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What’s up with people?
No, really. I want to know. Speaking as a chap who could afford to shed several tonnes of weight, I know flab when I see it and this ain’t it:
Apparently in a recent production of “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker” in New York, a critic suggested
that ballerina Jenifer Ringer of the New York Ballet "looked as if she'd eaten one sugarplum too many".
Okay, the picture above isn’t from the performance, but even so. I’d bet good money that she could afford to gain a few pounds before she made it up to slender from stick.
Alastair Macaulay, the critic defends himself by diverting the argument:
Someone is missing the point here and I don’t think, for once, that it’s me. If the dancing isn’t up to snuff fair enough, but Bloody Hell, just how skinny do these people (male and female) have to be?
Many of Macaulay's defensive arguments stack up at first glance except for one undeniable fact. The subject of his ire is not fat. At all.
And I don’t like ballet, so feel free to gripe about ballet as an artform.
No, really. I want to know. Speaking as a chap who could afford to shed several tonnes of weight, I know flab when I see it and this ain’t it:
Apparently in a recent production of “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker” in New York, a critic suggested
that ballerina Jenifer Ringer of the New York Ballet "looked as if she'd eaten one sugarplum too many".
Okay, the picture above isn’t from the performance, but even so. I’d bet good money that she could afford to gain a few pounds before she made it up to slender from stick.
Ringer, 37, who has suffered from eating disorders in the past, admitted she has a "more womanly" body than most ballerinas, but is not overweight.
Alastair Macaulay, the critic defends himself by diverting the argument:
Notably, the fuss has been about Ms. Ringer’s appearance. No one took issue with what might be considered a much more severe criticism, that the two danced “without adult depth or complexity.” And though I was much harder on Mr. Angle’s appearance, scarcely a reader objected. When I described Nilas Martins as “portly” in The New York Times and Mark Morris as “obese” in the Times Literary Supplement, those remarks were also greeted with silence. Fat, apparently, is not so much a feminist issue as a sexist one. Sauce for the goose? Scandal. Sauce for the gander? No problem.
Someone is missing the point here and I don’t think, for once, that it’s me. If the dancing isn’t up to snuff fair enough, but Bloody Hell, just how skinny do these people (male and female) have to be?
Many of Macaulay's defensive arguments stack up at first glance except for one undeniable fact. The subject of his ire is not fat. At all.
And I don’t like ballet, so feel free to gripe about ballet as an artform.
