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Wisconsin High School Bans Suggestive Dancing
Filed under: Opinions
If you grew up in the '80s, movies like Footloose and Dirty Dancing were both an indelible part of your coming of age memories and the soundtrack of your life. Who can forget what fun it was to watch Johnny teach Baby all the sexy dance moves she was missing out on before her family arrived at the Catskills resort?
Which is why I had to chuckle when I came across a story about a Wisconsin high school banning "dirty dancing" and the predictable student protests that inevitably ensued. "It's our way of culture now. It's how we dance," complained one sophomore.
In the classic high school musical, Grease, dirty dancers were eliminated from the American Bandstand contest with disapproving glares and angry taps on the shoulder from the adult chaperons who also served as judges for the televised dance competition at Rydell High. I always wondered how the flamboyant, middle-aged looking Cha Cha seemed to skirt elimination at every turn.
Today, Cha Cha would have been caught, along with those pesky mooners, as school officials at Menomonee Falls High School have installed multiple security cams in the gymnasium to help identify dirty dancers.
Parents and teachers complain that today's high school dance moves resemble sexual foreplay or simulated sex. "Grinding" and "freak" dancing (a move where one partner backs his/her backside into the other partners crotch) are the norm. Students say that security cams and busybody chaperons are infringing on their constitutional rights. Meanwhile, school districts struggle to walk the fine line between mollifying parental demands for standards of conduct and decency at school-sponsored events and inviting an ACLU lawsuit from potentially litigious grinders and their parents. The debate bitterly divided a small town in Texas and the made-for-movie controversy landed on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
So, what's a parent to do? No one wants to be the killjoy Puritan preacher-dad of Footloose, and yet, I had to admit that after watching the school dance footage from the Milwaukee news channel that covered the Menomonee High controversy, I wished that my 10-year-old would never leave the fourth grade. I also felt a lot more sympathy for my own mother who, much to my embarrassment, was known to peek into windows of my high school dances to make sure everything was kosher.
If you troll the comments sections of news stories about high school dirty dancing bans, opinions range from, "Aw, come on, you forgot what it was like to be young," to students who say they actually want the school to enforce standards because the explicit dancing made them uncomfortable. One parent suggested the following:
"If you want the kids to stop this, all you have to do is have a dozen or so adults and faculty join them on the dance floor doing the same type of 'grinding' they are doing. The kids will be horrified. 'Grinding' would go out of style faster than the 'Macarena.'"
Sage words, indeed! The only thing more certain than teenagers pushing the envelope, is their universal disgust at the realization that the adults they think they are "shocking" were once hormonal teenagers themselves. A prank like that could make chaperoning your teen's next school dance a lot more interesting.
Related: Dance Yourself Slim, Should You Shield Your Child from Pop Culture?
Sage words, indeed! The only thing more certain than teenagers pushing the envelope, is their universal disgust at the realization that the adults they think they are "shocking" were once hormonal teenagers themselves. A prank like that could make chaperoning your teen's next school dance a lot more interesting.
Related: Dance Yourself Slim, Should You Shield Your Child from Pop Culture?
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
2-03-2010 @ 10:00PM
Sifrina said...Great idea for dealing w/this problem at dances! And I LOVE your mom's approach (secret agent mom!!). I never did anything that qualified as "dirty dancing" growing up but I do remember when "La Lambada" came out and the dance was pretty much banned in Venezuela when I was living there, even at the nightclubs!
Fast forward 20 years and my latest concern is about which version of the Macarena they are playing in my son's PE class. Look, I'm all for dance as exercise but certain versions of that song are very suggestive and I know there are Spanish-speaking children in that class (sadly, my son is not one of them, which is my fault for not teaching him Spanish - it's a long story). Anyway, I sent an email and the PE teacher assured me she ran her version past her Latino friends before playing it and was confident this was the clean one. I'm sure middle school dances will just about send me over the edge!! Why can't they just do the ballroom dancing from before?? Swing is SO MUCH fun! BUT I'd even settle for break-dancing! (just have to sanitize the clothes afterwards.)
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2-07-2010 @ 12:32PM
Sifrina said...I have to express my surprise and disappointment that no one else has commented on this post yet (4 days later). Rachel, where are your fellow conservatives on this topic? Or are they just only focused on eradicating abortion and worshipping Sarah Palin? Shouldn't there be more than just these 2 issues?!
I'm a Democrat and not at all a prude (just hearing about banning dancing gives me a little chill), but this has to be a concern for ALL parents of minors! Hey people, dealing with this behavior is in direct furtherance of abstinence (if you are truly trying to teach your kids that) and YOUR responsibility to teach your kids how to behave morally and appropriately in public.
Ok, I got that off my chest. Thank you.
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2-08-2010 @ 1:25PM
Erin said...Another democrat who is angry and loves abortions, big surprise!
3-02-2010 @ 9:38AM
Abby said...Please ... at least we're to the point of understanding that nobody LOVES abortions. There is a difference between supporting individual choice and "loving" anything morally ambiguous. I support our troops ... but I certainly don't love war, or love THIS war. I support my friend who is going through a divorce, but I absolutely don't love the breakdown of family values.
Statements like the one you have made are both irritating and ignorant.
2-08-2010 @ 1:58PM
Sifrina said...Erin - You can take whatever shots you want at me but I'm actually not angry at all. I just care about kids and I am concerned about teen/tween promiscuity and I definitely don't love abortions (I'm pro-choice). If this is the best comment/contribution you can muster up (instead of intelligently addressing the real issue, which should be of concern to all of us), then that is just sad.
You actually proved my point in my 2nd post - single issue focus.
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3-02-2010 @ 9:34AM
Abby said...I don't think this topic is as much about POLITICS as it is about PARENTING. Frankly, I don't care about my childrens' constitutional rights! I care about their well-being ... both mind and body. The type of dancing I saw from footage of the Menomonee school was inappropriate for children who are still developing emotionally, socially, academically, and morally. It is just another example of how sex, and sexual innuendos, have become a part of our daily living ... now so common that we actually have to stop and think about whether something like this is inappropriate or not! In my opinion, it is liken to child pornography ...
All that and I'm a bleeding-heart liberal!
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