Ethnic Avenue – The Street That Crosses All the Others

Posts Tagged ‘White People Can’t Dance’

The source of the overwhelming majority of stereotypes about White girls at-large, the Straight-Up White Girl is probably the most abundant variety of White girl. Because their fashion and language can vary by region and conditions, they’re often misclassified into one of the group’s subsidiary, niche member classes: the “Valley girl,” sorority chicks, mall girls, girl-sport athletes (e.g., volleyball), cheerleaders, and others who make up the overall species.

But not every White girl is a Straight-Up White Girl. The group excludes some notable cousins like Sporty-Crunchy White Girl, Gangsta White Girl, and Indie-Hipster White Girl.

Appearance & Dead-Giveaways

• Immaculate, braces-straight teeth to match straight hair
• Unmistakable “White-girl accent” and inflection; heavy use of space-fillers like “she-was-like”
• Displays the absolutely latest fashions and trends (e.g., Ugg boots with mini skirt)
• Seemingly unaware of, or indifferent to, dressing exactly like one another
• Legs and feet that never seem to get cold (flips flops, shorts–even in winter—at the faintest sign of decent weather)
• Fond of loud “woo-ing” to publicly express their approval of things

Lifestyle & Tendencies

• Survive on a steady diet of entrée-sized salads, fancy coffee drinks, and heavy cell phone use
• Drive around in Volkswagen Jettas or similar, “cute” girl-cars
• In warm weather regions, will often ride around in beach-cruiser bicycles (in flip-flops and shorts, no less)
• “Love to dance,” but unwittingly perpetuate the white-girls-can’t-dance stereotype when they do
• Carelessly unaware of realities beyond their immediate, privileged existence
• Painfully unaware of the ephemeral nature of beauty, their tendency to age poorly, and the expiration date for their time-limited lifestyle
• Become embittered and bitchy in their 30s, when their favorable position in society–directly associated with their youth and perceived desirability– starts to erode into mean and cruel cougar-hood

If you’re up late enough watching TV, you start getting the extended commercials for things that tend to appeal to up-late slobs (e.g., Girls Gone Wild tapes, no-work exercise machines, seductive get-rich-quick schemes).

Lately, I’ve been seeing this gem from our friends at eDiets a lot (watch as much as you can tolerate):

Apart from being entirely too long, repetitive, and giving you a nagging case of that embarrassed-even-though-it’s-not-you feeling, this commercial is another sign that the end-of-days is hurtling toward us.

Five Disturbing Things about This Commercial

1. We’re such collective fat-asses these days that you can actually take out two-minute ads on TV for unnecessary “diet plans” and still turn a nice profit.

2. People know so little about basic nutrition that having someone else prepare every single one of your meals and ship it to your door “fresh” is considered a viable option for eating healthy. What’s next: eShits.com, a service where someone else takes your shits for you? You heard it here first.

3. Insultingly out-dated “rap music,” with whack-ass rhymes and tired “hip-hop” phrases (“I got it going on”) and gestures (raise the roof). The only thing missing is a line of kids doing the Running Man in the background.

4. Lamely, and transparently, trying to legitimize the use of a “rap song” by prominently featuring a black girl—who, from her before-and-after pictures, doesn’t even appear to have lost very much weight.

5. Setting back White girls everywhere—who have been working tirelessly to erode the pesky stereotype they can’t dance—by putting on some of the worst White-lady dancers imaginable.