SBS6’s Dance Marathon is pure bullshit

Big Brother was once invented by John de Mol, but otherwise he excels at milking old ideas like talent shows, which are always presented in a different guise. For his latest discovery, delve once more into the past: the dance marathon. The first version of this phenomenon ended on Saturday at ten in the morning. Hundreds of couples attended. Whoever managed to keep moving for the longest time, went home with one hundred thousand euros. Unfortunately, when the closing signal went off fifty (!) hours later there were still twenty pairs on the dance floor. The rest gave up despite the fact that presenters Wendy van Dijk and Jan Versteigh tried to encourage the participants as much as possible.

In the end, a ton went to couple Tawatha and Jermaine because – according to SBS6 – they took the least of their breaks. The other perseverants were laid off with a weekend at Disneyland in Paris.

Dance marathons were held throughout the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Enough poor, unemployed men who allow themselves the temptation to partake in such spectacles in the hope of winning a few cents. In 1969, famous director Sidney Pollack made an impressive film about this dance marathon titled They hunt horses, right? In one of the leading roles Jane Fonda.

The movie was a huge success. Despite the tragic content, the audience came out with a good feeling at the time. I remember that well. We will never again witness such horrific conditions.

This was a mistake. The dance marathon model was directed by John de Mol, who literally destroyed participants in the 1930s, hoping for successful reviews. Scenes arose that were strikingly similar to what was happening on those American dance floors at the time. And to what Sidney Pollack has so impressively portrayed. Exhausted participants went home crying. Subsequently, insensitive types such as Jeroen van den Boom also submitted themselves to perform to keep weary couples going. René Karst even managed to drive the Bolognese.

Celebrities who have performed in the dance marathon have made themselves known by offering their – no doubt lucrative – collaboration to this bastard, and Wendy Van Dyck and Jan Verstige are leading the way. It is amazing that John de Mol himself failed to realize that the dance marathon was such a dangerous and totally unacceptable moral that civilized people had hoped would be a thing of the past. He shamefully took advantage of the gullible people who unscrupulously tempted him to wear himself out in his suit. What SBS6 gave them was tears.

Fortunately, many viewers responded indignantly. They turn out to be the guardians of a civilization long abandoned by de Mol and his companions.

As for the rest, I am of the opinion that the subsidy scandal should not disappear from public attention, as well as the Groningen natural gas issue.

Watch them hunt horses, right, in full on YouTube here:

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Shocking addition: I just came across an article in De Volkskrant that John de Mol had come up with the idea for a Dansmarathon ten years ago after seeing that they don’t hunt horses, right. If this is true, then on the path of life he left his conscience somewhere long ago.

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