3) Dance like a boy. Now a girl. Oh wait, no homo!

So last week I watched an episode of America’s Best Dance Crew (ABDC, for short). The theme of the night was Brittany Spears. Each “crew” had to adapt certain dance moves and moments from her popular music videos into their own respective dance routines. I’m going to focus on the dances of three crews which best exemplified ideas of masculinity or femininity.


The first group, Beat Freaks, was an all-girl group. They breakdance and do other dancing which is usually attributed to males. For the challenge, six of the girls dressed in suits, as “men,” while the other one dressed as Brittany herself. While in the suits, they were quite convincing as males; the female judge Lil Mama even commented, “When you were dancing as men, I felt like I was watching men.” Half way through the dance, the suited ladies stripped off their jackets, transforming to women. The one who was Brittany, however, was feminine the entire time. She had a seductive glare and a walk that exaggerated hip movement. Before the dance, the girls had expressed their reservations about being too sexy. But their dance showed that a female group can dance manly or womanly (or at least what is socially accepted as manly or womanly).

The second group to perform was an all-male team called Strikers All Stars. They pumped their fists and flexed their muscles throughout the routine. To accentuate this, they wore sleeveless shirts (that my sister described as “Chippendale-y”). So this group, as men, capitalized on their masculinity. Judge JC Chassez even said, “You’re playing to your attributes… And it works. You’re letting [the audience] know that you’re powerful.”

Another all-male group, Quest Crew, took the dancing in a different direction. One member said beforehand, “The dancing will be a lot less masculine than we’re used to. Hopefully, it will give America a side of us they haven’t seen before.” About half of the routine was danced with what Shane Sparks (a famous hip-hop choreographer) called a “feminine vibe,” as an homage to Brittany. He claimed they aced that section, but he felt the need to justify himself, by saying “no homo.” He must have felt that complimenting another male in any way, somehow compromised his own masculinity. Lil Mama obviously didn’t feel this way as she praised the female Beat Freaks without hesitation.

So basically in one episode of ABDC, you’ll see that there are many feminine and masculine ideals abound. You’ve both genders dancing in ways that they perceive as feminine or masculine. We also saw that due to social norms, males cannot (or don’t) express themselves as freely about other men, as women do about other women. In addition, it seems that most of the other co-ed groups dance in a more androgynous manner. There’s not really the feminine or masculine exaggeration as seen in the single gender groups. It’s strange to think that an activity can be so gender-exclusive. Can other activities like sports or playing instruments be done in such a way that others would be able to identify it as masculine or feminine? How about eating or reading? I know those last two sound ridiculous, but where do we draw the line? These are the questions that haunt me… Just kidding, but seriously...

PS: You can watch this specific episode (#3) on:
http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/dance_crew/videos-full-episodes.jhtml