Glamour Addiction: Inside the American Ballroom Dance Industry

by Juliet McMains

In the wake of the blockbuster television success of Dancing with the Stars, competitive ballroom dance has become a subject of new fascination and renewed scrutiny. Known by its practitioners as DanceSport, ballroom is a significant dance form and a fascinating cultural phenomenon. In this first in-depth study of the sport, dancer and dance historian Juliet McMains explores the Glamour Machine that drives the thriving industry, delving into both the pleasures and perils of its seductions. She further explores the broader social issues invoked in American DanceSport: representation of Latin, economics that often foster inequality, and issues of identity, including gender, race, class, and sexuality.
Putting ballroom dance in the larger contexts of culture and history, Glamour Addiction makes an important contribution to dance studies, while giving new and veteran enthusiasts a unique and unprecedented glimpse behind the scenes."

Genres: Nonfiction

268 pages, Hardcover

First published November 17, 2006

Reviews

[Duffy Pratt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Competitive Latin dancers use tanning products before they compete. What are we to make of this? The simple explanation is that they want to look better. If you go deeper, you could argue that being tan is a symbol of wealth in the west, because a tan is evidence of leisure time, evidence that one does not have to spend all of their time at work indoors. By contrast, in Asia, its typical for people to prize paleness, for precisely the same reason. A pale person is one who does not have to work in the fields, and has the wealth and leisure to stay indoors. McMains sees another, more sinister, reason behind tanning for Latin dances. She insists that its a sign of "brownface" an analogue to the "blackface" that was put on by white minstrel entertainers in vaudeville. Thus, for her, tanning reveals the racist roots underlying Ballroom latin. Never mind that there are tanning salons all over the country, used by people who have never thought of competing in Latin dancing. Never mind that the competitors in the Standard dances also use tanning products, for exactly the same reasons. And never mind that Latino is not even a race. McMains is so hung up on the politics of gender and race that she needs to show that Ballroom Latin dancing is racist, and she devotes nearly a third of the book to the task.

How about Ballroom Dancing and gender? Basically, she complains about every aspect here. In Standard (waltz, tango, foxtrot, etc...), she complains that the woman has no freedom and is totally subservient to the man. In Latin (rumba, cha cha, samba, etc...), her complaint is that the woman has freedom, and thus shows herself off as a sex object. Thus, when the woman is constrained in her movements, its sexist. And when she's not constrained in her movements, its also sexist. I have no idea what she would endorse as a form of dance that would meet her desire for something gender neutral, and still retain the character of Ballroom dance, which at a minimum I think, needs to have some partnering of some sort.

As for the Ballroom Dance industry in America, she portrays it as evil from top to bottom. And the surprising thing is that everyone involved in it is a victim. The overriding evil is stated in the book's title. The idea is that people get addicted to the notion that improving in Ballroom dance can make them glamorous. Dancers who start get hooked into paying tons of money in pursuit of glamour. The teachers are typically from a lower class than their students and become a sort of indentured servant. Even the judges and champions, according to McMains, are also victims of glamour, though I still am not sure I understand why.

Since she sees evil everywhere, she must ignore or at best mention in passing, any positive aspects. As a result, the book feels terribly unbalanced. McMains was a professional dancer and teacher, and its hard not to conclude that the book is an exercise in bitterness at not having done better. Many of her criticisms are valid, and some what she has to say is insightful, especially when talking about the effect of the structure of a dance competition on its participants. I also liked her summaries of the history of the dances, and their development and codification into their present forms in England and America. Even here, I don't agree with her conclusions that the transformation of the dances for the general American public is both racist and evil, but her descriptions of how the transformations occurred are interesting.

I wanted to like this book more than I did. I don't regret having read it, though I certainly could do without ever reading another sentence like: "Gender on ballroom stages is always already raced, or at least marked by a category that invokes a raced discourse." Fortunately, this terrible writing only appears when she is pounding on the drum of gender and race politics. When she writes concretely, the book is actually a pleasure to read. And, I suspect that the bibliography for this book may prove useful to me. I've had a hard time finding good books that have any serious discussion about Ballroom dance.

[Michael Kersey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eye opening critique of American dance industry and competitions.

[Andrea · Rating 1 out of 5]

Let me start out with: the author has a LOT of good points about the way the ballroom industry works. Her main thesis - the "glamor machine" - is totally going on in the ballroom world. Sometimes I caught myself dismissing the work she's done, just because it seems a little obvious to someone who has been involved in the industry for so long. She makes a lot of painfully true points about the intersection of immigrants and ballroom, and the image professional dancers must project.

But aside from that, this book has a lot of problems.

McMains ignores many aspects of the ballroom world that don't fit her model of an omnipresent oppressive glamor machine. Every point she made brought to mind similar experiences in my own ballroom career, but tons of counter examples too.

Not one of her characters isn't hustling, struggling, or taking advantage of someone. No students who respect their teacher and just want to dance. No armature partnerships! No happy, fair, supportive studio owners with a white picket fence and two kids. No college teams (and there are TONS on the East Coast). No teens having fun or teaching to pay for college. Not even the rich retirees who have their own fun little social group and don't misuse their instructors. I know these people; I'm surrounded by these people. I don't know if they're the majority everywhere, but to simply ignore their existence because they don't fit her thesis is a joke.

Worse, many of her points are completely unsupported -- just subjective opinion masquerading as fact. The writing style bounces erratically between formal academic language and flowery prose. You can tell that the author has glued together several smaller essays.

[Nathan · Rating 1 out of 5]

The concept of this book is exactly the sort of thing I like so much; a sociological explication a of pop-culture phenomenon, using the author's own experience as the basis for observation. However, this book is so clogged with academic and social science jargon that it's basically unreadable; and as far as I could tell, it doesn't say anything beyond the standard feminist critiques and hackneyed "dance as a metaphor for sex" tropes that have been made before. Granted, I'd never seen these conclusions made in relation strictly to ballroom dancing, but they're terribly obvious. Sorely in need of a good dose of levity.

[Kiri · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only got about halfway through this book before returning it, but would have liked to finish it. Excellent read for anyone who's been a part of the ballroom world. Much of it rang true with my own experience, lending the rest of it credence, despite its creepiness. Reading this book made me glad I've never dabbled in pro-am!

[Judi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting and informative. An excellent read.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really only interesting if you're interested in ballroom and it's "dirty underbelly," as it were but I found it fascinating.

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

more of a 1.5 stars

This book is not for people who don't absolutely love ballroom dance. I had to read this for a "Viewing Dance' class. I wish I had picked a different topic.