I finally saw the new Oxygen series, “Dance Your Ass Off,” and it is as vulgar as any show can be that has “ass” in the title. But wait, there’s more. It is more bathetic than any show since ”Queen for a Day,” a fifties-era program in which a host who looks like he stole all the prizes, Jack Bailey, helps some escapee from a Faulkner novel fulfill her dream of owning a new refrigerator (or her first one.) All she has to do is make her life sound more depressing than the other contestants’ lives. (See post below.) In the first five minutes of “Dance Your Ass Off” (all I could take before my trembling hand reached the “stop” and “erase” buttons) morbidly obese individuals describe the fat- lined path that took them to this show. Death, depression and diabetes figure prominently. Now, for some reason, they all share a garishly-designed apartment in which a cupboard full of donuts and potato chips also figures prominently. No contest. Oxygen’s “Dance Your Ass Off” wins the first annual “Race to the Basement” (not "Race to Abasement," which would imply some humility) and is the officially recognized “Tube Stakes” champion. The only possibly redeeming thing about this show is that it holds, as it were, a mirror up to the nation. They should rename it (if it persists) “America’s Got Tallow.”
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Very clever post. I also miss "Queen for a Day." It always got to me that a contestant would lament about her husband losing his job, her 6 chronically ill children, her dementia- enshrouded parents, and the pending foreclosure on her home. Convinced that the contestant might be justified in saying that life wasn't worth living, the show's producers would pronounce her "Queen for a Day," cloak her in a ratty robe that looked like a bedspread from Motel 6, and give her an iron and a Hamilton Beach blender, and then all was right with the world. Simpler times.
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