Equal Opportunity Offenders

My people, my people! I've missed you. Lord knows there's nothing I'd rather be doing than showering the doubloons of my wisdom all over your gruff, mustachioed faces (Topical? OF COURSE I AM), but a girl's gotta eat (read: get spanked by the legal establishment.) I won't bore you with the nitty gritty details of what kept me from your sweet, lovin' arms, but I will say that somebody needs to lighten up just a twee, and that person is the California Civil Court. I gots things to do, Cal. Civ., and frankly I just don't have the time time to be catering to your every ridiculously specific need. I have like, four episodes of Jeopardy on my DVR.

Anyanyanyways, I know we've been belaboring the figure skating motif in the past week, but I just had to bring you the results of last night's Ice Dancing competition, because HOW COULD I NOT? For those of you not slurping up every second of Olympic coverage like the sweet lifemilk it is, last night was the second of the three Ice Dancing components: Compulsory Dance, Original Dance, and Free Dance. It's worth pointing out at this point that of the four figure skating medal events (Pairs, Ice Dancing, Men's & Women's) ONLY Ice Dancing has three components. This is obviously because the IOC knows that what I need in my life is MORE ICE DANCING. MORE! MORE! MORE!

Some team is winning (I think they're Canadian) and everyone else is losing, but who cares about that. The question you should be asking yourself right now is: What was the (un)official theme of last night's griping, edge-of-your-bedazzled-seat Original Dance showcase? Don't worry, I am one step ahead of you loyal reader(s). Without further ado I present to you a recap of:

Offending Everyone: My Culture AND Yours.

Now here's how I think this happened. I imagine being the only division in your sport that doesn't feature death-defying throws, jumps, spins, and lifts can get a little...disheartening. (read: embarrassing.) It's gotta be a little like being the red-headed stepchild of the royal family: you're never going to get noticed unless you cause a little trouble, and that was clearly the inspirational message all the ice dancing teams had written in capital sharpie letters over their dressing-room mirrors before last night's competition. But how to do?  Easy peasy puddin' and pie. What gets you more media attention than anything else? That's right, children: racism.

Here is how the game was played. First each team chose an overall strategy: performing an outlandish (and mildly offensive) caricature of its own country OR performing an outlandish (and moderately to extremely offensive) caricature of a different country. Georgia, Italy, Czech Republic, Estonia, Japan, Ukraine, and Israel were on Team A, playing it safe by choosing to do self-parodies; in my opinion the much less hilarious option. The Italians did an "Italian Dance", the Japanese did a "Japanese Dance," &c. BORING. Estonia did something called "Polka, Waltz, Polka" which seems like it could be their national dance, so I'm going to assume that it is. The best of this category BY FAR was the Israeli team though, who did a "Traditional Jewish Dance" to the merry tune of Hava Nagila. I kid you not. I wish I could say that this was an inspired reworking of a Hebrew classic, but that would be a lie. It was a dude in a yamacha and a girl waving a white napkin confirming everyone's suspicious that Jews spend all their time dancing the hora and wearing funny hats. You're not supposed to know!!

HOWEVER, any old Johnny Ice Dancer can choreograph a crude mockery of his own culture; it takes real kahones to lace up your skates and show everyone that you are not afraid to be brazenly racist on international television. Canada, the US, Russia, France, Britain, China, and Germany all know this, and they came to win. Was anyone surprised Germany made the list? Anyone? No? Good. The Germans get a bye, because well, they're Germans, and who can blame them. More of a shocker was China, who inexplicably chose to do a Greek dance in outfits that looked suspiciously Chinese. Because nothing goes together so well as tiny Asian skaters and traditional Greek peasants. Natch.

To conclude, I'm going to leave you with the Top 5 Most Awesomefensive Dances of the evening. Each of these teams brought their own country's special brand of prejudice to the international games, and they all worked hard to secure the top prize. Sadly, only one team can take home the gold:

5. Canada
Both of the Candian teams did a Flamenco dance, which lets be honest is not really offensive to anyone. It looks pretty, it's a real dance, and who is going to protest? Spain? Please.



4. France
France was actually split--one of their pairs did a Can Can, so technically that puts them in Team A, but they made the Top 5 because team number deux decided to take it down south and go country strong. I'm not sure what les frances think goes on at a rodeo, but I think they might have their American cultural symbols confused.



3. Britain
The U.K. also brought the Dixie jamboree, but they beat out France for the no. 3 spot on authenticity. Not only did they go country, they went country trash. For. the. win. The plot of this dance was as follows: Boy drives truck to rest stop. Boy picks up girl at said rest stop. Boy rides girl like a truck. Did I mention they're brother and sister?



2. The U.S.

Of course 'murica wasn't just going to sit back and let any of those crazy foreigners run away with the Gold! BOTH American teams set their eyes on the prize and singled out crazydiculous foreign traditions to shame and dishonor. The team of Davis/White, a.k.a. the Whitest Crackers in All Christendom,  went all out on an Indian theme:

While the more experienced team of Belbin/Agosto went for the gut with a crafty send up of...Moldovia?



Okay, I know this is all about mocking the unfamiliar, but seriously, what? Perhaps if you had picked a more recognizable and/or recognizable at all culture to mock, you would've taken first place, but now you're going to have to settle for silver WHICH MEANS that the number one spot goes to...

1. Russia

Of course it does. I was prepared for this, but I was not prepared for this. Apparently Domnina & Shabalin changed their costumes for the Olympics, but can you tell? Does it even matter? This routine debuted in January, and it caused a whole mess o' controversy then, but that didn't stop the Soviets from rolling into the Olympics and throwing it down like a cold war nuke. If anything, that probably encouraged them. Mother Russia, back down? Nyet. It is beautiful dance, no? Wonderful costumes, no? Da! Because in Soviet Russia, Ice Dancing offends you.