... But Never Better Late

I was on this on Thursday (w/ the assistance of memeorandum) what took the rest of you losers so long?

And thanks for the credit, y'all.

Niko Geyer

Learn something:

Ballanchine’s version became a huge success, partially because of his choreography and overall vision for the production, partly because it was televised in 1957 and 1958, making it a national tradition, and partly because it catered to the sensibilities and anxieties of Cold War America, by creating a cultural experience reflecting the social norms of the time.

“Balanchine’s The Nutcracker is a tribute to idealized middle-class family life,” writes Kodat. “Fathers dance with their daughters with gentle ceremony and decorous affection; mothers come to the rescue of sons left without a dance partner; children squabble and their parents smooth things over; and, most important, the pleasures of holiday feasting are presented unalloyed by working-class anxiety or upper-class decadence.”

While previous versions of The Nutcracker had engaged with the weirdness of the story that inspired it and unsettling, possibly pedophilic characters like Herr Drosselmeier, Balanchine produced a version that said “there is nothing foolish or hypocritical or ridiculous, let alone sinisterly Freudian, about the joys of family life and conspicuous consumption.” In 1950s America, that was the message–and the ballet–that stuck.

Fucking everything has to be about middle-class sheep, dunnit?