So the voting should be weighted so that a panel of just four experts who know what they're talking about have as much say in the final result as the votes of millions of 'ordinary' people? An interesting idea that'll never catch on!
It's not JUST a popularity contest though. It's a mix of who the judges think did best & who those viewers who can be bothered to vote like the most. It never ends up with a real donkey in the last weeks.
Hamza had the highest scoring dance 6 times. The same as Fleur, who scored more highly in the final. Helen only scored highest three times, and two of those were the same excellent dance. Helen also had the lowest scoring dance twice, when Fleur never did. It's amazing how people can claim Helen was robbed because Strictly is a personality contest, when Helen was behind Hamza and Fleur on pretty much every key metric. They clearly just liked her personality more. To me, Hamza was the standout. He had no prior dance experience, and had more x-factor moments than anyone else. He also had a very likable humbleness and groundedness to him, and Jowitza was very likable and incredibly good even for a professional. If Hamza had messed up the final dance, maybe he wouldn't have won. But he absolutely aced it, and was the deserved winner throughout the series.
Another thing that gets factored in is that the male role requires the specific skill of leading and while quite a few celebs can get the basic hoofwork reasonably good, few of them lead well, which Hamza did. The lifts were also utterly spectacular.
Er, yes he did: https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/strictlys-hamza-yassin-performs-salsa-28753350 @Moose is right that it is harder for men because they have to lead.
Misquotation: “Backwards and in high heels” The comment that the dancer Ginger Rogers did everything that her partner Fred Astaire did, but ‘backwards and in high heels’ and therefore with extra difficulty, is often attributed to Rogers herself. Rogers, however, denied it, although she recounted an anecdote which gave force to the expression. In her autobiography My Story (1991), she said that she generally practised in low heels, and changed to higher heels when filming. When choreographing 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’, Fred Astaire forgot that she would be wearing high heels. As a result, trying to achieve 'a backwards three-step turn-jump up the stairs, she nearly lost her balance. She believed, though, that the actual line was the coinage of the cartoonist Bob Thaves. Years after the near-fall she described, a friend sent her a cartoon by Bob Thaves, in his 'Frank and Ernest’ series, from a Los Angeles newspaper. In the cartoon (which certainly popularized if it did not originate the saying), Frank and Ernest are shown gazing at a billboard announcing a Fred Astaire film festival. The caption reads: 'Sure he was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did…backwards and in high heels.’
I’m solely talking about those who think it’s fixed because of the ‘Woke BBC’. You know exactly what they mean when they say that. You didn’t have to reply to me on it #149 but you did and chose an irrelevant cohort for some reason. The public choose and they can choose for whatever reason they wish, for example for who they thought was the best dancer. They chose Hamza. Saying it’s the ‘woke BBC’ attempts to denigrate an achievement by a black person by implying it had to be fixed. Unpleasant.
Good for those who thought Hamza was the best dancer Who knows ? I don't care. Maybe those who boo CRH for his honest assessment on all dancers need to have a word with themselves ? . Cos if a non binary Pakistani lesbian with one leg got pelters due to their lack of dancing skills then we all know the cancel mob would be out in force demanding this that and the other. Tell me it ain't so @Moose
Cobblers and this is like you doing a bad parody of yourself. If you watched the show, you will know that there was one dancer continually put through by the public despite having virtually no dancing skills (but being very entertaining). That was non-disabled, heterosexual, white man, Tony Adams. Craig never gave him more than four points. Frankly, who on Earth is your imaginary Pakistani lesbian aimed at? For all your moaning about how middle class people and the ‘cancel mob’ look down on the rest of us, you sometimes display a shocking opinion of others.
So if a black guy , as opposed to a middle aged white guy, was the 2023 buffoon . You would be pushing back against those who would be shouting loud at racism? Really ? You would do that ?
That’s utterly in your own head. And that’s the problem with this conversation. It’s all imagined. You say the show/viewers/BBC would patronise someone for having multiple personal characteristics. To the extent that they would ignore Craig. I’m simply pointing out that the viewers did that, for Tony. Because he was a flipping good laugh and a sport. Give people some credit and stop thinking that everyone thinks and behaves like Daily Mail or Julia Hartley Brewer claims.
Sir Michael’s take. https://x.com/michaeltakemp/status/1705848129432547424?s=46&t=oqOMSJXE_g7J5C7kNPG9LA
Shame more people don't take an interest in politics and activism as they do wittering on about this tedious programme which is another of the Beeb's attempts at chasing the ratings. In the past perhaps they could have done a documentary series on dances of the world. Namely travel from continent to continent do discuss some of the amazing art forms in ethnic and folk dance as in South America, Africa and especially in places like India and across Europe where such forms are on the danger of being forgotten and perhaps the associated music. For now though I'l leave you with these amazing works....Real talent compared to the trashy street dance everywhere.
Everyone is perfectly entitled to take it or leave it, but Strictly is a celebration of Worldwide dance, Rumba, Samba, Tango, Cha Cha Cha etc. Last season it showcased African dance. What your highlighted dances lack is a back story about a participant’s sadly deceased Gran and people telling each other how amazing each other and it all is.
Yes. It's high time the BBC showed a documentary about traditional dance and folk music of central Asia during it's prime family viewing slot on Saturday evening
This is a bit mean-spirited, isn’t it? The programme gives lots of people happiness and something to look forward to especially as winter draws on. In view of how **** many of those people’s lives might be, surely that’s a good thing?
BBC is so dumbed down nowadays. Aside from a few bastions. Just chasing the lowest common denominator. They do but I'm talking about folk and ethnic dances and actually having someone go there and explain with experts from there how they originated, their meaning and importance in their cultures. I haven't seen any Indian dance forms on there for instance. It's just a few popular dance forms and highly commercialized ones at that. Television can be used as a medium to inform and educate. But it's all driven now by viewing numbers. I suppose we have to be grateful for BBC4 given the decline of BBC2 and even then they are not making many new programmes due to budget cuts. Just look at the state of channels like Discovery and the History channel and what they have turned into instead of their original remit. If you want a documentary on Aurelian for instance you'll have to go to Youtube.
It's a load of tripe. More people might be happier if they knew they had fuel security rather than watching yet more celebrities desperate to maintain their profile prance about the stage with the Beeb desperate for the merchandising.
Oh come on, lighten up. You sound like the most po-faced of Guardian readers. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it. It’s not as if there is an absence of choice. I imagine people made the same sort of complaints about the Generation Game fifty years ago. Chasing ratings on a Saturday night is hardly new.
Sounds like a Guardian reader? Blimey, what an odd choice of attack on this one. Who is it who is usually down on the Wokey Cokey?
Nothing to do with Strictly per se, it was the remark about fuel poverty trumping light entertainment. Are you suggesting that no Guardian reader has ever been known to pontificate about “issues”? I speak as one myself.
But even a po-faced Telegraph reader wouldn’t make the claim that we should be more worried about fuel poverty, would they? I didn’t say this was true of all Guardian readers… it clearly isn’t, given that Mrs K follows a Strictly blog on the Guardian website.
Fully half of your examples are...ahem....as Cuban as the royal palm tree! They'd have a problem making the show if it was only good old brexity British dances. In Latin America we have the rumba, the chachacha, the tango, the rumba, the danzón, the danzonete, the merengue, the cumbia, the salsa, the mambo, the bachata, the bomba, the plena, the regaeton...Well shall I continue? British dances: The Morris dance The wedding reception shuffle That one where they all sit on the floor one behind the other and pretend to row a boat The long hair head wobble heavy metal one.
Yes, I wonder how many of the celeb saturday night hoofers and granny viewers are aware that when they do the chachacha, they are basically paying tribute to the pantheon of Yoruba orisha gods... "The basic footwork pattern of cha-cha-cha (one, two, three, cha-cha-one, two, three) is also found in several Afro-Cuban dances from the Santería religion. For example, one of the steps used in the dance practiced by the Orisha Ogun religion features an identical pattern of footwork. These Afro-Cuban dances predate the development of cha-cha-cha. Thus, the footwork of the cha-cha-cha was likely inspired by these Afro-Cuban dances."
Great British dances all of them and you completely ignore the lovely country dancing we all hated doing at school and never went back to.
