Juliet McMains

Let me start out with: the author has a LOT of good points about the way the ballroom industry works. Her main thesis - the "glamor machine" - is totally going on in the ballroom world. Sometimes I caught myself dismissing the great work she's done, just because it seems a little obvious to someone who has been involved (with open eyes!) in the industry for so long.

She makes a lot of painfully true points about the intersection of immigrants and ballroom, and the image professional dancers must project. She's certainly made me think twice about certain relationships in the studios I visit... not rethink, because the relationships are pretty obvious, but to put them in the context of a bigger social system.

But aside from that, this book has a lot of problems.

McMains ignores many aspects of the ballroom world that don't fit her model of an omnipresent oppressive glamor machine. Every point she made brought to mind similar experiences in my own ballroom career, but tons of counter examples too.

Not one of her characters isn't hustling, struggling, or taking advantage of someone. No students who respect their teacher and just want to dance. No am/am partnerships. No happy, fair, supportive studio owners with a white picket fence and two kids. No college teams (and there are TONS on the East Coast). No teens having fun or teaching to pay for college. Not even the rich retirees who have their own fun little social group and don't misuse their instructors. I know these people; I'm surrounded by these people. I don't know if they're the majority everywhere, but to simply ignore their existence because they don't fit her thesis is a joke.

Worse, many of her points are completely unsupported -- just subjective opinion masquerading as fact. The writing style bounces erratically between formal academic language and flowery prose. You can tell that the author has glued together several smaller essays.… (lisätietoja)