Are Callers Bossy?
Every once in a while, square dancing gets mentioned in the comics. Back in 1992, Scott Adams had Dogbert as a square dance caller in the Dilbert comic strip::
Swing your partner, dosey-do, now clap your hands… uh-oh, that’s all the square dance moves I know… I’ll bluff the rest. Slap your partner in the face
, Write bad checks all over the place, Flirt with strangers, annoy your spouse, Get a divorce and lose your house, …uh… dosey-do.
This weekend, the Brevity strip commented on the bossiness of square dance callers here. The strip shows a caller (with live music!) saying “Swing your partner round and round, now do-si-do…” and a dancer commenting “Man this guy’s bossy.”
I guess callers are sort of bossy control freaks, but I’ve always seen it as a consensual relationship: after all, the dancers are paying us to boss them around. The goal is to give the dancers pleasure. (Several years ago, a couple of callers (the initials of their last names were S&M) published a caller note service called Top To Bottom. I was told the allusion was deliberate.)