Is ballet a sport?
The question is asinine in at least two ways.
Of course it is, whether one is asking does it qualify as one or simply based on the assumptions implicit in the question itself.
To put it as stupidly, would a Ferrari fit in my garage? Is Rivendell a better deal than Motel 6? Can Michele make a Betty Crocker cake?
Well … yeah. Sure. But, um, that’s understating it a tad idn’t it? And when did my garage, Motel 6 and chemical moistness become of the standard of deciding such things.
Ballet is kick your ass hard. So are many sports. So it automatically is as anyone who reflects on it for 12 seconds knows. There isn’t any phony “debate” about that, as one media outlet which shall remain USA Today claimed there was.
And looking at the assumptions we see the question makes “sport” the standard. Sport. Which today rarely means the physical prowess and grace required—meaning the beauty—but rather the professional leagues, meaning money and media.
This is absolutely not to say that people who play do not possess the prowess and grace. In nearly all cases they do. You don’t get there if you don’t.
Likewise that ballerina does incredible things with her body, from her toes on up to the sky.
Which of course has exactly zero to do with her underwear, although that is the connection we are to make, in addition to the sex, which is always there.
What she can do she can do whatever she wears and she should rightly be praised for the hard work and dedication required to get here, as we may hope she is grateful for the innate talents that began the good and difficult work in her.
It cheapens it to ask the question, not to mention making an “event” out of a TV commercial. I guess we could say we’d never have known about her without the money of those trying to sell underwear.
But that is a different problem.