Who Knew That You Could Tango To Fall Out Boy?

noah | November 20, 2007 2:00 am

I’ll admit that I’m pretty much unaware of Dancing With The Stars beyond the fact that it pulls in boatloads of viewers, although this clip–in which Jennie Garth and Derek Hough do, indeed, engage in a rigorous tango to the strains of “The Take Over, The Break’s Over”–is making me think that it’s for the best.

Between the My Chemical Romance-inspired outfits, the karaoke-on-cough-syrup cover (so as to better make the dance “dramatic,” I guess, although this cover is seriously veering into “you ruined my favorite song” territory), and the fact that Garth and Hough seem to be either in “jazzhands-face mode” or trying to prevent themselves from cracking up, I was in a full-body cringe for pretty much the entire minute and 46 seconds. Is it camp? Perhaps. Or maybe it’s the new brand of camp that’s designed to get an instantaneous rise out of, uh, blogger types so as to increase “visibility” for the show. Which, of course, leads to the inevitable denouement where all of American popular culture nicks its concepts of “linearity” and “cohesion” from the 2007 Video Music Awards. Suddenly, the idea of the blipvert seems so… benign.