(holy sh....two for germany already?..a really fast game so far...) anyway, what was i gonna blog about? oh yeah, the dance show: So you think you can dance? - or the dance version of the american idols... my first viewing last night. don't know if it has to do with my reading jacque ranciere at the moment, on the notion of spectators' emancipation..the show, with all its racializing, gendering tendencies, offers such (the germany goal keeper is amazing!...ah...gomes just scored) an aesthetically (read critical, ethical, etc.) meaningful experience that it is hard to critique it as a product of the self-repetitive cultural industry. or at least, it is one thing to understand its standardized features and another to see its political possibilities on the same ground as those traditionally identified as "high arts." here are some notes/questions: 1. the idea of judgment. how can one conceptualize the kinds of activities in the living room in front of this kind of judgment-based shows? how can we go beyond the passive/active dichotomy in thinking of the specatorship of this particular nature? 2. the participants are all paired up via gendered binaries...too obvious a target for poststructuralist-geminist critique.. 3. there is an obsession with the black and white dyad... guess we have to start questioning the pre-set categories (black:jazz, hiphop/krump,; white: waltz, foxtrot, contemporary; brown: salsa, argentine tango...) part of me also don't wanna go there, however. can't we argue that it is precisely at these moments of boundary crossing that these reified categories get reinscribed, or delegitimized...or both? (portugal is now engaged in 机关枪乱射...a mere continuation of the general mode of this game, unfortunately...） 4. the question of the economics...the show, as many others, conceals "class" so well that it is almost impossible to discern...we are unlikely to discover the social-historical origins of krumping, just as we are led to believe the youngsters in the show are all equally happy postmodern subjects of self expression... (feeling sorry for the Portuguese coach...) 5. the format is quite different from american idol in that it is more about saving sb than eliminating...what is the significance of that? it seems to require more reasoning on the part of the voters, at least... (a nice one for the portugal...4 minutes left!)