Footloose 2019: Should Sean Spicer be banned from DWTS?

FPI / August 23, 2019

By Christopher Sparks

In the 1984 classic Footloose (and the 2011 remake), dancing is prohibited in the small town that city boy Ren McCormack moves to.

In the 2019 version of Footloose, the Left is moving to ban former Trump White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer from dancing on the ABC show Dancing with the Stars (DWTS).

In the original movie, Rev. Shaw Moore proclaims: “These dances and this kind of music can be destructive, and, uh, Ren, I'm afraid you're going to find most of the people in our community are gonna agree with me on this.”

Stepping in to fill the Rev. Shaw Moore role in 2019’s Footloose is CNN’s Brian Stelter, who said Spicer’s Ren-like audacity to dance deserves “outrage and backlash.”

Filling the roles of town council members intent on shutting down Spicer’s rebellious effort to dance are NBC, The Independent and Variety.

As National Review’s Katherine Timpf noted in an Aug. 22 op-ed, a piece on NBC’s website called Spicer’s invitation to dance “an embarrassment to ABC and a slap in the face to journalists.”

A piece in The Independent stated that Spicer “should be on a permanent public blacklist, not in a televised waltz.”

A piece in Variety declared that “Spicer’s previous life as a professional liar should really disqualify him from public life, period.”

If Spicer was holding out for a hero, he may have found one in fellow DWTS contestant and Queer Eye co-host Karamo Brown.

Brown told Access Hollywood: “Sean Spicer and I have been talking. Yeah, like, literally I was most excited to meet him because, like, the thing is, people would look at us and think that we’re polar opposites, but I’m a big believer that, if you can talk to someone and meet in the middle, you can learn about each other and help each other both grow. We have been chatting all day today, like, he’s a good guy, a really sweet guy.”

For his effort to meet Spicer in the middle, Brown was barraged by hate-filled tweets from leftists taking on the Footloose roles of book-burning townspeople who want the ban on evil dancing to continue.

Brown later disabled his Twitter account after the backlash.

Though it’s not known if he did an angry dance in a dusty warehouse to blow off steam, Spicer shot back at those calling for the dance ban.

“I’m very comfortable with who I am,” Spicer told Mediaite after a New York Times critic and DWTS host Tom Bergeron protested his inclusion on the show.

“I’ve never really cared what they think,” Spicer said of The Times. “I’m not going to care now.”

Spicer told Fox News in a statement: “I think Tom has been a great host. And I firmly believe when the season is over he’s probably going to realize bringing a diverse group of people together, who can interact in a fun, civil and respectful way, is actually a way we can move the country forward in a positive way. And it will make this show an example of how Americans can disagree about politics and tune into good entertainment shows and keep their politics at bay.”

President Donald Trump tweeted on Aug. 22: “Just heard that Sean Spicer will be on “Dancing with the Stars.” He will do great. A terrific person who loves our Country dearly!”

As Timpf noted for National Review: “In any case, all of the people who have written these scathing, the-sky-is-falling tweets and think-pieces about this non-issue issue are really only ensuring that more people watch. DWTS had been something that most people had forgotten about, and yet they’ve somehow managed to give it more gravitas than the Super Bowl. They may think there will be a boycott, but I bet there will be more people tuning in — whether to cheer on Spicer or to make fun of him — and what more could ABC (and Spicer himself) really ask for from all of this?”

If Spicer does survive the Stelter-led leftist angry mob and makes it onto the DWTS stage, an appropriate first number for him might just be “Let’s Hear It for the Boy”.

Free Press International