What I'm working on - March 2025

Hi Patrons! Happy spring and happy 9-1-1 season 8B to all who observe.

This month I finally do have a big sprawling project I'm working on: It's still the early stages, but I'd like my next video to be about the STEP UP SERIES.

I stole this graphic from The Wrap

Yes, going on that rant about Step Up sequels in my Oscars video reminded me just how much I have to say about that franchise. And while rewatching the first film, the muses finally smiled upon me, Xanadu (1980)-style, and gave me a great idea for how to frame the video.

This happens to me every time I get a new video idea

Specifically, I'd like to use the Step Up franchise to discuss the larger context and history of the dance film as a genre. This is mostly inspired by my love of both the Step Up films and the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals. I'm envisioning using each individual Step Up film to discuss a different element of dance film history/influence. I don't have everything mapped out yet, but here are my ideas so far:

Step Up (2006) and the marrying of the classical and the popular - Here, I'd look into the origins of the central conceit of Step Up, this desire to intertwine classical dance and music styles with more modern, popular dance/music styles that may be considered more lowbrow or 'common.' I think I'd mostly tie it to the Fred and Ginger musical Shall We Dance (1937), in which Fred's ballet dancer wishes to blend ballet with popular jazz dancing, which he finally achieves in his romance with Ginger's Broadway starlet. I'm sure there are other movies to connect this to, but that's my starting point.

Step Up 2: The Streets (2008): Appreciation and appropriation - I don't have this one fully ironed out yet, but I know I want to discuss this film's messy race and class politics. On the surface, there are some unfortunate optics (white girl and boy + mostly white dance crew from preppy arts school show up a lower-class dance crew led by two black dancers who are framed as one-dimensional villains), but there are things that run deeper, like the film culminating in our white protagonist convincing a crowd at 'The Streets' dance competition that her lame preppy dance crew deserves to compete because "...it shouldn’t matter what we wear, what school or what neighborhood we’re from." It kind of does though, right? I'm fascinated by the way the film waves away the issues of class and race from street dancing. I think I want to refer back to early breakdancing movies of the 1980s, because it seems like there might be some connections in how those films appropriated and kind of whitewashed (politically, not necessarily literally racially) breaking for a mainstream audience. Again, my takeaway isn't fully baked yet, but I know this is the angle I'm interested in. I did find an article on race in the film in the Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen (a book that exists, thank god) so I'm working on it.

Step Up 3D (2010) and the scene-stealing second leads - Okay this is a less cerebral one. I remember Step Up 3D being near-unwatchably boring and stupid, so I don't know that I'll have as impressive an academic take on it. But I do think the film bears a striking resemblance to the 1935 Fred and Ginger film Roberta. Mainly, Roberta features an utterly boring and sexless lead couple, Irene Dunne and Randolph Scott (good in other things but lifeless in this) being completely upstaged by the comic side pairing of Fred and Ginger, whose chemistry and artistry is electrifying as always. Step Up 3D features a similarly nothing lead couple and only comes to life when Fred and Ginger-style comic side pairing Moose and Alyson Stoner (I don't remember their character's name) are dancing. And funnily enough, at one point the film has Moose and Alyson Stoner love interest dance to one of Fred Astaire's recordings of I Won't Dance, a song he first performed in ROBERTA!!! It's just too good not to make the connection.

I'm not yet sure about my exact angle on Step Up Revolution (2012), I'll have to rewatch first, but I'm thinking it might be productive to compare it to Dirty Dancing (1987). From what I remember, Revolution is the Step Up film that most resembles Dirty Dancing. Rich girl and poor boy (played amateurishly by young ingenu Ryan Guzman), oppressive rich dad, etc. etc. Of course, they're both competent dancers at the onset of the story, which kind of makes it less interesting than Dirty Dancing, but such is the way of the Step Up sequel. There might be some things to say about representations of class conflict in both films. However, I do remember thinking Revolution was the worst film of the series in terms of straight-up quality, so that will be fun.

Just look at their outfits, man

Finally, I want to use Step Up: All In (2014) to discuss the SCREWBALL MUSICAL!!! One of my first thoughts when I first watched All In was that it was so clearly indebted to the screwball comedy. The opening montage of a now down-on-his-luck Ryan Guzman taking a slew of humiliating dance auditions, he and his crew struggling to make ends meet since the prize money of the previous film has dried up, the cynical, self-reflexive answer to the type of rags-to-riches story most Step Up movies are... it's kind of genius! Not to mention the film is a sort of spin on the comedy of remarriage. Not in the traditional sense, where the two leads have been together, since parted, and must reconcile, but in the sense that the leads of this film are both leads of previous Step Up films, now alone after having been abandoned by their previous film lovers. Again, it's a rather daring subversion of the happily-ever-after dance romance film conclusion, but it also calls to mind a different sort of remarriage, two components of other romances coming together to make a new whole. I might tie it to films like Swing Time (1936) (my least favorite Fred and Ginger movie but possibly the most relevant), It's Always Fair Weather (1955) for its subversive cynicism, and a couple classic comedies of remarriage. I don't know. I just can't wait to talk about Step Up: All In. I fucking love that movie.

Leaked footage from 9-1-1 8x12

All of this to say that it looks to be a pretty ambitious project. At the same time, I'm trying not to let the scope get away from me. About a year ago, I actually was planning to make a video reviewing all of the Fred and Ginger movies, but I ended up researching and planning so much that it became way too large in scale and I lost my way and decided to abandon it. But I feel better this time. I think I have a very specific methodology, and I intend to stick to it. I don't have a timeline of when exactly this video will be out, I'm still only watching and researching. But I'll keep you updated and share what I can! Here's my very broad watchlist if anyone's interested (bold are unwatched):

If you feel like watching all of the Step Up movies to prepare, and maybe all the Fred and Ginger movies, and perhaps some other famous dance films from the last ~96 years of cinema, be my guest.

Thanks so much for your support this month! Drop a favorite dance movie below....