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Dancing with the Majority, er... the Stars

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Bear with me, I realize this is a pretty menial topic in the grand scheme of things.

Last night, Dancing with the Stars offered the perfect pop culture illustration of how the majority often makes bad decisions as a collective or put another way, how democracy sucks. Bristol Palin consistently scored at the bottom of the pack for the last 6 or 7 weeks, sometimes appearing to not know the dance, having to watch her partner for queues of what to do next, making obvious technical mistakes and typically lacking in expressiveness, yet each week she received enough votes to continue dancing while other, likely better, dancers were voted off. Brandy, on the other hand, consistently demonstrated elegance, confidence, technically proficient and emotional laden performances, typically landing her with top scores by the judges.

On last nights show, the combined judges and audience vote sent Bristol to the finals and Brandy was eliminated. Whereas, the knowledgeable and objective judges weighed the merits of each candidate and scored appropriately, the audience voted on who they liked the most according to who knows what criteria. On one show, it was suggested that Bristol "resonated" with the viewing audience because she seemed "real" and people could relate to her because of her inexperience and poor performances. I think that is very likely true, people voted on her because they felt that if they were up there they would have a similar experience. I will acknowledge that Bristol has certainly improved her technical ability throughout the course of the show, though she remains almost stoic during every dance. However, Brandy's dancing and expressiveness is obviously much, much better. It was an injustice, however small.

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I almost tuned in out of curiosity after hearing what was going on, but then I thought better of it. Recently, there was a a poll that put "Dancing with the Stars" as the sixth most watched show, out of 15, for Republicans. In comparison, the show wasn't even listed in the top 15 for people who identified themselves as Democrats. Maybe what is happening is that Bristol is getting a boost from the 'all things Palin' crowd, and I wouldn't be surprised if Palin fans tune in just to watch Bristol dance; or if they think its some sort of battle that must be won for the Palin family.

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