Clearly you misunderstood - I'm interested in the way women react to other women & the way they vote in RTV. What I'm not interested in is trying to figure out those who dislike Kelly or Rachel for authentic reasons from those who do so out of resentment/bitterness - because it's unknowable. That is the element I don't care about. But you got that, right? Because you must have at least ooh one GCSE...

The idolisation of contestants is something I find really peculiar...

Plenty of men are accused of being fake as well. I really think you're oversimplifying the issue. So far this year, Tom, Austin and John have all been torn apart for their personalities, including being fake, arrogant and insincere. Mark had a hell of a time when he was leading the pack - the vitriol compares well to what Rachel received for being too quiet.

Then you obviously dont know what you've been missing. I could watch Alesha dance all day. Her ballroom makes me cry with sheer emotion, When she's on the floor in Matthews arms, she's like a fairytale princess, floating like butterfly,l in the arms of her prince charming.

As for her latin, her sheer energy, her enjoyment at what she's doing, her brilliance of musicality and movement just blows me away.

Overall Alesha is a dream to behold; her love of dance, her energy, her contagious personality and her sheer love of life shines through like a beacon.

You're stating an opinion, not a fact.

Of course the argument's over-simplified - it's a net forum not PhD viva!

I never said men are never accused of being fake. But I would argue they are accused of it far less than women. And I've never heard a man being accused of acting "maley" in the way Kelly & Lisa have been criticised for acting "girly". Significantly "manly" is never a pejorative term.

Nor have I seen Tom, Austin or John "torn apart" and obsessed over the way the women are - their appearance, behaviour, motivations raked over in minute detail. The John shenanigan certainly got heated - tho he had to cause big controversy to garner so much attention. Without that he would have passed through without much comment.

Fair enough. I would argue, however, that "manly" usually means aggressive. It's easy to be giggly and annoying on a TV show, not so easy to start fights.


Then you haven't been paying attention

You clearly didnt see all the threads at the beginning of the series calling Tom smug and horrible. He was called just as many spiteful names if not moreso then the likes of Lisa etc...
And people were really nasty about John too moreso then they were Kate last IMO (obviously they changed there views slightly when he left but if you scroll back a month or two on here there were some really nasty threads).

the one thing i will say that really irritates me is folk that are a fan of a certain female celeb (it doesnt matter who the person is. It could be Jill, Kelly, Lisa, alesha, rachel etc..) but rather then just appreciate that celeb they'll start making spiteful comments about another female that they think is a threat to there favourite. Or people will just start threads they know will cause a reaction as an attention seeking thing.
Ive noticed a lot of people do that on the board and it really irks me.
Ie theres one thread on here which was started to appreciate Kellys jive but instead some of her so called fans are just using it to knock other females. Why not just appreciate what she did?

I wonder if the attraction of Jill and Alesha (let's take their dancing talent as read) is that they have a lovely "girl-next-door" quality. Perhaps. It doesn't explain the extreme antipathy towards some of the others though.

I didn't see much of last year's series so didn't see much point on coming onto the forums but I'd heard a bit about Kelly being unpopular. I had no real evidence of my own eyes with which to make up my mind. I watched the Christmas show again this morning on iPlayer. I thought she was wonderful on the dance floor and terrific fun on the pre-dance VT. (Of course she did giggle. That seems to be a real no-no with the Strictly audience.) I don't know how she was with Brendan, but if she'd been in the contest with Brian this year they'd have been worth watching and I suspect would have developed quite a fan base. They obviously had a great time together - lots of fun. That's what attracted people to Ian and Jodie - their sense of fun as well as her determination.

Last series Kelly started out as the bookies' favourite and most of the pre series press was about her, with (probably made up) reports of the other contestants being unhappy about this. In her first week she topped the leaderboard and received effusive praise from the judges, and her 3rd dance was the "liftgate" one with the VT of her saying the others don't talk to them and laughing about it with Brendan. Then there was paso week where she insisted on doing cape work and got mauled for it by the judges. And of course she was paired with Brendan. However she was constantly 3rd/4th on our polls here so she wasn't universally unpopular, although she was just as high on the "least favourite" polls.

If she'd been in this series paired with Brian, and none of the above had happened, who knows how far she'd have gone? I don't think she'd have won any series, but she may have got as far as Rachel/Lisa did.

I would even buy a TV license for that