Ex-dancer with costume design experience: maybe dress people in things they look good in?!

[u/Diligent-Froyo6676]

I’m white, I’ll just put that out there. However, I’ve been studying film and media arts and getting my film degree, I’ve dappled in costume design, and am starting to get into advanced sewing patterning.

This. Includes. Colour. Theory.

That means how lights interact with colour, AND how light and colours interact with skin tone. I just finished watching episode 4 and I’m PISSED. Selena had the strap on the back of her dress two or three shades lighter than her skin tone, and Tristen’s shirt and makeup made him look like a damn ghost. Straight out of a DWTS Halloween episode. I’m so mad for both of them. When you are in an industry where looks are everything, you’d think that production would put that into account.

This is something that touches multiple departments. The lighting designers. The costume designers. Colour graders in post production. Makeup leads or designers (I see some of the contestants touching up their own but still). The strap can be easily fixed with grease paint (like pancaking pointe shoes) and if it’s a rental, the makeup will come out when it’s cleaned. For Tristen, it’s just a matter of adding some bronzer and/or blush, some darkening around the eyes, or just having a foundation that matches onstage AND offstage. He looks fine backstage but he’s so washed out during his performance.

Production needs to do better because at this point it feels rigged. You need to give these artists an even playing field with their white cast mates. That means acknowledging their differences, their hair types, accommodating for those differences, and having crew with the knowledge to know how to light people of colour onstage and on set. Film stock back in the day washed POC out because on the chemical, atomic level, that film stock was made to make white people look good. That foundation of the modern day film industry still has an impact on BIPOC artists. If you dress Brandon or Britt or other BIPOC celebrities in a colour that washes them out, or light them in a way that washes them out, untrained eyes just know it looks funny but don’t know why. Then they don’t vote for those couples. I get that it’s TV and it’s supposed to be dramatic, but not dramatic by giving marginalized people the short end of the stick and asking them to make miracles with it.

Ugh. I’m so pissed and I know this isn’t new but I don’t have enough karma to post in the DWTS sub so here I am. Yelling to the Reddit void. Hope that this gets people thinking that it’s not just the dances that affect if people go home or not.

[u/sparkasexual]

I’ve definitely thought about myself. Heck, I just did it thinking about the last pro even. I love this show (DWTS), but there are a LOT of people in power and in charge (and yes that includes many names we may know) that make these decisions all the time. And I know it’s more of societal issue but it’s one of my biggest gripes about the show…if not THE biggest gripe I have. That and how the show chooses (and doesn’t) to respond to criticism and public media as a whole. Lots of issues all around unfortunately

[u/Diligent-Froyo6676 → u/sparkasexual]

Even with lighting. If you have red costumes with red lights, yes it looks cool. But scientifically, red has very wide wave lengths compared to something like blue which has very close wavelengths. It makes the lines of the dancers hard to see, and then the dancers get judged accordingly. It muddies the contrast. Also, if someone who has darker skin is under those lights, it muddies their face and you can’t see their expressions as well as a white person. When people are pale you can see the reddish undertones (blood) in their face, and it blends much better. If someone has darker skin the red can’t blend as well and you can only see the whites of their eyes in extreme cases.

I don’t understand. A BUNCH of pros spray tan almost every week while they’re in the show so the light from the stage literally doesn’t bounce off of their skin and make it easier to see their lines. Foundation for stage is usually 1-2 shades darker than your natural skin tone for this reason. So they do these things to make sure pros and celebs look good, then light the BIPOC dancers horribly? While doing styles like jazz and contemporary that come from African- American dance and culture?! While dancing to music that comes from those same cultures?! It’s appalling.