{"id":2764,"date":"2007-05-04T18:10:13","date_gmt":"2007-05-04T18:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wpotclass\/?p=107"},"modified":"2007-05-04T18:10:13","modified_gmt":"2007-05-04T18:10:13","slug":"behaving-badly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/2007\/05\/behaving-badly\/","title":{"rendered":"Behaving Badly"},"content":{"rendered":"

<![CDATA[My favorite quickie news magazine, The Week<\/a>, reported on Heather Mills, who was on a transatlantic flight when the movie system broke down. She responded by doing a foxtrot with dance partner Jonathan Roberts, reminiscent apparently of her dancing on “Dancing with the Stars<\/a>“, in the aisle to entertain passengers. The audience did not applaud, or even respond. <\/p>\n

In the blogosphere and on websites, the story is titled “Heather Mills<\/a> bores plane passengers”, “Heather Mills ‘Humiliated’ After Impromptu Dance<\/a>“, and even “Heather Mills Does a Rubbish Dance on a Plane<\/a>“.
\n<\/p>\n

Now, you might think I’d consider this a non-story, but I am seeing here a distancing of a generation of people from other people. Whether or not she was a celebrity, Mills and Roberts tried to entertain the passengers, and were greeted with total silence. How rude. Non-response after giving it your all. Did the passengers think they were watching TV? Did it never enter their minds that it might hurt the dance couple’s feelings, or be socially inappropriate to not respond?<\/p>\n

I have had similar experiences in teaching (I’m sure most teachers have). You give it your all, and are stared at in stony silence. I see a connection between passive media and this sort of behavior. One becomes accustomed to TV and the web presenting without requiring a response. At times I have wanted to dance around myself and say, “excuse me, I am not a TV, but a real live person — can you give me some feedback, please?”<\/p>\n

On the other hand, perhaps the performers were used to it. I actually watched a single episode of “Dancing with the Stars” (I am so not a TV watcher), and was stunned. I watched because I enjoy ballroom dancing, and was told in dance class that lessons nationwide are experiencing enrollment growth because of this show. The totally lack of civility (not to mention the minimal time showing actual dancing) appalled me. Amazing levels of rudeness from the judges and contestants, and it was obvious that (a) that was what viewers tuned in for, and (b) everyone behaving badly thought they were being witty. Voltaire would be horrified.<\/p>\n

When I mentioned my reaction to people who watch TV a lot, they said, “oh, yeah, all the reality shows are like that”. So reality is performers doing things and getting insulted. Then real reality is people trying to entertain others on a plane and being treated rudely. The implication for civil social discourse is scary. Manners are sometimes called the oil that makes the machine of society run more smoothly. I guess we’re more interested in the friction.]]><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<![CDATA[My favorite quickie news magazine, The Week, reported on Heather Mills, who was on a transatlantic flight when the movie system broke down. She responded by doing a foxtrot with dance partner Jonathan Roberts, reminiscent apparently of her dancing on “Dancing with the Stars“, in the aisle to entertain passengers. The audience did not applaud, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}