It's been a bad week for gays.  First Adam Lambert lost American Idol, and if that wasn't bad enough, now he won't even confirm whether or not he's gay.  Then California upheld Prop 8 banning gay marriage.  To put a cherry on this anti-gay sundae, Nigel Lythgoe from So You Think You Can Dance continues to prove that homophobia and ballroom dancing aren't mutually exclusive.

Thank God the Tony Awards, hosted by the openly gay Neil Patrick Harris, are just one week away.

But right now it's Nigel Lythgoe who continues to dig himself a grave.  He might be old, but he's still flexible enough to put his foot into his mouth every week.  Last week on the premiere of So You Think You Can Dance, Lythgoe criticized a pair of same-sex ballroom dancers, claiming that he doesn't like the idea of two men dancing together.  Lythgoe eventually apologized after GLAAD got mad.

However, since the auditions were filmed a while ago, this apology didn't find its way into the second episode of season 5 when Nigel and the other judges visited Memphis.  A tall dancer named Travis Prokop told his story about how he loved to dance even though his father was the high school football coach.  In a nice change of pace, the father actually respects and supports his son.

This is a fact Nigel Lythgoe tried to recognize in a positive way, but like the Joe Biden of reality TV, he couldn't get it right.  Instead, he commented on how happy he was that Travis' dad supports him even though he probably wanted a son who plays sports instead of dances.  It's a decent sentiment marred by a poor explanation.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but when Lythgoe spoke, this is all I heard: "I'm sure you're a huge disappointment to your father, but at least he didn't throw you out on the street, which makes him Father of the Year in my book."

I'm sure that's not what he meant, but it's certainly part of his underlying feelings.  Despite judging a dance competition., Lythgoe seems to have a real problem with homophobia.  He openly criticizes any male dancer who doesn't fit his concept of masculinity.

Lythgoe needs to get with the times and learn to appreciate that men can be beautiful and graceful and poetic.  They don't all need to be strong womanizing Russians who toss around 90-pound girls like sacks of potatoes.

But to do this, Nigel would have to open his eyes to the 21st century and realize that not all men are John Wayne.  But it's hard to expect that from someone who would tell Travis to get in there with the football boys and hammer and push his way to fitness.  If he was incapable of getting the unintentional joke he made, he's clearly out of touch with today's youth.



-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image courtesy of FOX)