Dancing With The Stars welcomes contestants at all levels of dance experience, but it would be great if the show did a season with only nondancers. This season, Charli D'Amelio is competing with pro dancer Mark Ballas. The TikTok star has been competitively dancing for most of her life and gained fame on the video app for her dance videos. Unsurprisingly, she's been scoring high since the season premiere. Wayne Brady and Gabby Windey also have dance experience and have been at the top of the leaderboard with Charli weekly. Unfortunately, many nondancer contestants have struggled to keep up with them.
DWTS has received criticism for including contestants with dance experience because fans think it is unfair for contestants who aren't naturally great dancers. The show could solve the issue if they did a season exclusively with nondancers. Contestants that are dancers have an unfair advantage throughout the competition. For DWTS season 31, fans have pointed out that Charli often looks like she's one of the pro dancers on the show and not like a contestant. Others like Vinny Guadagnino, who has never danced before, seem to be falling behind, but comparing his progress to Charli's isn't fair. For DWTS season 28, The Bachelorette star Hannah Brown won the mirrorball trophy, and a season later, Kaitlyn Bristowe won. Both stars have dance experience, which worked in their favor throughout the season.
DWTS Should Feature More Contestants Like Trevor Donovan
DWTS Fans have also complained that it isn't as fun watching contestants who were great dancers from the start. They prefer to see dancers who started badly or average progress throughout the season and become better. Trevor Donovan from DWTS season 31 is the perfect example of this. The 90210 actor and his dance partner Emma Slater fell lower on the scoreboard for weeks and even landed twice in the bottom two. However, the actor has progressed, and on Halloween night, he received a 39 out of 40, the same score that Charli received. While nondancers can catch up with professional dancers, they have to work much harder to get there, which can be pretty discouraging.
During DWTS season 30, fans had a similar critique of contestant JoJo Siwa. Like Charli, the star had extensive dance experience and even gained popularity in the reality series Dance Moms. JoJo and her partner Jenna Johnson were the first same-sex couple to appear on the show and made it to the final two. There were a lot of talented dancers who didn't make it as far into the season because they weren't as great as JoJo. While not every contestant with dance experience has experience in ballroom dance, their ability to move their body and tap into the emotion that ballroom dance requires makes it easier for them to learn.
However, this doesn't always work in their favor. JoJo made it to the final two but did not win the season. Iman Shumpert and his partner Daniella Karagach won the season because fans were blown away by how well they worked together and loved seeing how much Iman had improved since the season premiere. A similar situation occurred during DWTS season 16, when Zendaya, who had hip-hop dance experience, came in second place while Kellie Pickler, who had no dance experience, won with her partner Derek Hough. Still, it's a fair argument that nondancers are at a disadvantage, and it would be fun to see how they'd perform in a DWTS season with no experienced contestants.
Dancing With the Stars airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on Disney+.