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So Dancing With The Stars has announced the latest cast: I call this latest version the "Freaks and Geeks Edition". They departed a bit from the usual formula this time: there's nary a Disney Star (like Kyle Massey or Sabrina Bryant), mouthy black lady (like Niecey Nash or Wendy Williams) or a "WTF" guy (like Adam Corolla or Mike Catherwood). We do have the usual Professional Athletes (Ron Artest or is he Meta World Peace this week? and Hope Solo) a surfeit of Reality Stars this year (Kristin Cavalieri, Rob Kardashian and Carson Kresley). We also have several bunch of Faded Stars trying to raise their profiles (this time represented by Ricki Lake, China Phillips and David Arquette). The "out of left field" choices are "Tot Mom" nemesis Nancy Grace and Sonny and Cher's only child Chaz (formerly Chastity Bono). Oddly enough, it's Chaz Bono that's causing the most controversy.
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The inclusion of Bono has lots of conservative types threatening to boycott the show. Worse yet, some folks are even sending death threats!!! Come on people--death threats! Over THIS??? Do you guys really have that much free time? Honestly, I can't fathom this no matter how hard I try to wrap my head around it. I guess the feeling is that somehow having a transgendered individual in such a public setting will somehow encourage our children into "deviant" lifestyles. Of course nothing could be farther from the truth.
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Lets discount the fact that Chaz Bono is an out-of-shape (read fat) little person who is reportedly "rhythmically challenged" and he doesn't have much of a fan base. (The LGBT Community aren't going to vote for somebody simply because he's transgendered: they have too much taste for that.) Bono is likely to be voted off VERY EARLY. Itty bitties who happen to be watching the show (and there's a whole blog on THAT waiting to be written!) aren't likely to know what "transgendered" is--unless the parents make an issue of it! Children old enough to be aware of what that IS will already likely have had their opinions influenced by family and peers. The bottom line is--unless a child is ALREADY Gay, Lesbian or Transgendered it's going to have no effect on them whatsoever unless maybe their the idea that LGBTs aren't any different than other people. But we can't have that now, can we?
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On one level I suppose I can (sort of) understand why parents wouldn't want their children exposed to a dangerous lifestyle: that being said, I just don't see how that could have much of a negative effect on the little darlings if they weren't already leaning in that direction. Further, I can't see why ANYONE would feel the need to publish death threats against ANYONE. I mean, come on people, we don't live in Iran! I thought Americans respected the right for others to have different beliefs. I know that most of this is just smack-talking perpetrated by the anonymous nature of the Internet but it saddens me that the United States has come (or is it come back?) to this.
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In the end only time will tell how much the threatened boycott will have on Dancing With The Stars. Personally I doubt that there will be anything more than a very minor blip. Still, I'm sure that if the ratings DO take a major dive I'm sure DWTS will find some way to boot Bono. (I'm pretty confident there won't remotely be a need of that.) It's just too bad that those upset by the guy's presence won't use it to open a dialog or maybe re-examine their own prejudicess.
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'nuff said.
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