Dance Wars! Staying Alive v Center Stage
- Jayde Walker
- Oct 5, 2009
- 3 min read
Today's Trash: Staying Alive (1983) and Center Stage (2000)
Why It's Been Binned:
I have a soft spot for dance films. If there’s even a faint whiff of legwarmer, I’m there; I think it’s the frustrated childhood dancer coming out in me. Unfortunately, most dance films are pretty shit - schmaltzy, cliché-ridden and two-dimensional. Dirty Dancing is the Citizen Kane of the dance genre, which is to women what action is to men. It’s allegorical vanilla porn for the sexually repressed. You have all the intimations of sex within the unrealistic dance routines without (in most cases) the actual act being shown.
Tell Us About It, Janet:
Center Stage follows the adventures of insipid Jody Sawyer (Amanda Schull), a hot but shitty dancer who miraculously gains entry into the prestigious American Ballet Academy. There, she rooms with two outstanding dance cliches – Eva (Zoe Saldana), a talented, but poor minority with attitude and uptight teacher’s pet Maureen (Susan May Pratt), the anorexic bitch with the pushy stage mum. Jody also finds herself embroiled in a love triangle with hunky-yet-bland student Charlie (Sascha Radetsky) and cocky bad boy Cooper Neilson (Ethan Stiefel), the slutty star of the American Ballet Company who's still in love with his ex.
However, if it’s unrealistic shit all around that you want, you can’t go further than Staying Alive. It’s a dance film with some of the worst dancing and choreography I’ve ever seen. And yet, I love it. I even bought the book version of it. Directed by Sylvester Stallone, Staying Alive was the sequel to the critically acclaimed Saturday Night Fever. It is guilty of some of the worst Hollywood nepotism ever, including a soundtrack by Frank Stallone which gave birth to the 1983 Top Ten hit 'Far From Over'.
Whereas Saturday Night Fever was gritty and urban, Staying Alive was soulless, flashy and cheap. Basically, Tony (John Travolta) has left the disco scene to fail miserably on Broadway. He has a moderately successful dancer girlfriend, Jacqui (Cynthia Rhodes), on whom he cheats with rich bitch starlet Laura (Finola Hughes) but who also lands him a gig in the unfortunately-titled Broadway musical, 'Satan's Alley'.
Trashiest Bits:
Center Stage is sort of like a voyeuristic one night stand. There’s no emotional attachment to the characters but they’re smoking hot. Ethan Stiefel is hilarious as Cooper. He’s like a geeky librarian playing dress-ups. I’ve actually met Stiefel and honestly, he dresses like an accountant in real life. The producers have obvs just thought, 'Fuck it, can’t change the lead now, let’s sex him up with a Harley and a leather jacket'. As our main star, Jody is so annoying and clingy that you never really take to her. It takes about one second for Cooper to bed her – once - and suddenly she’s baking him biscuits, stalking him backstage at shows and calling him her ‘boyfriend’. Calm down, Glenn Close. Center Stage also does involve some suspension of reality at times – like the ridiculous climax where Jody somehow has a complete change of wardrobe, including hair and makeup, onstage in the middle of the routine.
Props go to Staying Alive for a) some awesomely bad 80s costuming and b) the most uninspired, cheesy choreography ever. The high point is the absolutely AWFUL Broadway musical that we are expected to believe is brilliant, complete with gimp costumes and dancers with bleeding breasts. Brilliant.
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