When I first saw the original Step Up, I felt strangely unnerved. Perhaps I was afraid that the movie would finally force me to abandon my life of crime to embrace the healing power of dance. Maybe I was saddened that I would never experience the thrill of forced community service in an urban arts school. Or perhaps I simply felt threatened by Channing Tatum’s well-developed musculoskeletal system and boyish good looks. Whatever the reason, I made a vow: Never again would I let the country be swept up in a hormone-fueled romantic dance film.
Then came Step Up 2: The Streets, featuring the music of Flo Rida. I didn’t know who that was, but it sounded like the kind of person I wouldn’t want hanging out with my kids. Maybe it was the Progressive insurance lady with a really bad rap name?
The whole thing just reeked of cultural degeneration, so I fought it by organizing a boycott of that Hip-Hop-infused Satan-fest. While the boycott failed to entirely sink the franchise, I managed to prevent Step Up 2: The Streets from impressing itself on the collective consciousness in the way that its predecessor had. I also managed to limit its domestic gross to $58 million, compared to the original’s $65 million, so I was pretty proud of that.
But now I fear the worst is happening: Step Up 3D is taking over theaters this Friday, and our world may never be the same. This abomination combines the infectious choreography of the first two movies with the same next-generation 3D technology that somehow convinced everyone that Avatar was interesting.* This unholy marriage of rhythm and eye-popping digital picture quality has already taken our children, and the rest of us are next.
So stay vigilant, America. Will you stand by idly while this plague is visited upon your houses, or will you step up? Wait. Shit. I mean…
Fight the power?
-JRV ’12
* N.B.: It is a fact well known to his friends that this author of this article found the blue alien girl from Avatar to be unnervingly attractive in 3D, so this statement may reflect an irrational aversion to the technology due to that one creepy experience. Nevertheless, those glasses make you look like an idiot, so, there’s that.