As regular readers know, I’m watching the current season of So You Think You Can Dance, the mixed-style dance competition show, and am documenting whether the women are generally expected to show more skin than the men. (I give a more detailed explanation of this project, and why I’m doing it, in my first post in the series.)
Before I get into the breakdown of the relative nudity or lack thereof in this episode, I want to give the producers of “So You Think You Can Dance” kudos for the opening number. This was the most same-sex-oriented routine I’ve ever seen them do, and it was obviously about same-sex marriage: the men were mostly dancing together, the women were mostly dancing together, they were doing so in very romantically and couple-y ways, they were wearing white, and the music was that wedding cliche, “Wind Beneath My Wings.” Nigel even more or less acknowledged it as such, in one of his pieces of self-congratulatory blather about how mind-bogglingly amazing his show is.
It’s a drop in the bucket compared to what it should be. It’s actually pretty pathetic that “So You Think You Can Dance” has been going on for eleven seasons, and this is the first time (as far as I know) that the U.S. edition has had any same-sex routine about love or sex. (Same-sex routines in the past have always been about friendship, competition, anything but love and sex.) Still, it was a Good Thing, and I’m going to praise them for it and encourage them to do it more.
So. Here are the nudity parity results for Episode 14, the Final Four performance finale.
Opening group number, contemporary
Women are more naked than men (women have bare arms, mostly bare legs, one woman has bare sternum and back, men are fully covered)
Valerie & Ricky, African jazz
Rough nudity parity (woman has bare legs but with knee pads, bare arms, mostly bare sternum, bare back, man has bare calves/shins, mostly bare torso)
(Note: Some of the “nudity” in this routine is illusion netting, but it’s very sheer, so I’m counting it as nude)
Jessica & Zack, Broadway
Woman is more naked than man (woman has bare legs, bare upper arms, bare sides, deep plunging neckline, bare back, man is completely covered)
(See above note about illusion netting)
Valerie & Zack, contemporary
Woman is more naked than man (woman has bare legs, short sleeves, man has partly bare forearms, somewhat scooped neckline)
Jessica & Ricky, jazz
Woman is more naked than man (woman has cutout strip along length of arms, length of one leg, bare sternum, bare back, man has cutout strip down back, smaller cutout strip along arms, cutout strip on sternum)
(Note on this: This is an interesting one, since the costumes are clearly meant to be parallel and reflective of each other, and yet the woman’s costume still shows more flesh)
Valerie & Aaron, tap
Woman is more naked than man (woman has bare shins and calves, short sleeves, slight V-neck neckline, man is completely covered)
Ricky & Kathryn, contemporary
Woman is more naked than man (woman has mostly bare legs, bare arms, mostly bare sternum, partly bare back, man has short sleeves, V-neck neckline, loose shirt that sometimes flows up to show midriff)
Jessica & Robert, contemporary
Rough nudity parity (woman has bare legs, bare arms, bare sternum, largely bare back, man has bare torso)
SAME-SEX ROUTINES
(included for documentation completism)
Jessica & Valerie, Bollywood
Both women have bare midriffs, bare shins/calves, bare shoulders, somewhat bare sternums
Note: Of course, the theme/story of the Bollywood number with two women is about how much the girls like their clothes and jewels.
Ricky & Zack, hip-hop
Both men have short sleeves
Zack & Aaron, tap
Both men have bare forearms
SOLOS
(included for documentation completism)
Ricky solo, contemporary
Bare torso (shirtless)
Valerie solo, tap
Bare midriff & sternum
Jessica, contemporary
Bare legs, bare arms, partly bare sternum, partly bare midriff
SUMMARY
Of the male-female routines this week, two routines had rough nudity parity. In all the rest, the women were more naked than the men. Men were more naked than women in zero routines.