Valerie Gibbs
DAN 111
Jonathan Gonzalez
I had never realized quite how much social pressures and historical biases
inform the way in which male dancers have been perceived until I read "The Trouble
with the Male Dancer." I had always known that stereotypes of male dancers existed,
but I did not realize just how deep those attitudes go or how far back they stretch
into dance history. What really got driven home in the chapter is that the "trouble"
with male dancers has very little to do with the dancing itself and has everything to
do with society's ideas on masculinity, gender roles, and who should be able to show
emotion or be seen on stage physically.
One thing that really struck me was how the male body became a source of
new fears for the nineteenth-century middle class. As the author relates, this is a
period in which society became ill at ease with male physical display - anything too
expressive was suspect or "not masculine enough." That struck a particular chord
with me because today we would think of masculinity being equated with strength
or athleticism, but in that period men were supposed to be reserved, still, and
emotionally shut down. The male ballet dancer who used his body expressively and
who performed publicly raised suspicions. It made me think about how much
masculinity is based on rules that men are pressured to follow-even those rules that
make no sense.
The chapter also talks about homophobia and how it influenced people's
reactions to male dancers. Society already felt anxiety about men being "too close" to
one another or being too emotional, even before anything about homosexuality was
part of a public discourse. What did interest me, though, was how the problem
wasn't that male dancers were gay, per se; rather, critics were afraid of being seen as
DAN 111
Jonathan Gonzalez
I had never realized quite how much social pressures and historical biases
inform the way in which male dancers have been perceived until I read "The Trouble
with the Male Dancer." I had always known that stereotypes of male dancers existed,
but I did not realize just how deep those attitudes go or how far back they stretch
into dance history. What really got driven home in the chapter is that the "trouble"
with male dancers has very little to do with the dancing itself and has everything to
do with society's ideas on masculinity, gender roles, and who should be able to show
emotion or be seen on stage physically.
One thing that really struck me was how the male body became a source of
new fears for the nineteenth-century middle class. As the author relates, this is a
period in which society became ill at ease with male physical display - anything too
expressive was suspect or "not masculine enough." That struck a particular chord
with me because today we would think of masculinity being equated with strength
or athleticism, but in that period men were supposed to be reserved, still, and
emotionally shut down. The male ballet dancer who used his body expressively and
who performed publicly raised suspicions. It made me think about how much
masculinity is based on rules that men are pressured to follow-even those rules that
make no sense.
The chapter also talks about homophobia and how it influenced people's
reactions to male dancers. Society already felt anxiety about men being "too close" to
one another or being too emotional, even before anything about homosexuality was
part of a public discourse. What did interest me, though, was how the problem
wasn't that male dancers were gay, per se; rather, critics were afraid of being seen as
