 
Balletlover - Balletmania
written by Dep on 17.04. at 05:47:43 - as answer to: American media's move toward eliminating ballet. by PC Police >Example 1: "Center Stage." Here's a film about a girl who attempts to join a ballet company and how she learns to overcome challenges and issues, blah, blah, blah, etc. The important thing about this movie was that it showed hot girls in ballet clothes. I ask anyone of the members of this forum to go into a video store and examine the cover art. You'll notice that the original artwork from the film's poster has been cropped to eliminate the dancer's ballet-slippered feet. You'll also notice that on the back of the packaging they've basically eliminated any photos showing the lead actors dancing ballet. The only picture that has any reference to ballet has been relegated to the side binding of the DVD. Am I obsessed? Yes. Do I have too much time on my hands? Perhaps. Let's continue.>Example #2: "Billy Elliot." Here's another film that gets the bum's rush as far as ballet-related artwork on the DVD box is concerned. I have fantasies upon fantasies about being forced to take ballet as a child and being fawned over by my female companions and "Billy Elliot" plays into all these fantasies. A working class kid from a small town in Ireland stumbles upon a ballet class and blah, blah, blah, etc. The important thing about "Billy Elliot" is that the viewer (me: PC Police) gets to live vicariously through this kid and to imagine what it'd be like to be in this same situation. The film is about ballet. Would you know it from the DVD box art? No. They've gone and taken an image of Billy jumping in the air with ballet slippers hung around his shoulders and painstakingly changed them into boxing gloves. So now he's jumping into the air with a set of dun-colored, photoshopped boxing gloves hanging like an albatross around his neck. This is discouraging.>Are we to believe that the film companies are, in effect, trying to trick the audience into renting these films? Is ballet such a "turn-off" to the general populace that a team of designers must be employed to remove any offending references to said Art? That's unbelievable. When "Pollock" is released on home video will they eliminate any images of paint, canvas or paintbrushes from all promotional artwork. Will Pollock be forced to hold a photoshopped 9mm handgun on the box art to ensure interest in the film or will they paint boxing gloves onto his hands? (I know Billy Elliot was taking boxing lessons but indulge me). Should "Amadeus" be re-released with an altered image of the composer with a snowboard strapped to his feet? Is anything sacred? I know it's all commerce but when the studio agrees to make a film that is ballet-oriented shouldn't they have the guts to market it to home viewers in the way it was intended? I suppose I should just be happy the films were made in the first place but there's something about this whole process that doesn't sit right with me. Well, enough of my rhetoric; has anyone else noticed this?>I bemoan the state of dance in this country both as a fetishist and as a patron of the arts. >>>Me too, but asking the american entertainment combine to be more sensitive to the intelligent patron is like asking the KKK to sing like Marvin Gaye. They really need to, but it just ain't gonna happen. Remember, the american entertainment industry values Adam Sandler over Kenneth Branagh, Britney Spears over Fiona Apple, "Survivor" over....OKAYOKAYOKAY. "Battlebots," allright? I love "Battlebots!">>>In other words, "I used to be disgusted/Now I try to be amused..."-Depon Answers to this message: |
