And I Slowly Fall to My Knees: ABDC Canceled

Look what the evil MTV overlords hath wrought: the cancellation of the all-time most swagtastic reality show of ever (besides RuPaul’s Drag Race, duh): America’s Best Dance Crew! Nuhuhoooo!

It’s terrible, and it’s true. After 7 glorious seasons, BCB fave ABDC will light up our lives no longer. Along with mourning the loss of stereotype-busting, positively superfly Asian American representation on TV, I’m also shedding a nostalgic and grateful tear for the show that spotlighted so many of my future ex-husbands and fap fodder (notably Quest Crew’s Victor Kim and Ryan Feng, ya big smexy galoot).

We salute you, Jabbawockeez, Kaba Modern, Quest Crew, Poreotix, and all the other b-girls, b-boys, and APIA crazy leg shitkickers.

And I hate to admit it, but I’ll even miss Mario Lopez’s corny ass, with his singularly unique brand of teeth-grinding awkwardness combined with inappropriately tight jeans.

You will be missed but not forgotten, ABDC.

Thanks to Keith Chow!

ABDC 6 Champions: IaMmE

I’m almost a week late on catching the finale of ABDC 6 since I’ve been traveling in the South for work aka stuffing my face with biscuits n grits, but thanks to the miracle of online eps, I’m still able to indulge my ABDC obsession.

The finale was pretty spectacular, not only naming this year’s winning crew, but bringing back crews from previous seasons (and thus heavy APIA representation).

Poreotix demonstrated their trademark sense of humor with a “Friday” mashup of Rebecca Black/Jason. They seem to have gotten tighter as a group, maybe from all the practice they’ve had opening for Bieberella.

Season 4’s We Are Heroes danced to — appropriately — Beyonce’s “Run the World Girl”. Two members did back-handsprings in heels for like 27 minutes, then landed into the splits. My crotch both cringed and applauded.

Season 3 Champs and my future husbands Quest Crew performed a pillow fight in purple onesies, which was a mix of adorable and hot and made me feel weird about myself. SLUMBER PARTY!

Super Cr3w (Season 2) revived their ninja b-boy stance, and Jabbawockeez was more mind-blowing than ever, with the help of a mini-wockee:

Aiya, my ovaries explode.

While I think Phunk Phenomenon got robbed from a spot in the final two, I was glad that IaMmE was in the running against ICONic Boyz, and they ultimately took the title after performing to Far East Movement’s “Rocketeer”. Di “Moon” Zhang’s parents made good on their promise, and traveled all the way from China to see him perform for the first time (watch them cheering in the audience at the 2:31, 3:04, and 3:17 mark). And maybe I cried a little bit.

Congrats to Season 6 brainbangin’ Champs IaMmE!

Asians Can be Hip Hop Too!

Poreotix. I'm never going to remember how to spell that.

OH THE HATE! The AzNs are appropriating HIP HOP! All this dancing and poppin and lockin! Why they gotta be Asian folks? Where are all the Black folks?!? Shouldn’t Asians be doing kung fu and math homework!! Why don’t we listen to AfricanPridePrincess’s comment on the MTV.com website and have all the races in America start following our own stereotypes:

“i’ve about had it with all of these damn asians. Do they even know the origins of hip hop?”

As someone who grew up on Hip Hop, I am offended. My first maxi single was Chubb Rock’s Treat Em Right and my first CD was He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper. So what did I do when P. Diddy asked the participants on Making the Band to memorize the lyrics to Rapper’s Delight (and fail). Cringe. So to claim Hip Hop as the province of one particular race is counter to the very idea of Hip Hop. Hip Hop was meant to empower a generation of folks that were marginalized and geographically isolated and had to express their emotions in one form or another. The outcome of all this expressionism was breaking, MCing, graffiti, and DJing, and no particular race, culture, or gender does any of these “better” than the other. Whether you’re Black, Asian, Latino, or White, as long as you got something to say, you are Hip Hop (sorry for the cliche). For every Common there’s an Eminem and MC Lyte and for every Grandmaster Flash there’s a Q-Bert and Mix Master Mike. And let’s not get started on Banksy, David Choe, or Futura. So to say we should have less Asian folks as breakers on MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew is like saying every Jeopardy: College Edition should include 3 Asian contestants from Ivy League schools.

This is American in 2010. Our President is half Black, half White from Hawaii with a half Indonesian sister and a Chinese brother-in-law. Do you really need to reinforce stereotypes and set back the Civil Rights Movement back to the 40s?! And oh yea, the Rock Steady Crew has Asians on it now too (which is like having Asians in the Black Panthers. Wait, there were Asians in the Black Panthers?!)

Rock Steady in the 00's

So all I really gotta say is props to Poreotix for being the best crew so far on the best coast for dancers on this season’s ABDC. We live in a society where the Jabbawockeez and Fanny Pak’s of the country are made up of folks from every race, creed, and gender in the world. And its not that strange for an all Asian dance crew from Westminster, CA (pronounced Wet-Min-Ter) to make it on ABDC. Congrats.