ABC/ADAM LARKEYIf and when Kate Gosselin gets voted off Dancing With the Stars, we're going to be sorry. And not just because we media types won't have the reality mom to kick around anymore. But also because we media types may have been responsible for her downfall.
And the two leaden feet that got her there.
Are we making excuses for Gosselin? No. For a change of pace, and to give us something to focus on besides Monday's tribute to the peasant girl-zombie scene from The Breakfast Club, we're just trying to see it her way.
In a get-out-the-vote email published today by Life & Style, Gosselin tells friends she's had "an extra tough week with media spins and coverage," and that she's "been emotionally drained and 'absent' for much of practice."
ABC said it couldn't vouch for the email, but the sentiments expressed in it are in line with those of a woman who devoted a DWTS routine to stomping out the paparazzi and not out of line with a woman who has repeatedly complained of tabloid scrutiny. So, clearly, the press is in her head. But are we in her feet, too? Are we stressing her out so much that she can't help but move like she's walking?
We took our questions to Jeffrey Janata, division chief of psychology for Cleveland's University Hospitals Case Medical Center. Janata's no expert on Gosselin or DWTS, but he knows the links between stress and performance.
"If pressure is too low, we don't do well," Janata said, "as in a kid who doesn't take a math test too seriously."
The Type-A Gosselin doesn't seem to be suffering that problem. But then there's the flip side, as Janata explained: "If someone takes a performance so seriously, or is under so much pressure, we similarly don't do well."
Much as we don't like to point the finger at ourselves—a move that requires dexterity that Gosselin and we lack—we can see a connection. That hippity-hoppity jive? The laughable paso doble? Maybe the woman dances like a freak because she's freaked.
Or, yes, maybe she just can't dance.
To be honest, we really don't want The Breakfast Club massacre on our hands.
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Oh, we're guilty, all right—guilty of knowing an awful lot about Dancing With the Stars, as you can see for yourself right here.