2011 Phantom Regiment Guard

[PrfctTimeOfDay]

I care that the "Phantomettes" finished 3rd on the most important night of the year. ;-)

I do apologize though as I was a bit snarky. I just hated it when DCI used cumulative scores to award captions. I think the night's performance should decide.

No worries...I think emotions are high on finals night! And...given a different judge, the Phantomettes very well could have finished 1st last night! Their lower body and movement I think was sometimes overlooked by certain adjudicators. The work of KC Perkins, KC Michel and others is very evident, and there is such respect and adoration between the staff and the girls...which accounts for more than the eye can see. I hope this entire staff comes back next season. ..if so, we could see Phantom with the guard trophy come finals night in very near future!

[byline]

It is their choice; that doesn't mean it's not a stupid one.

As far as 'plenty of corps' not really...especially if you can't afford flying to camps

Well, that's true for pretty much everyone, right? Isn't being geographically "fortunate" (or unfortunate) simply another form of discrimination? If you don't live near a corps -- any corps -- and can't afford to fly to camps, then economics become a form of discrimination. That became a sad fact of life as DCI adopted a national touring model, and more and more corps folded.

[2B or not 2B]

Yes But, remember wat back, when Blessed Sacrament, and Garfield Cadets, switched from ALL Male, to ALL Female. AND remember when St. Lucy's Cadet's switched from ALL Female to ALL Male. That All three were, "Top 10/12" National Contenders at the time.

So not such a NEW "Cutting Edge" thing. Seems to me. What ever is Best for the Corps, or Best the Show they are doing, or what ever due to membership maybe. That is the Correct way too me.

[jjeffeory]

My initial thought is to agree. Yet I've never really understood this comment. It's not like the old days, when choices for women on with whom they could march were severely limited. Now there are countless choices for both women and men. So why pick on two who choose, for whatever reason, to remain true to their feelings about their own roots and traditions?

They are private organizations, and it is their choice on whom to pick for membership. When you get right down to it, that's true for all corps; there are just different criteria applied. There is some form of discrimination in all corps. While I don't think it's right, I'm pretty certain that body shape and appearance are used to judge who gets in and who doesn't. Should someone who is physically fit and can spin, but is overweight, be given the same opportunity as someone with equal ability, but who is thinner? I think so . . . but I'll bet that more often than not, it doesn't happen that way.

Some people want to create an issue where none exists and make everyone the same... How boring! Homogenization has resulted in many corps being pretty hard to tell apart some years. Diversity has given us a wonderful year this year! We need to go a bit further, but it was a step up. It was really nice to be able to see coed guards, male guards, and a female guard!

[Sam98]

It is their choice; that doesn't mean it's not a stupid one.

As far as 'plenty of corps' not really...especially if you can't afford flying to camps

With all due respect, if one can't afford to fly to camps, why is one marching with a corps that not more geographically convenient (and affordable)? And what does this have to do with Phantom's all-female guard?

[byline]

With all due respect, if one can't afford to fly to camps, why is one marching with a corps that not more geographically convenient (and affordable)? And what does this have to do with Phantom's all-female guard?

I'm assuming that the person who posted this was saying that due to gender, s/he either couldn't march one of the all-male corps or Phantom, even though one of them (I assume) is more geographically convenient. But that doesn't make much sense, as there are at least two corps based in Illinois, the other two based in Wisconsin (though Madison is running many of its camps and other operations out of the Star facilities in Bloomington, Indiana), and all would be within a reasonable driving distance.

A female guard member who is automatically excluded from Cavaliers actually has a better shot of getting into Phantom's guard, due to them being all-female. And then a female guard member who is barred from Madison can audition for Blue Stars. Not to mention Pioneer and Racine Scouts (both from Wisconsin). Conversely, a male guard member who would have been excluded from Phantom's guard this year could have auditioned for any of the other geographically convenient corps that did have co-ed or all-male guards.

If it's not specific to the guard, then of course corps members can march almost anywhere, depending on their own personal circumstances. As I noted before, at least with World Class corps, few of them take "just about anyone off the streets" anymore, the way corps once did. So there is always going to be some sort of discrimination taking place, because that's part of passing an audition; you have to meet whatever requirements are set forth by the group you're auditioning for.

Edited August 15, 2011 by byline

[mobrien]

It is their choice; that doesn't mean it's not a stupid one.

As far as 'plenty of corps' not really...especially if you can't afford flying to camps

Considering that any guy who is in driving distance of Rockford is also in driving distance of Madison and Rosemont, that fails the laugh test as a rationale.

Regiment's program this year benefitted greatly from an all female guard, and helped distinguish them from everyone else out there. I'd hope that staff and management consider this a clue that maybe a return to the all-female tradition could help give them another calling card.

[glory]

There's a lot of rationalization going on here. That's because rationalization is required when trying to justify discrimination based on gender, which is the fact in these cases.

The fact is Phantom discriminated against men in its approach to guard this year. The fact is that choice to discriminate made programmatic sense. Much as we put men in men's roles on stage and women in women's, Phantom put women in this role where Juliet was the theme. No complaint.

What you can't do is use this year as justification into the indefinite future. As soon as the program is gender neutral, we're back to preference, which ought to be based on merit, not gender.

Cavies and Scouts are all male corps and not legally obliged to be anything but. So what? The law may protect them from attempts to cease discriminating based on gender. That's irrelevant to the fact that they are discriminating. That's a fact no reasonable view can dispute.

If you ask me, corps that choose to discriminate in this way would do better to select programs that allow them to justify this discrimination (at least in part). Cavies Samurai or 007 are examples of programs that make the case for discrimination more valid. Even Mad World might pass muster. Extraordinary with its allusion to the XY chromosone is a stretch too far, if you ask me. Madison trying to summon the 9-11 narrative without women is incongruous. Better to attempt the Cossack Brotherhood or even El Relampango if you're going to be all male. Don't get me started on Carmen.

So what I hope is that Phantom's choice for 2012 will reflect the program and not discriminate arbitrarily. Ditto for Cavies and Madison who do best when they emphasize their more manly attributes anyway.

HH

[byline]

What you can't do is use this year as justification into the indefinite future. As soon as the program is gender neutral, we're back to preference, which ought to be based on merit, not gender.

Basically any form of discrimination -- whether you go by the legal definition, "discriminating" tastes, whatever -- is justified by the person doing it. There are always going to be different perceptions of what kinds of discrimination are wrong, because people draw their lines in the sand in different places. You don't like the fact that there are still two all-male corps. OK, fine. You think it's wrong. In general, I tend to agree, but then when I hear points of view I'd not heard before, I can often understand the other side of it, too.

I was a member of Curves, a women's exercise club. There are some legitimate reasons why some women prefer to exercise with other women rather than in a mixed group of women and men. Personally, it doesn't really matter to me; I've exercised in both kinds of clubs. I just happened to like the resistance equipment at Curves. But I can also understand the points of view of those women, and if they're paying for that as part of their Curves membership, then I think they should be entitled to expect it. It's not like there aren't plenty of other choices for women -- and men -- to go for exercise. Of course the reasons are rationalized; but that doesn't make them wrong for those people.

Getting back to the whole idea of what constitutes discrimination, I don't think body type should be part of the criteria for being accepted into a color guard. I agree with the "equal merit" idea, and if a person who auditions is overweight, but can spin and dance as well as others who are accepted, then I think that person should be accepted, too. But you know what? No matter how wrong I think it is, judging by what I'm seeing on the field, I'll bet that body type is part of the criteria (even if it's an unwritten/unspoken line on the checklist). That's the reality, and I don't see it changing anytime soon. If anything, I'm seeing it heading more and more in this appearance-centric direction.

What about the age limit? Aren't we also excluding people of equal merit based strictly on their age? That, too, is discrimination, but there are arguments/rationalizations in its favor, too.

[EJD440]

I actually loved the fact that they could wear skirts/dresses as opposed to the unitards everyone else has to wear because they're co-ed. Besides the fact that the costumes matched the theme perfectly, I thought the swirling skirts made a beautiful visual.

Not sure if a male would want to wear that "velvet-ish" dress anyway. . . . . .