Strictly’s problem with women is deeper than Shirley Ballas

‘Strictly’ head judge Shirley Ballas is facing a furious backlash for her perceived bias against female contestants. But, argues Isobel Lewis, we can’t call her out without looking closely at the show’s chequered history with talented young women

Viewers have concluded that Ballas (second right) shows preferential treatment to the male celebrities while picking on a certain type of female contestant (BBC/Guy Levy)

Earlier this month, a dance-off decision landed Strictly in hot water… again. Singer Fleur East faced radio presenter Richie Anderson in the bottom two, despite the fact both had placed respectably in the middle of the leaderboard. East and her partner Vito Coppola had performed an elegant American smooth to “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid. Anderson and Giovanni Pernice, meanwhile, had spent a good portion of their samba to “Hakuna Matata” faffing around (as Len Goodman would have grumpily put it) dressed as a meerkat (Anderson) and a surprisingly curvaceous warthog (Pernice).

Now, you don’t need multiple Latin championship wins under your belt – as head judge Shirley Ballas has – to see that there was a clear winner to this “Battle of the Disneys” dance-off, and it wasn’t Anderson. The other judges unanimously voted to save East, meaning she stayed in the competition, but Ballas admitted her vote would have gone to Anderson. A familiar flame was stoked – that Ballas is harsh on the young female celebs – with some even calling for her to be replaced. It raised the question: does Ballas have a problem with women?

After all, it wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. The same criticisms were made of questionable dance-off verdicts in which Ballas had the deciding vote in 2019: Catherine Tyldesley and Alex Scott were sent home despite being far superior to their opponents. In 2020, an eerily similar situation to East’s played out when Ballas said she would have eliminated future finalist Maisie Smith over the just-fine Max George.

It’s also hard not to ignore the fact that, as many have pointed out before me, it’s often Black women (Alexandra Burke in 2017, AJ Odudu last year) who end up on the receiving end of undermarking from both Ballas and the wider judging panel. East is the latest in that line, with Ballas’s verdict feeling particularly egregious because she was irrefutably the better performer in the dance-off. Even leading British choregrapher Sir Matthew Bourne thought so, tweeting: “@ShirleyBallas would have saved Richie and Giovanni?? What? #speechless.”

Since Ballas joined the show in 2017, these decisions have led viewers to one conclusion: that Ballas shows preferential treatment to the male celebrities while picking on a certain type of female contestant (read: young, beautiful, talented). But to suggest she has some kind of explicit misogynistic agenda is misguided because we can’t focus on her questionable choices without acknowledging that the audience often gets it wrong, too.

If 18 years of Saturday nights glued to the battle for the glitterball trophy have taught me anything, it’s that the public struggles to warm to a very specific type of Strictly contestant. Namely, younger women – often with a performing background. When they do well, they’re perceived to have an unfair advantage because they have previous dance experience. Viewers pore over their facial expressions, picking them apart for signs of smug overconfidence on Twitter and in YouTube comments.

Ashley Roberts and Burke remain two of the show’s highest-scoring contestants ever, yet both ended up repeatedly in the bottom two as they racked up the 10 paddles. Burke was dragged for yelping in pain after hurting her hip in rehearsals; later, she was trolled even more for celebrating after she avoided the dance-off (having faced the previous two). “It became something where I didn’t know how to react on TV. I couldn’t do anything right,” she said.

East and Coppola dance to ‘Part of Your World’ (BBC/Guy Levy)

To an extent, I can understand where it comes from. A competition where everybody was great from the beginning would be a bit dull – we demand a “journey” from our winners, as seen in recent champs Rose Ayling-Ellis, Bill Bailey and Stacey Dooley. Even so, seeing such talented performers seemingly punished for being too good is jarring. There’s a sense that we want women to be humble and unaware of their talents, in Strictly as in life.

Because, actually, whatever you think of Ballas, there’s an ickiness to this narrative too – a sexism and ageism in the suggestion that Ballas must surely be jealous of these women for their beauty, talent and youth. “They say, ‘You’re so fat, you hate younger women,’” she said at an event last year. “If I send a man home, ‘You’re a man hater.’ You can’t win.”

Anderson and Pernice’s wild samba (BBC/Guy Levy)

It’s a fair point. At this stage, reality TV and social media are intrinsically linked and an appearance on the show comes with intense scrutiny from millions of viewers convinced they’re ballroom experts (myself included). Do I think Shirley Ballas wakes up every Saturday morning in eager anticipation of a day spent knocking young women at a TV studio in Borehamwood? Err, no. Her actions come back to the wider issue: Ballas has to pick between the bottom two contestants because the public didn’t vote for them.

A reality show with a formula as winning as Strictly’s doesn’t survive for 20 years without patterns emerging. There’s also the annual two-left-feet contestant, rewarded, it seems, for simply having a go. This year, we’ve got the sweet, plodding Tony Adams, but in the past it was the baffling Dan Walker, joyfully camp Judge Rinder and Ed Balls (what else is there to say about Ed Balls?). As some fans vote for them, others scoff and cry fix. Every year it’s the same: the voting public – and the judges – favouring those underdogs who capture the “Strictly spirit”. It’s a shame that “Strictly spirit” seems to be almost exclusively male. But maybe, before we call for Ballas to quit, we need to look at ourselves – and who we allow to shine, and who we don’t.