Sunday afternoon tweeted The Correspondent-journalist Johannes Visser: “Be happy with the idea that @ArjenFortuin is now looking back at 50 hours of dance marathon.” Was this gloating, a compliment or a cruel command? Anyway, I had the announcement of the winner of course seen live. It was fascinating television, but so is a bullfight.
I heard that the winning couple, Jermaine and Tawatha, had not danced for a total of just 35 minutes during the fifty-hour marathon program. Jermaine said his nickname was Duracell. Beside him, Tawatha, wrapped in a blanket, sat blankly for minutes, like a medieval Madonna. Presenter Jan Versteegh assured her that she didn’t have to say anything, but Tawatha took the floor anyway and squeezed out a few sentences about research she was doing into nerve pain in people who have had a motorcycle accident and about a search for her family in Indonesia. I had never seen a person so tired on television.
The alienating scene was the conclusion of something that had started on Thursday as one of the most boring programs ever: hours-long images of a dance floor in a conference hall in Breda. The usual performers. Hardly anyone looked at it The Dance Marathon seemed destined to die in obscurity.
Until the broadcasts from Saturday morning became fatigue porn. “No, the tears are from vomiting,” said a woman. Another was hoisted into a wheelchair (but later returned). Number 88 swam across the dance floor with a nosebleed, a presenter spoke of a battlefield, and there were still thirteen hours to go.
wobbly polonaise
The camera sucked on more and more blisters and swollen feet. The joyless dance movements became more minimalistic, now and then a shaky polonaise was used. At the beginning of the fiftieth hour, all the misery came together in one minute. We saw how Tawatha danced while she cried tears and presenter Wendy van Dijk tried to take her from an interview. “Yes, you can!” cried Van Dyke. No reaction. “Keep this up!” added Van Dijk, which was the opposite of what you would humanly want to say.
Van Dijk also seemed to understand that, because a regret escaped her and an “Oh dear”. Thirty seconds later, attention shifted to another corner of the dance floor, where contestant 56 lay motionless on her back. A quick commercial break.
de Dance marathon (of which SBS, by the way, is only very economical fragments online has set) was a visitation for the participants, for the viewers and perhaps also for the makers. The atmosphere of tired self-evidence that hung around the match is also sad, up to and including the predictable indignation about the burning hoops through which John de Mol lets his participants jump. After mounting criticism, the assurance followed on Sunday that there had been a lot of medical help. (Nice that healthcare can handle this again, by the way.) No one had died. Number 56 had risen again.
How the commercial channels manage to make money from human suffering has often been described and will happen more often. (John de Mol seems to be working on a show in which people play to get rid of their debts.) One more thing: thanks to the cooperation of the Vriendenloterij, this shameful display was covered with a sauce of humanity. During the program, viewers could participate in a lottery, the proceeds of which went to the Long Fund. Thus, an embarrassing display was charitably laundered. Why does the lottery even do that?
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad on October 18, 2021