As a result of my continued seclusion in NC and my mom’s vicious addiction to TV, I’ve become a weekly viewer of America’s Got Talent. While it’s pretty entertaining as is, nothing beats the little unscripted moments from contestants not properly conditioned in celebrity behavior. TV, but particularly reality TV, is much like a magician’s illusion: the viewer only sees what the magician wants you to see, and a good magician never reveals his tricks.
Unfortunately for NBC, 13-year-old Arcadian Broad, however graceful and well-groomed, is not a magician’s assistant. He is a dancer.
And he is not a stooge.
My mom and I have always had theories about AGT: it’s clear that certain acts make it through for variety, certain people make it through solely on kitsch value, and certain performers are made to jump through unnecessary hoops by the producers so that other “chosen” acts will make it through to the next round or to amp up the show as the weeks go on at the performer’s expense. Simple acts have random break dancers thrown in the background or are surrounded by fancy sets and pyrotechnics to distract from whether or not they’re actually talented.
Arcadian Broad managed to make it through the competition without all of that. In his first three performances, he stuck to what makes him special: he is an incredibly talented solo dancer. He leaps and bounds across the stage with intense energy, style, flexibility, grace, and enthusiasm. His most impressive performance came during the Quarter Finals, when he (unnecessarily, as the judges pointed out) whipped out his piano-playing talent, and then knocked out an awesome performance to Footloose. The judges loved him, everyone freaking loved him, and he made it through to tonight’s the semi-finals.
Sources say gravity was asleep on the job while Arcadian was performing.
Everything about Arcadian was wrong tonight, though. In his pre-performance video he revealed that he’d be doing some paired dancing with a new girl dancer, even though he is clearly a one-boy show. And then he came on to a stage full of backup dancers in a basketball jersey and, like a little marionette, performed the dance moves to High School Musical’s “We’re All in This Together.” He hoisted his very young partner awkwardly above his head, moved in sync with his other puppet dancers, and, with the exception of a few pirouettes, exhibited none of the wild, bold dancing of his previous performances.
Heteronormitivity: we're all in this together.
So it was no surprise when the judges’ reactions were rather tepid, with the sort of coddling they reserve for only the very young, very old, or very military. However, Arcadian was not walking off the stage without exhibiting his flair somehow. In the middle of one of the judge’s criticisms, he turned to Nick Cannon and asked if he could say something, and then let loose a big one: he had something else planned for the semi-finals, but the show’s producers instead made him perform what would clearly be a family-friendly crowd-pleaser.
Oops.
Sharon Osborne immediately jumped in, saying that he didn’t need to give excuses and that he was clearly a talented boy and a great dancer, etc. etc., but the damage was done. Arcadian had had his say: he was no puppet.
But America’s Got Talent’s puppetry of Arcadian goes beyond trying to reel in viewers with a shoutout to a successful franchise: it shows the dirty way producers shape people into products, and the deeper messages at work.
And this is where I have to throw in the usual disclosure: yes, I know I’m highly trained by other mainstream-media-hating, ultra-skeptical, loudmouthed obnoxious feminist queerz, but I feel like I’m not reading super hard into this one (just like I believe with all my heart that the panty liner magician is gay as blazes).
In the quarterfinals, Arcadian was branded as America’s real-life Billy Elliott – a somewhat soft-spoken boy with a natural passion for dancing, overcoming adversity from his ignorant classmates. “At school the kids would always tease me about being a dancer,” said Arcadian in his quarter-finals video, “but when I’m dancing I feel like I’m in a whole different world. I feel invincible.”
Sure, you can’t trust the obviously staged shots and polished dialogue of the videos, meant to give viewers a true glimpse into the lives of these every-day celebrities, but the story seems pretty believable and Arcadian quite sincere. Nobody that talented at dancing and playing the piano can be that cool. Both take a large commitment of time practicing in private - but more importantly, they are both pretty “gay” hobbies for a thirteen-year-old boy. No one makes fun of male dancers without playing the gay card – Dane Cook, who’s social commentary isn’t exactly known for being groundbreaking, exhibits this perfectly in his bit about dance clubs: “You will never, ever hear a guy say to one of his buddies, 'Mike -- Mike, Mike, listen, buddy. Tonight, bro, I gotta dance, dude. Screw chicks tonight, bro -- I gotta dance!” A straight guy, that is. You just know the teasing has a hint of the gay when the bullies are 13-year-olds, who have just been passed the uber-masculinity torch and probably aren’t exactly known for their creative insults.
So as a counterpoint, this weeks video featured a different side of Arcadian – not the shy, dedicated boy who’s only passion is for dancing, but of the up and coming suave, popular kid, who’s lady is back home acting as his PR director. Okay, maybe that’s taking it a bit far. But so is the line something along the lines of “It’s nice to have her back there supporting me” - god I know that’s not the phrasing but something along the lines of “thank god my beard’s printing out flyers for me and acting like a good little housewife.” There were then a ton of shots of Arcadian with a nice young girl his own age, and thank god for that. Behind every successful man is a woman… who wishes she were a man - both for rights and so that her husband will look at her the way he looks at the milkman.
Whether Arcadian is gay or straight is not the point – Arcadian could already be getting a head start on a long career of fucking dancerladies for all I know or care. The point is just how far mainstream media will go to uphold the standard of heteronormativity. Producers see a vibrant male dancer, code for gay, and then make sure that he’s seen with ladies all over him from then on. Back during the aftermath of last season of American Idol I didn’t buy people’s arguments that Adam Lambert lost the competition because he was gay, but I definitely thought it was fishy that he seemingly had to go back in the closet in order to be a part of Idol. Just like Ethan from Queer as Folk, producers want their young talent hot and straight so they can make the big bucks off of fangirls, or at least not lose money because of politics.
Arcadian probably won’t win the competition, though, especially after tonight's little encore. But for the sake of the American family and their viewership, NBC has made it clear there will be no roll models for young gay boys, or young dancer boys, or young boys anywhere that don’t fit in. After all, they’re not in the business of making role models, they’re in the business of making stars.
