Sean Spicer Joining Dancing With the Stars Draws Serious Criticism: ‘Shameful’
Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer is joining Dancing With the Stars because why not, but there’s been a lot of serious backlash to the idea.
And in a rare twist, it appears even the host of the show kind of agrees. As we reported earlier, Tom Bergeron made it abundantly clear he was hoping this season would be a respite from politics and avoid any divisive guests of any political stripe. Yet here we are.
New York Times TV critic James Poniewozik panned the decision and said DWTS shouldn’t be “helping Sean Spicer dry-clean his reputation”:
I know it’s not as if ABC just hired Sean Spicer to anchor the evening news. I know I might sound like a humorless scold for attacking the stunt-casting of a silly reality show.
But that’s just the point. To treat Spicer, and his reason for notoriety, as a harmless joke is to whitewash the harm of what he did, which was to say things so absurdly false that he invited his political side to join him in denying their own eyeballs, to encourage people to believe that facts don’t matter if they hurt your team.
Variety‘s Caroline Framke wrote that “casting Sean Spicer on a show marked by ‘kitschy charm’ (as Bergeron put it) isn’t harmless. It only helps to re-contextualize his place in American history as a ridiculous oddity rather than the loathsome truth of his ascendance.”
And they’re far from the only ones bothered by this:
Shameful. https://t.co/7CXc9B8te7
— billy eichner (@billyeichner) August 21, 2019
I will never think it’s an amusing diversion for Sean Spicer to be on Dancing with the Stars. He defended and lied about amoral, monstrous if not criminal policies and actions. Way to launder amorality, ABC. Gross.
— Mo Ryan (@moryan) August 21, 2019
S. SPICER: Hitler didn’t even sink to the level of using chemical weapons… he was not using the gas on his own people
NETWORK EXECS: Can you dance, though?
— Eric Rauchway (@rauchway) August 21, 2019
Disney: No pure politics talk from our ESPN employees.
Disney: Welcome Sean Spicer to Dancing With The Stars!
— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) August 21, 2019
Normalizing a professional liar. Who supported and lied for a bigot and a racist. Why anyone would support a project that stars Sean Spicer is beyond me. https://t.co/vmGMR286pI
— Soledad O’Brien (@soledadobrien) August 21, 2019
What took so long?
he’s a liar who provided cover for Horrible things,and he’s being welcomed back for lol’s. This is what happens when you help launder the BS of these complicit moral blackholes bc its “good tv.” https://t.co/CPyDCCa8RM— Christine Nangle (@nanglish) August 21, 2019
As I’ve said before on Spicer, I get that spokespeople need to toe a line. But there is a difference between that and saying ridiculous and patently untrue things, repeatedly, which is what Spicer did.
Owners of media companies promoting him after he did that to them is yucky.
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) August 21, 2019
the punishment for over a year of lying to reporters and the american public is one of the country’s top networks and morning shows doing whatever the fuck this is https://t.co/NJlw3EaEF5
— David Mack (@davidmackau) August 21, 2019
Remember when Spicer talked about ‘Holocaust centers’ and defended Hitler, saying he didn’t use chemical weapons? That should have had actual repercussions. And should now too. https://t.co/jDWSTX8OdR
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) August 21, 2019
They just announced Sean Spicer as a new cast member of Dancing With The Stars. pic.twitter.com/aPjdmhKD8c
— Matthew A. Cherry (@MatthewACherry) August 21, 2019
