ABSTRACT
The unpleasant thing about a danseuse is that she sometimes brings along a male dancer. This is the title of one of Edouard de Beaumont’s lithographs of scenes at the Paris Opera in the nineteenth century.1 It shows a male figure dancing, while behind him slightly to one side is a ballerina with little sylph wings who turns her head deferentially towards him. He wears tights, has an ugly face, solid thighs and big hands. The artist, however, has not made him look grotesque, just less attractive than the ballerina. The implication is that the viewer would rather look at her, but the male dancer wants you to look at him, and anyway he is in the way. The title appeals to a shared prejudice about these ‘unpleasant things’. At the end of the twentieth century, one is tempted to read into the scene more recent prejudices against the male dancer. Nevertheless the print captures a particular historical moment with its associated attitudes towards class, gender and aesthetics, all of which have had a strong influence on the development of later attitudes. Up until the nineteenth century in Europe, prejudices against the male dancer did not exist. By the end of the twentieth century these have developed and changed in response to a variety of social and historical factors. The print takes for granted that everyone knows what is wrong with the male dancer, but more or less leaves it unstated. That which is unstated, and by implication should not be stated in polite company, can be a powerful incitement to prejudice. So what then is the trouble with the male dancer?
