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A bold statement from The Daily Mail's Jacinta O'Brien, but she fails miserably to back it up. She offers nothing but opinion and anecdotes from her own immediate family. While I appreciate her mentioning the case of Malcolm McArthur was to highlight the homosexual sensationalism at the time in the media, he is still one of Ireland's most notorious murderers, having been incarcerated since 1982 for the violent murder of a female nurse as she sun bathed in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. To mention this man in an article titled "Why no Irish woman will ever truly trust a ballet-loving man" does seem to (by accident or not) suggest something far more sinister.
Her piece meanders all over the place (including a bizarre insinuation that women only follow sport to look at the outlines of mens genitals), but there is of course truth to some of what she has written, though not once does Ms. O'Brien say the stereotypes are wrong; not once does she suggest an effort to change public opinion. Instead she seems happy to perpetuate the idea that men are men and there is something not quite right about a man who enjoys ballet.
Your mistake was reading the Daily Fascist in the first place...
ReplyDeleteWell, I am a Nazi after all...
ReplyDeleteAh but the Daily Mail is a little right wing for fascism...
ReplyDeleteThe Daily Mail is a wonderful adult comic. It beats Viz and all the rest for sheer outlandish hilarity.
ReplyDeleteI find this very hard to believe. What about all the heroes in the girls' ballet books, who always fall in love with the heroine when they see her dancing, usually in a forest glade??
ReplyDeleteSebastian from the Sadler's Wells books, by Lorna Hill? Grant from the Drina books, by Jean Estoril? I could think of more, but my sister has stolen my entire ballet book collection, which she still reads secretly.
This lady must have been one of those pony book reading girls growing up.
Actually, I think the real reason we women worry about men who like ballet is that we feel we will never live up to their standards of skinniness, ballerinas being on the lean side and all that.
What do you think about the New York ballerina who is allegedly too fat to play the Sugar Plum fairy? I think it's outrageous, she is a skinny little thing.
Are those heroes you speak of, Irish? That's the nub of the article. She explains that we expect a French man to love Ballet (reverse prejudice) but women are suspicious of an Irish man with a grá for the danse. Her headline is badly worded in this respect.
ReplyDeleteI believe what she says is fundamentally true, but very overstated. The simple fact is that even women today are loosing interest in ballet, as proven by dwindling numbers attending performances. When I tell women one of my interests is ballet they don't even blink an eyelid. To some, the strangest part may be that they met someone at all with such an interest, as it is just becoming rarer these days. I've had more trouble with people thinking it's an "upper class" thing. All bullshit!
Ha ha, there you go with body size and image again. Women need to realise that men like bits that bounce! Bouncing bits don't always work so well with ballet and sports though, but that is down to function and grace rather than physical attraction. Perhaps all danseurs should be male, to get away from womens natural bouncy bits? But then we'd have a stage full of jiggling cod pieces. Oh Lord, why did you give us such wobbly bits!
I am not too familiar with the details of the case of the fat Sugar Plum Fairy. Going by the one or two pictures I've found since your comment I would say his comments were indeed unfair, perhaps however, if Alastair Macaulay had said the dancer was "less toned" than he would have liked, he might have a case. I can't see why that would warrant a comment though, especially if she danced well enough to get the part in the first place. I was expecting to see photo's like [ this ] when I looked it up!