America No You Didn't

I know the title may be a little misleading, but this is a serious issue to me! It’s not often that I give in to watching TV’s most annoying genre “Reality TV,” which is often the farthest thing from reality. However, one show has captured my attention for the last two full seasons, and part of the first. That show, “Dancing with the Stars,” just completed its latest season, and I must report that I have an incredible disdain for all those that voted for its eventual champion. In the final episode, former Dallas Cowboys’ running back Emmitt Smith beat former Saved by the Bell star Mario Lopez.

So anybody with far less than 20/20 vision could easily see that Mario Lopez is a far better dancer than Emmitt Smith. Not only is he a better dancer, but each of his performances, week by week, was nearly flawless. Yet and still the judges, who seemed determined to turn the competition into a farce by giving Smith a better score than Lopez when both danced Samba routines to the same song—even though Lopez literally gave a performance that obliterated Smith’s. So the day after the horrible ending to the season, I watched all the news shows, read all the comments, and visited all the message boards about the show. Unfortunately I read a litany of flawed arguments supporting the ultimate outcome. So let me just clearly lay out all of my counter arguments, and then I’ll be through.

To start, I suppose I’ll have to argue my points from a variety of different show definitions since there are several floating around now. I’ll start with the simplest definition: The winner of the show should be the best dancer by the end of the competition. Of course that’s not what happened here, so that argument is done.

The next argument is that the show is about taking a star that is not a dancer by trade, and turning them into a (ballroom) dancer. To justify the horrendous show results, people keep saying that Mario “already knew how to dance” and Emmitt didn’t. Now certainly it appears that Mario spends much time at the club breakin’ it down on the dance floor. However, I critically doubt that while bouncing through all the hottest Hollywood hotspots Mario Lopez was dancing the Paso Doble, the Jive, the Samba, the Mambo, the Tango or the Waltz. I don’t know why, but that’s just a crazy thought that crossed my mind when considering this argument, and clearly that reasoning doesn’t permeate the greater portion of show viewers. But who knows, maybe you can catch Mr. Lopez at “Peanuts” in L.A. Waltzing the night away. BUT, with this argument in mind, I’d like to point out that for years I’ve heard football players (mostly wide receivers and running backs…like Smith) tout dancing (mostly ballet) as a way for them to learn better balance and control while playing football. Perhaps Smith had such training? If so, wouldn’t he, not Lopez, have an unfair advantage?

One argument that I truly disdain is this notion that Mario was as good at the last episode as he was at the beginning, but Emmitt got better throughout the show. HOLD UP…did these people watch the whole season. I did, and Emmitt absolutely did NOT get appreciably better throughout the course of the show. He progressed about as much as a tortoise running the 100-meter dash. The fact of the matter is very few of the shows final participants progressed tremendously from week 1 to the end. The one exception being Monique Coleman, who should’ve been in the final with Mario in my opinion (and I admit that despite the fact that I’m totally in love with Edyta, Joey Lawrence’s partner, and loved every episode that she graced—half-naked with those long sexy legs of hers).

I also keep hearing that Mario was “cocky,” and I read that Mario “knew he had it in the bag.” NO, NO, NO!!!! Those are characteristics that we, as human beings, assign to people (often wrongly) who are confident and good at what they do. At no point during the show did I get the impression that Lopez was a cocky S-O-B. In fact, do you recall the episode where there were behavioral analyses of the show’s contestants? The finding of the behavior analyst was that Mario had the classic look of someone that was subservient when the judges were handing down their judgments. Does that sound like someone who’s cocky? And on the flipside of the coin, how many times did Emmitt Smith refer to “not wanting to lose,” and “being a champion?” Such comments by Smith saturated the final 4 episodes. Sound like someone who’s not cocky?

Smith seemed bent on winning and being the champion, which seems cocky to me. But Mario has been assigned the cocky label. Smith’s dancing didn’t markedly improve over the course of the show. But we recall that Mario looked good in both the 1^st and last episodes, so we say he didn’t get better and Emmitt did. We say that Smith won over the crowd and that’s why he won, even though almost all of Mario’s performances elicited standing ovations.

So here’s the deal, the results of the show demonstrate human nature. When someone is confident and good at something (like Lopez), we tend to call them cocky even when they aren’t. And when someone is an underdog (like Smith), we tend to root for them, often overlooking their shortcomings in the process. For example, many of the things that people now criticize Lopez for could easily be leveled at Smith. But we only remember who the underdog was, and I suppose that’s something that the majority of the population can identify with, therefore we vote accordingly.

But it wasn’t just the viewing audience that was guilty of demonstrating human nature. Even the judges were guilty…BIG TIME!!! I still can’t see how they justify giving Emmitt a perfect 30 for his Samba during the last episode, but only giving Mario a 29 when they danced the same dance to the same music. Mario was better than Emmitt by leaps and bounds. Then again the judges are only human, and that was evident in their comments. Carrie Ann Inaba, one of the three judges, once exclaimed that because she perceived Mario to be a good dancer that she was going to be more critical about his performances. HOW IS THAT FAIR???!!!!!

I really appreciated the American public when they finally voted Jerry Springer off; even if it was an episode too late (Willa Ford should not have gotten voted off before Jerry…she had mad potential). But in the finale they got it all wrong, and for all the wrong (very flawed) reasons.

I pretty much avoid Reality TV with a passion, but being the amateur dancer that I am this one has caught my eye each time. I just wish that the American public would give up on this “root for the underdog” mentality and just let the underdog fight for itself (unless you’re referring to the University of Michigan this weekend vs. the Ohio State University).

Once again America, you have disappointed me. Mario “A.C. Slater” Lopez should’ve won hands down.

America, no you didn’t!!!

-Maelstrom