Bristol Palin and Sarah Palin: Unlikely Winners?
Bristol Palin's ascent to the final round of Dancing With The Stars isn't just an abomination, it's an allegory. Anyone who doesn't believe that Bristol's continued success on the show, which is totally at odds with her dancing skills and entertainment value, has more to do with Sarah Palin, politics, and the frightening power of the Tea Party than with any dance factors, just isn't paying attention.
Bristol's explanation is that America loves an underdog and that the viewers have voted for her because of her charming innocence, her growth, and her perseverance. This lame story holds that the dancing enthusiasts who comprise DWTS's audience are captivated by Bristol's wooden-legged and stony-faced performances week after week, performances that have persistently lacked energy, precision, grace, and any hint of actual entertainment value.
This is, of course, complete unfiltered nonsense. If the viewing public purely wanted to see a non-dancer evolve into a vision on hardwood, there were plenty of better candidates. Virtually every "star" eliminated up to this point was a better dancer than Bristol Palin, and several of them had no more experience in the ballroom than she had.
Given equal weeks of practice, any of them would far exceed Bristol's performances now. Even David Hasselhoff, the first out, would be closer to Fred Astaire than Bristol is to Ginger Rogers at this point in the competition. And if the main consideration was innocent cluelessness, we could have retained The Situation, who might have had some "acting" experience on Jersey Shore, but actually had less time before live audiences than "teen spokesmodel" Bristol. (As an aside, Bristol and The Sitch have a PSA on abstinence/safe sex that's more entertaining than either of their rumbas or cha chas. You can decide whether his display of magnum condoms is TMI or wishful thinking.)
No, this isn't even remotely about dancing or entertainment. It's about Bristol Palin's mother, who we've seen way too much of, week after week, in video "packages" and sitting with her idiot grin and her first dude in the front row of the ballroom audience.
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