wasn’t as bad as Jennifer’s, above. So why, then, has William Hung been granted such fame? It is clear that Hung’s infamy, as the Hong Kong Ricky Martin, is performed and discounted vis-à-vis racialized and sexualized discourses. Much like the contrast illustrated with So You Think You Can Dance’s Tranji,6 and the Black hip hop sexuality vs the white nerd , the Hung example positions as opposites the suave and sensual Latin lover and the asexual Asian nerd.7 Hung’s inability to personify the Latin lover role marks his failed or impotent masculinity, and marks this impotence as “Asian.”

Stephanie Greco Larson (2006) writes that ridiculing the Asian nerd has historically functioned to assuage white fear: “laughing at these characters diffused the competitive threat that whites felt at that time from high-achieving Asian Americans. White viewers were invited to continue to feel superior to these ridiculous characters.”8 In this move, humor detracts from political stakes. Hung’s accent and non-native use of the English language function as points of racist humor in this clip, and in his ensuing “success.” Says one college student after buying the Hung CD, “Hung had an accent that made ‘Hotel California’ sound priceless”.9

These elements work together to remind Hung and his Asian counterparts that in order to win a pop contest, one must lose the accent, the outfit, and conform to a standard of sexualized masculinity, in this case, the stereotype of the Latin lover, in order to woo women. Otherwise, the impotent sexuality of the Asian nerd prevents his success. Ironically, the Latin lover image failed for recent Idol contestant, Jorge Nunez of Puerto Rico. Nunez was told he was too Latin—his Puerto Rican dancing was laughed at and condescended to, and his Spanish accent was decidedly “too thick.” After being sent to accent neutralization classes so that his singing voice sounded more English, Nunez was voted off the program around the same time Tatiana Del Toro (also originally from Puerto Rico) was accused of “faking” a Spanish accent to get the same attention given to Nunez.

Hung as Asian minstrel does not play to all audiences, however. An online poll asks, “Is William Hung’s appeal rooted in racism?” The answers break down as follows:
Yes, he plays to an enduring, ineffectual anti-Asian image–40%
No. He bangs!—41%
That’s for William to decide—11%
Can’t we all just sing along?—8%
Total votes: 274710
The results of this survey suggest that the audience response to Hung’s performance and celebrity is fairly divided, but if you aggregate the answers, many more people continue to laugh off this persona and the issue of racism; only 40% see his success having to do with racism.

Why is that? Some writers have pointed to the growth of “the cult of bad art” such as these reality TV losers, as “an invitation to escape the formal boundaries of adulthood and be a child, delighting in the rude and raw.”11 This may be an explanation for why people love to watch Jackass or blow up TV remotes in the microwave, or even to love to hate “bad” acts such as William Hung. Idol fansite Vote For the Worst takes the cult of bad art very seriously, attempting to critique the commercial nature of reality TV and the music industry by organizing votes to support the worst contestant.

However, when “bad art” is defined along racialized lines, one cannot escape the racist element of loving to laugh at the Orientalized Other. Similar discourses can be seen elsewhere on reality TV. Flavor of Love women are racialized as “ghetto”—Black, low class, and are humiliated as such, with one woman actually defacating on the floor and another spitting in her competitor’s face. Bret Michael’s Rock of Love women are represented as “stripper trash” losers—not being able to “work a pole”; or working a pole too well without admitting to working as a stripper, can lose the game.
The political economy of reality TV celebrity is such that even a loser becomes a winner as s/he is cycled through the celebrity mill, as the incessant churn of promotional culture expands the ever-growing D-list. Or should we call it the L-list—the Loser-list.

Image Credits:
1. William Hung Belts it Out
2. The Girls of Charm School: Rock of Love
3. Jorge Nunez Performs Before the Judges

1. ibid.
2. ibid.
3. Navarro, Mireya. “Trying to Crack the Hot 100,” The New York Times. March 4, 2007. p. 9.
4. williamhung.net 2007; Chuah, Gerald. “Can He Sing or What?” New Straits Times (Malaysia). October 30, 2004. p. 8.
5. ibid.
6. Quail, Christine. “Hip To Be Square: Nerds in Media Culture,” Flow TV 9(6), February 9, 2009. http://flowtv.org/?p=2383
7. Larson, Stephanie Greco. Media & Minorities: The Politics of Race in News and Entertainment. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
8. ibid., p. 72.
9. Abrams, Mike. “Leave Reality TV Alone!” Indiana Daily Student. October 2, 2007. http://www.idsnews.com/news/story.aspx?id=56480
10. Guillermo, Emil. “William Hung: Racism, or Magic?—Sidebar: The Question.” San Francisco Chronicle. April 6, 2004.
11. White, Michael. “Lousy is the Best They Can Ever Be,” The New York Times. August 6, 2006. p. 26.

From Revenge of the Nerds and Napoleon Dynamite, to Doogie Houser and Steve Urkel, the “nerd” or “geek” in American film and television has been a popular mainstay. Historically, the nerd has been constructed as an awkward, math-savvy, social and sexual failure. In most instances, nerds are assumed and shown to be white and male, with several exceptions, such as as Steve Urkel (played by Jaleel White) in Family Matters, and firmly heterosexual, though his shortcomings are often ridiculed as a sign of sexual weakness and homosexuality1. The nerd is culturally placed in contrast with a more athletic, socially skilled, sexually aware individual—the cool kid or jock, who demonstrates a hegemonic heterosexual masculinity. Such a dichotomy can be called the hip/square dialectic. This dialectic serves to construct both halves—the hipster and the square or nerd; without its counterpart, each looses its meaning. Thomas Frank2 argues that the 1960’s culture war’s hip/square relationship resulted in the co-opting of hip or cool in order to diffuse its potential transgressive political power, and transform hip into a consumer commodity.

We can witness the hip/square dialectic across television and film history in two ways: 1) the odd-couple narrative of the square and his/her friendship with a hipster (such as Dobie Gillis and Maynard G. Krebs in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis); and 2) the antagonistic narrative of a square and his/her hip/cool competitor, the jock or popular kid (à la Revenge of the Nerds). However, in recent years, attempts have been made to cast geeks in a new light: “geek chic” and “technosexual” are labels that have been used to celebrate nerd identity. Marketers have capitalized on this discourse in order to sell techno-this and cyber-that. In essence, the popular discourse suggests that nerd is the new “cool”—that there has been a subversion of the hip/square dialectic.

Take the character of Seth Cohen (played by Adam Brody) on the hit youth television series The O.C. Cohen played the square to Ryan Atwood’s (played by Benjamin McKenzie) hipster in affluent Orange County, Calfornia. The show portrayed Seth as a geeky teen, but one who gains popularity as well as an attractive, popular girlfriend. In a Joel Stein interview with Brody, the two attempt to reframe the character’s nerd persona:

“Comic books aren’t nerdy. You’d have to be an idiot to think computers are nerdy. The nerd now is the Bush Administration-supporting, anti-intellectual dumb ass,” comments Adam Brody.

Whether that’s true or not, it’s clear the once desirable macho-jock type hasn’t got such pull. There’s a reason the Rock and Vin Diesel haven’t filled the gap left by Schwarzenegger and Stallone: nobody minds the gap. And in a world without heroes, as the movie trailer voice-over guy might say, the slightly awkward can be slightly cool.3

This transposition of nerd as hip, jocks and “anti-intellectual dumb asses” as square, attempts to refigure the concept of “nerd” by repositioning the old nerd as the new hegemony of cool, and by extension, cool masculinity. A similar inversion plays out in Apple’s Mac commercials that place the hipster “Mac guy,” a jeans-and-sneakers-wearing younger guy with a nonchalance that exudes “cool,” at odds with the square “PC Guy,” an older, anxious, pudgy guy in a suit. In this campaign, Mac as hipster/PC as square works to identify Mac with young, tech-savvy culture. Thus, we learn how computer-tech marketers are rebranding cool onto a traditionally nerdy persona. The technology associated with nerds is now seen as hip, as the semiotic codes of nerd have been switched.

If we believe Brody and Stein and Mac, then we should see a general cultural embracing of the nerd. However, if we examine a particular reality TV moment, the So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) second-season finale dance by Travis Wall and Benji Schwimmer (2006), we can interrogate another, less celebratory, representation of the nerd and its role in normativizing white patriarchal masculinity in commercial reality TV.

SYTYCD is a reality show where contestants compete to win a dance competition that will award them with a professional job in a top dance company. Throughout each season, the cast of “girls” and “guys” pairs up every week to perform in different dance styles. The lowest scoring dancers are ejected during the week’s second show. Of course, the couples are always male/female partners. However, in the second-season finale, we are treated to a reality TV “twist”—all four dancers must pair up with male and female partners. The two male finalists, Benji Schwimmer and Travis Wall, come to be known collectively as “Tranji.”

The two dancers, both white, enter the stage when a school bell rings. Dressed as prototypical “nerds”—shorts, tube socks, strange hats, broken glasses, and very full backpacks–they bumble around stiffly. When the music comes on, however, they look surprised as they “catch” the beat by thrusting their pelvises, as the song “Gyrate” (by Da Muzicianz, featuring Mr. ColliPark) instructs them. They rip off their button-down shirts, lose the glasses, and transform into expert hip hop dancers. At the end of the song, the school bell rings again, and they pick up their backpacks and return to bumbling nerd status.

This “transformation” of the nerd4 reveals the racialized nature of sexuality deployed by the social construct of the nerd. The role of hip hop in this performance is that of a sexualizing force, as the title of the song “Gyrate” suggests. Moreover, the white nerds channel an imagined Black sexuality through the hip hop music and dance, instantly transforming themselves into spectacular attractions, displaying fluid, libidinal movement and cutting-edge dance moves. The awkward physicality of the nerd is lost to the mesmerizing street moves of the newly transformed hip hop wonders. Such a “transformation” reifies the hypersexualization of Black masculinity and “compulsory African American cool”.5 At the same time, we witness the desexualization of the seemingly impotent white nerd. In so doing, this dance also reifies what Vershawn Ashanti Young terms the broader double-bind of Black masculinity: dominant “nigga-gender” and its co-constructed and disavowed opposite, “faggot-gender.”6 Coined by rapper Ice Cube, who says, “real niggas ain’t faggots,” 7 this conundrum is situated around the hegemony of dominant physical heterosexual masculinity, with faggot-gender its intellectual, quieter, non-hegemonic masculinity that when constructed in a homophobic framework, cannot function as a legitimate masculinity.

Simultaneously, the Tranji dance reifies the erasure of Black academic success, as the racial dynamics at play force the denial of the imagined Black nerd. Through both the whiteness of the nerd and the myth of compulsory Black cool, a Black nerd is unable to remain “Black” while taking on nerd qualities. In embracing the “white” nerd culture, he loses cultural capital in Black circles for “acting white.”8 The white nerds return at the end of the skit like Cinderella after the ball, to resume their ostensibly sexless, cerebral lives.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In this performance, humor de-politicizes the racial, sexual dimensions of the dance. In training and out-takes, both dancers play up their goofiness, seemingly in order to deflect the homophobic fear of performing as a same-sex dance couple. Schwimmer twice tells the camera that he’s going to show off his “sweet moves”—a phrase that was popularized by the title nerdy character in megahit film Napoleon Dynamite (2004), which includes its own cult nerd dance sequence. When choreographer Shane Sparks tells the dancers to move closer so their “butts touch,” they roll their eyes and actually move away from each other; when this clip is played for the audience, everyone laughs. Throughout, the audience and judges scream with glee while engrossing themselves in Tranji’s visual and kinesthetic transformation. Is the laughter based on the sheer physical awkwardness of the nerd (glasses, tube socks, heavy backpack, goofy facial expression)—a laughter that comes at the expense of the social outcast, a social outcast that simply does not fit the dominant culture’s ideal of masculinity? Or, is the laughter based on the fact that this is a fantasy—that it is impossible for a “real” white nerd to transform himself into a Black sexual being? Or, more insidiously, is the laughter and glee based on the titillating thrill of the imagined white transformation to Blackness? The desire to appropriate Black culture at will, in order to experience the media-represented notions of Black male sexuality, which is imbued with stereotypes long visible in American culture; a construct of sexuality that devalues and objectifies? In each formulation, we are left with a true appropriation, not a sharing of cultures born out of unity in struggle in Black culture and politics9, and the uneasy racialized hip/square dynamic.

Thus, this performance casts serious doubt on the transformation of the nerd into a hipster, and of the transcendence of the hip/square dialectic, and holds obvious implications for solidifying dangerous discourses of racialized and homophobic masculinities. The hip/square dialectic seems to be toyed with here, as in the other sites mentioned, with the potential to bring counter-hegemonic nerd identity into the fold, whilst never critiquing the dialectic or the oppressive discourses and material realities within which they work.

Image Credits:
1. Steve Urkel, the Lovable Star of Family Matters
2. Dobie Gillis and Maynard G. Krebs
3. Mac and PC Address their Audience
4. Dancers Benji Schwimmer and Travis Wall
5. Front Page Image

Please feel free to comment.

1. For a more in-depth analysis of nerd masculinities, see Lori Kendall, “Nerd Nation: Images of Nerds in US Popular Culture,” International Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2, p260-283. 1999.
2. Frank, Thomas. The Conquest of Cool. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1997.
3. Stein, Joel. “Looking for Mr. Adorkable,” Time 169(17), p85. April 23, 2007.
4. For a discussion of transformation on reality TV, see L.S. Kim, “Race and…Reality TV,” FlowTV. 1(4). 2004. http://flowtv.org/?cat=98
5. see Ron Eglash, “Race, Sex, and Nerds,” Social Text 20(2). p49-65. 2002.
6. Young, Vershawn Ashanti. Your Average Nigga: Performing Race, Literacy, and Masculinity. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. 2007.
7. ibid. p. 60
8. Tyson, K. and W. Darity. “It’s Not a ‘Black thing’: Understanding the Burden of Acting White and Other Dilemmas of High Achievement,” American Sociological Review 70(4) pp. 582-605. 2005. See also Eglash (2007).
9. See Bikari Kitwana, Why White Kids Love Hip Hop: Wankstas, Wiggers, and Wannabees. New York: Basic Civitas. 2005.

The contemporary trend of reality TV has yielded unique Canadian productions such as the comedy prank show Kenny vs. Spenny, docusoap My Fabulous Gay Wedding, the CBC’s controversial “experiment” The Week the Women Went, and kids’ reality program Ghost Trackers. Despite the variety of indigenous reality TV production, Canada has acquired several international reality television format licenses. Various Canadian television networks have aired six seasons of Canadian Idol, six seasons of francophone singing competition Star Académie, one season of Project Runway Canada, and are in the midst of airing and developing several other series. One such format currently broadcasting on CTV (rebroadcasting on MuchMusic and A) is the first season of So You Think You Can Dance Canada (SYTYCDCanada). Canadian media scholars, policymakers and viewers can benefit from understanding this trend of international reality TV formatting by looking at SYTYCDCanada. How does television formatting impact the local/national production context? How does SYTYCDCanada engage in discourses of nationhood? How does Canadianness get taken up by the shows’ critics and fans?

The series involves a number of national dance auditions, held across Canada, during which dancers learn choreography and try to impress the judges’ panel enough to receive a ticket to the semi-final and final competitions in Toronto. After the Top 20 are chosen, weekly dance performance shows ensue, where dancers must learn and demonstrate expertise with different dance styles, in front of a panel of star judges and studio audience. Home viewers’ call-in and text-in votes are tallied and two dancers are eliminated weekly–first with judges’ help, later by popular vote only. The last dancer wins the title of Canada’s First Favorite Dancer, along with a $100,000 CDN cash prize and a Mercedes-Benz. 1

However, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this recipe for a reality show. The format was originally developed in the U.S. as So You Think You Can Dance, and has aired four seasons in the U.S. and international markets, including Canada. The program is the brainchild of Nigel Lythgoe and Simon Fuller, the creator and executive producers of the Idols franchise. SYTYCD originated in the U.S. but actually constitutes an international co-production between Fuller’s British company Entertainment 19 Ltd, and American television production company dick clark productions, inc. As a co-production, the format allows the British and American companies to take relatively equal risks and reap relatively equal benefits from its distribution. International co-productions also benefit from financing and exhibition policies in both countries of origin, due to qualifying as domestic programs. 2 Thus, the original program itself reflects a convoluted sense of nation—it appears to be an American program, but is embroiled as well in the U.K. political economy, thus problematizing the show’s “Americanness.”

As a profit-seeking scheme, in addition to international distribution, the original American(/British) format has franchised a number of international versions: Australia, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Malaysia, Scandanavia, and now Canada. 3 As Ted Magder details, television “formats are designed for international sale; more precisely, they are designed to be adapted locally.” 4 The format becomes an international brand, well recognized and coveted in a risk-minimizing culture. For example, the American SYTYCD earned strong ratings in Canada, thus demonstrating both a loyal fanbase holding a positive association with this brand, and a confident advertising base. With such a proven entity, Canadian producers showed interest in franchising a local version—CTV (owned by national giant CTVglobemedia) and Danse TV (Canadian production company) co-produce the program. For the producers, franchising this format is cheaper than developing a uniquely Canadian production, 5 and again, given the success of the American version, the risks associated with new programs are minimized. A further bump for SYTYCDCanada was its placement in the year’s lineup: its premiere was in September, about a month after the finale of the American version, thus experiencing a lead-in effect. The overall franchise has now built-in a two-season year, which will keep the audience interested in the brand, prime them for the next summer–when the next American import will air, and not exhaust the dancing talent pool in either the U.S. or Canada by overexposing the local version.

The show was immediately successful. The premiere episode of SYTYCDCanada received higher ratings than the premiere of the American season 6 and by October, 2008, was the highest rated program in Canada. 7 Its success is surely a nod to its legacy as a spawn of SYTYCD formatting. But we must also consider its discourse of Canadianness and how this discourse relates to the program’s success.

On the production and policy side, even though it is a licensed franchise, SYTYCDCanada qualifies as Canadian, under Canadian Content rules, which require that 50% of programming between 6pm and midnight to be Canadian in origin (and 60% of the content between 6am and midnight to be Canadian). 8 This show is deemed Canadian because all the dancers, judges and most of the choreographers are Canadian, the host is a Canadian VJ from MuchMusic, and the production companies and crews are Canadian. Certainly, this model is employing Canadian workers and highlights Canadian talent, which can be read as positively contributing to the Canadian economy. But there is still a debate regarding who ultimately benefits from the production. Since the copyright is held by the international company, won’t they control the future of the program? How much allocative control does the local production have?

How does the show discursively produce Canadianness, beyond its title and industry issues? One journalist claims that the Canadian version is better than the American. “The U.S. version…is enjoyable, but already it seems a tad too slick and fussily show-business. The contestants are familiar with the template and, while there were outstanding performers and memorable moments, the sheen of American glitz meant that the show looked like one long variation on the Broadway musical A Chorus Line.” 9 In this instance, American is being coded as slick, show-business-y, and glitzy—and as something to be avoided. If these traits are American, then certainly the Canadian version will demonstrate different qualities, which will ostensibly be coded as Canadian. Judge Jean-Marc Genereux states: “‘America has amazing dancers…but we have nothing to be ashamed of. I realize now how much depth we have.’” 10 In this case, Genereux points to “depth” in Canadian dancers in order to construct their excellence, and demonstrate that yes, the program is high-quality on par with the original. Likewise, Mary Murphy, American SYTYCD judge and guest SYTYCDCanada judge, says: “‘The talent you have in this country…I just can’t believe it!….Even at the auditions, the level was so incredibly high. I’m amazed at what they’ve been able to do here, and it’s only the first year.’” 11 Murphy’s comments, in a somewhat patronizingly surprised manner, repeat the argument that the dancers are “actually talented”—as if attempting to prove that the show can compete with the American version. Host Leah Miller, perhaps in jest, comments on the physical attractiveness of the Canadian talent: “‘They’re better looking than the American dancers….Wait until you see them–they’re all super cute and sweet.” 12 Miller also notes that the Canadian dancers are extremely polite and gracious, even when criticized, unlike the American dancers: “‘Canadians are so polite compared to the Americans. They’re just like, ‘OK, thanks for the opportunity.’” 13 For Miller, Canadianness means “cute” and “polite.”

Is that it? The cultural contribution of SYTYCDCanada is the “surprising” ability of cute Canadian dancers to employ a variety of international dance styles while being polite? Such a discourse simply reifies Canadian stereotypes and doesn’t offer much to a rich understanding of the complexities of Canadian life and culture.

Image Credits:

1. So You Think You Can Dance Canada logo
2. The Top Ten
3. Judges Tré Armstrong and Jean Marc Genereux
4. The Dancers in Motion

Please feel free to comment.

1. So You Think You Can Dance Canada Official Website. Accessed November 1, 2008. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080908/sytycdc_aboutTheShow/20080908/?s_name=dance2008
2. See Serra Tinic, “Going Global: International Coproductions and the Disappearing Domestic Audience in Canada” in Lisa Parks and Shanti Kumar (eds.) Planet TV. New York: NYU Press. 2003, pp. 169-186.
3. Harris, Bill. “Put on your dancing shoes, Canada!” Toronto Sun. October 10, 2007, p. 73.
4. Magder, Ted. “The End of TV 101: Reality Programs, Formats, and the New Business of Television,” in Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette (eds.), Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture. New York: NYU Press. 2004, p. 145.
5. Moran, Albert. “The Pie and the Crust: Television Program Formats,” in Robert C. Allen and Annette Hill (eds.), The Television Studies Reader. New York: Routldege. 2004.
6. Harris, Bill. “Hosers love So You Think You Can Dance Canada,” Toronto Sun. September 13, 2008, p. 59.
7. Salem, Rob. “Canadian dancers impress with all the right moves,” Toronto Star. October 29, 2008, p E01.
8. CRTC. “Canadian Content for Radio and Television,” http://www.crtc.gc.ca/public/old_pubs_e/G11.htm
9. Doyle, John. “Could a Canadian Version Be Better? In This Case, Yes, It Can,” The Globe and Mail. September 17, 2008 p. R3.
10. Walker, Susan. “So you think you can impress these judges?” Toronto Star. September 11, 2008, p E1.
11. Salem, Rob. “Canadian dancers impress with all the right moves,” Toronto Star. October 29, 2008, p E01.
12. Ward, Lindsay. “Our dancers set to step up,” Toronto Sun, September 10, 2008 p 64.
13. Ward, Lindsay. “Our dancers set to step up,” Toronto Sun, September 10, 2008 p 64.