Perfect 10: Time to DANCE!

In about an hour the newest crop of hopefuls on So You Think You Can Dance get ready to walk the Green Mile, with 20 of the 33 remaining dancers set to hit the Hollywood stage. I have been overwhelmed trying to catalog all of the featured auditions and keep track of who persevered in Vegas (I may still try to blog on the audition shows–something I’ve never done before–but I may just be able to highlight the remaining contenders from this point forward. We’ll see….), and tonight gets me back in the saddle of “live typing” my review. I am definitely out of practice but I’m excited to see who makes it. I WILL say I have early hopes of certain dancers, both new and returning, making the show. I’ve seen Mariah (the blond girl from Utah who krumped last year), Jasmine Mason (who auditioned with her brother Marshea last year after they both survived a car crash) and Earl Turner Jr. (a tapper whose dad used to perform at Harrah’s New Orleans for a long time–that I regretfully never got to see) pop back up in the Vegas shows, and I hope they’ll be in that number–as well as tappers Curtis Holland and Alexis Juliano, because it’s time to spotlight the tap dancers again. Between BluPrint, Fik-Shun and Jade there will be at least ONE animator on the stage, and I also hope to see Tucker Knox, Anthony Savoy and Jasmine Harper (among others) grace the contemporary stage. I can’t wait to see who I may get to see on tour this fall.

The excitement is buzzing online! Kudos to the page admin actually interacting with the posters this year!

We Don’t Argue In Front Of The Kids…Do We? | Black and Married With Kids.com – A Positive Image of Marriage and Family

We Don't Argue In Front Of The Kids…Do We? | Black and Married With Kids.com – A Positive Image of Marriage and Family.

PUBLIC FORUM PODCAST: Lin-Manuel Miranda on Freestyle Rap, Writing for Neil Patrick Harris, and Who Belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of MCs

Dude has surpassed Amazeballs and shot off into the stratosphere in a category all his own. YouTube the opening number of the 2013 Tony Awards if you haven’t seen it–the lyrical gymnastics he dropped on host Neil Patrick Harris was worthy of Olympic gold.

http://publictheater.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/public-forum-podcast-lin-manuel-miranda-on-freestyle-rap-writing-for-neil-patrick-harris-and-who-belongs-on-the-mt-rushmore-of-mcs/

5 Fundamental Steps to a Thriving Relationship – Love Fairy

5 Fundamental Steps to a Thriving Relationship – Love Fairy.

Double Duty: Bring It On and Motown’s Ariana DeBose Talks About Performing Twice at Her First Tonys – Mobile Playbill.com

Lin-Manuel, Bring It On and So You Think You Can Dance fans….you’re welcome.

Double Duty: Bring It On and Motown's Ariana DeBose Talks About Performing Twice at Her First Tonys – Mobile Playbill.com.

Dumbass Diaries part 14

This one might actually qualify to spark off a “Pissed Off Princess” series….

Kid commercials tend to be cute–the kid will ask a quasi-serious question and then take some action based in child logic that makes the audience laugh. So a young girl asking her mother about the heart health nutritional benefit of a cereal and then laying said cereal on her dad’s chest to “help” should garner a collective “Aw!” from the viewing audience, right?

Nope.

Here’s why:

Yes, boys and girls–Cheerios had the unmitigated gall to portray an interracial family. And the Internet exploded with trolls and bigots. Commentary covering everything from aspersions on Black fathers to “references to Nazis, ‘troglodytes,’ and ‘racial genocide’” were spewed all over YouTube until the comments section was shut down. Not like that stopped this tide of wretchedness else on the Web…one faceless dumbass offered this priceless gem:

“These videos encourage people to seek partners outside their racial group. It already happens too much … for comfort. I shall eat Toasted Oats instead.”

Oh really now?

And as if the fact that there is actually controversy surrounding this ad isn’t bad enough, I have had two sad and sickening realizations:

1) As much as I’d like to believe that it’s only old, crusty, dyed-in-the-wool racist hatemongers, I fear that the majority of those posting this vitriol are teenaged Internet trolls who have grown up in a multicultural world and show know better.

2) I also fear that any of the following scenarios would have been more acceptable and less comment-provoking:

• If it was a white couple raising this biracial child
• If the husband had been white and the wife black
• If the little girl was being raised by a gay couple

With all of the rapes, murders, corruption, adultery, etc. being portrayed on television in grisly, gruesome detail and very few people batting an eye, THIS is what gets America’s underwear in a knot? A commercial with a whole family unit talking about cereal? Seriously?!?

The horror.

Related links:

Code Switch – NPR: If This Cute Cheerios Ad Causes Drama, What Won’t?
AdWeek:
It’s 2013, and People Are Still Getting Worked Up About Interracial Couples in Ads
Slate: Cheerios Ad Brings Out the Racists

12 Little Things We Do To Keep Our Marriage Strong | Babble

12 Little Things We Do To Keep Our Marriage Strong | Babble.