Stereotypes Of Celebrities In Dancing With The Stars

For twenty-two seasons Dancing with the Stars (DWTS) has showcased some of the most notable, controversial or even forgotten celebrities of the year. And while at first glance, the cast seems to represent rather diversified demographics, not all demographics are represented equally. There are three demographics to consider in the show: age, ethnicity and gender. While for the most part, these groups have remained consistent in terms of numbers throughout the years, the ratio of contestants who are colored compared to white contestants has almost exclusively remained under represented from season to season. These contestants with colored ethnicities are also generally type casted in terms of their professional background. In this way, DWTS includes …show more content…
Each celebrity (roughly between 10-12 contestants per season on average) is paired with an award winning professional dancer, who teaches these rookie celebrities various dances such as the Waltz, Samba, Cha-cha, or Jive to name a few. Each week the couple performs their dance on live television with the hopes to score highly with the three judges and gain votes from the viewers, and continue on to the next week. The goal for both celebrity contestants and professional dancer is to win the coveted, Mirror Ball. DWTS has been a greatly successful show, landing in the Nielson Ratings’ top ten, season after season. Fernando Delgado accredits this success to the combination of elements including “celebrity, audience involvement, the drama of knockout competition and sex appeal in the context of social forms of dancing.” While the sexual nature of the dances and the costumes attracts the female audience, the inclusion of masculine competitors is what attracts the male audiences. This is what has allowed the show to carry on its success for twenty-two …show more content…
The example he uses for this is Mario Lopez, a Mexican-American actor, who he describes as embodying “the signifiers of Latin Identity”, which is a construct of ballroom dance culture. Because of this expectation to live up to this macho Latin stereotype, Lopez is thus prodded to “act brown”. This depiction of Latin dancers if further reinforced through the costumes and sexualized dancing. Therefore, Mario Lopez’s involvement on the show thus becomes more of an acting role to satisfy this stereotype, than to improve on his athletic ability. The function of this is, again, to draw in viewership towards the show from both females who are attracted by the “lover” aspect and males who are intrigued by the “macho aspect of his