butts lol

November 29, 2014 11:53 AM

Gene Kelly's Butt: A Tumblr Collection
posted by The Whelk (56 comments total)

I approve of this post.
posted by Windigo at 11:57 AM on November 29, 2014 [9 favorites]

Now I know what grandma got out of all those old movies.

Grandma, you ol' dog.
posted by klanawa at 11:57 AM on November 29, 2014 [26 favorites]

The tin was telling the truth all along.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:01 PM on November 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

So is this butt from It's Always Fair Weather or from Thousands Cheer? I don't want to look at misattributed butts.
posted by RobotHero at 12:04 PM on November 29, 2014 [3 favorites]

Cheeky bastard!
posted by mon-ma-tron at 12:12 PM on November 29, 2014 [2 favorites]

Costumes are skin-tight, and cut to highlight BUTT. Well played, Gene.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 12:14 PM on November 29, 2014 [8 favorites]

I put it to you that a movie entitled Les Girls would have different content if made today. Less Gene Kelly-ey content.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:18 PM on November 29, 2014

This is great, and the captions are on point.
posted by JauntyFedora at 12:20 PM on November 29, 2014

"If Fred Astaire is the Cary Grant of dance, I'm the Marlon Brando."

-gene kelly

Butt

"Your gonna see me dance and like it"
-Fred Astaire
posted by clavdivs at 12:20 PM on November 29, 2014 [3 favorites]

Truly the best of the web.
posted by LMGM at 12:24 PM on November 29, 2014

What's not to like?
posted by biscotti at 12:33 PM on November 29, 2014

I like Gene's butt and I can not lie
Fred and Danny Kaye can't deny
When Gene walks in with an itty bitty waist
And a swing kick in your face
You get spun
Wanna push break
'cause you notice that butt was buff
Deep in the music he's spinning
I'm hooked and I can't stop grinning
Oh, Gene I wanna dance with ya
And take your picture
My girlfriends tried to warn me
But that butt you got
Make me follow where you lead
Ooh, rump of smooth skin
You say you wanna get in there
Well spin me turn me 'cause you ain't that average group

sorry not much of a song writer but boy was he fit!
posted by Beti at 12:38 PM on November 29, 2014 [40 favorites]

It's funny how all your life you can admire a thing unconsciously until a tumblr points it out to you.

Gene Kelly was a fine, fine man.
posted by winna at 12:42 PM on November 29, 2014 [6 favorites]

As if there weren't already enough reasons to be grateful for the Internet.
posted by Sublimity at 12:44 PM on November 29, 2014 [6 favorites]

My mom would say how fit dancers were. Now I know who she was referring to.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 12:46 PM on November 29, 2014 [3 favorites]

I don't know what I was expecting.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:54 PM on November 29, 2014 [11 favorites]

Besides being costumed to show off his excellent butt, I always thought Gene Kelly was costumed in a way that accentuated his arms.
posted by rmd1023 at 1:07 PM on November 29, 2014 [2 favorites]

It is breathtaking.

It is a testament to his skill and charm that I never noticed. Fit as a fiddle and ready for love, indeed.
posted by louche mustachio at 1:08 PM on November 29, 2014 [6 favorites]

I don't know what I was expecting.

Gene Kelly ass-up in a sailor suit? Welcome to the party!
posted by ennui.bz at 1:09 PM on November 29, 2014 [5 favorites]

I always thought he was a fantastic dancer, but was meh about Gene Kelly's looks until An American in Paris. That particular costume is magnifique!


Donald O'Connor had a nice posterior, too! Just sayin'.
posted by droplet at 1:29 PM on November 29, 2014 [3 favorites]

Oh, my, my, my, my, my, my… yesssss.

Having so many happy memories of watching Gene Kelly movies with my mom. "Astaire was about elegance," she'd say. "Kelly was more… athletic. Hubba."
posted by Lexica at 1:31 PM on November 29, 2014 [5 favorites]

I am reminded of the story that Queen Victoria was asked how she liked her first ballet, and she supposedly replied. "I never realized that dancing was such a manly sport."
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:36 PM on November 29, 2014 [13 favorites]

but...but...but... tumblr..uh..
posted by infini at 1:50 PM on November 29, 2014

now we substitute the word butt for another word in his movies' titles.

butt a way to go
posted by boo_radley at 1:52 PM on November 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

I can't not read this thread in Tina Belcher's voice.
posted by the jam at 2:16 PM on November 29, 2014 [21 favorites]

The thrilling sequel to Victor Hugo's classic, Les Butts
posted by The Whelk at 2:21 PM on November 29, 2014

Singin' in the Butt
posted by Reverend John at 3:07 PM on November 29, 2014 [5 favorites]

Any relation to Amethyst Amelia Kelly I wonder?
posted by Nevin at 3:11 PM on November 29, 2014

not sure what the lol is for, Gene Kelly was a no-joke-hot-as-fuck-motherfucker.
posted by Conrad-Casserole at 3:15 PM on November 29, 2014 [17 favorites]

Butt's Entertainment Vol. 1
posted by drezdn at 3:16 PM on November 29, 2014 [3 favorites]

Buttadoon.
posted by mmmbacon at 3:39 PM on November 29, 2014 [6 favorites]

My wife and I watched Singing in the Rain (which she hadn't seen in 20 years) a little while ago. Partway through she turned to me and said "I never realized how hot Gene Kelly was."
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:39 PM on November 29, 2014 [8 favorites]

I Can't quite visualize it. I'll have to see it on film first.
posted by R.F.Simpson at 3:49 PM on November 29, 2014 [5 favorites]

R.F.: You're still the head of this studio!

I remember when I was young reading a thing about Kelly really deliberately wanting to be costumed in a way that showed of the athleticism of his dance. Somebody up-thread mentioned the arms, but it also had to do, supposedly, everything from pants to socks. He responded to something Astaire said about dance ideally looking effortless by saying that that wasn't his goal; he wanted the work it took to show as part of what should be appreciated in the dance.

This is something I probably read, like, 25 years ago and am most likely mis-remembering, but I've been a lover of his movies since I was 12 and after I read that, I felt like I could really see it in the movies when I re-watched them.

A friend of mine in college (mid-80s) was a dance major, and Gene Kelly came to do a master class. I thought that was amazingly cool, but my friend said he hit on all the girls in a way that made them really uncomfortable, and made all the boys uncomfortable by being really homophobic. I was like, "la la la don't tell me this I don't want to know it." I haven't been able to un-know it, though I have managed to keep loving his movies.
posted by not that girl at 4:00 PM on November 29, 2014 [4 favorites]

If you look at too many of these it starts to feel like he never faced the camera head-on but always chose poses that showed his butt. And then after a bit it starts to look really unnatural, like he should be an illustration for the Hawkeye Initiative. And then his butt loses all meaning, like when you say a word too many times and reach semantic satiation.
posted by not that girl at 4:02 PM on November 29, 2014 [11 favorites]

An American in Butt
posted by chavenet at 4:15 PM on November 29, 2014 [4 favorites]

An American Butt in Pants
posted by gorgor_balabala at 4:32 PM on November 29, 2014 [5 favorites]

And then his butt loses all meaning, like when you say a word too many times and reach semantic satiation.

Is this even possible? I would think more that his butt asymptotically approached pure meaning the longer it was contemplated.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:45 PM on November 29, 2014 [6 favorites]

> Gene Kelly’s butt in Singin’ in the Rain

Whatever you may think of the butt beneath, gentlemen's trousers are not, in the general run of things, cut the same as spandax bicycle pants. Gene's evidently were.
posted by jfuller at 4:45 PM on November 29, 2014 [2 favorites]

Perfection!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:55 PM on November 29, 2014

When my mother was a young girl in Pittsburgh PA she wanted nothing more than to take tap lessons (because Shirley Temple was all the rage) at a local dance studio, but was not allowed because her parents found the idea vulgar.

You guessed it.

(Another time I'll tell you my aunt's Andy Warhol story.)
posted by BWA at 6:03 PM on November 29, 2014 [6 favorites]

No Xanadu Gene Kelly Butts.


:(
posted by hot_monster at 6:13 PM on November 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

Butter Stock
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 6:17 PM on November 29, 2014

No Xanadu Gene Kelly Butts.


:(

Found a partial.
posted by Beti at 7:00 PM on November 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

The Whelk, you are doing a public service and I thank you for it.
posted by nonasuch at 9:00 PM on November 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

wow, Frank Sinatra had no butt. What ever happened to that guy?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 9:43 PM on November 29, 2014

I think he must have been a little vain about his ankles too, because his pants were always a bit short.

His style was always interesting to me; he wasn't very tall or imposing but he put a lot of effort into a very masculine, swaggery, wholesome, All-American, big-gesture-y style. Not elegant at all. Possibly meant to be reassuring to people worried about masculinity.

And yes, he had a nice butt.
posted by emjaybee at 9:56 PM on November 29, 2014

I bought a DVD of the Best of the Dean Martin Variety show at an estate sale last weekend. Funnily enough it had a segment with Gene. The producer, Greg Garrison, introduced the bit. He really seemed to admire Gene. He said Fred Astaire was incredibly precise but Gene understood the music and the dance. Gene sang and danced a bit in the segment but sadly there was no available butt.
posted by Beti at 12:19 AM on November 30, 2014

I have frequently posited that dancers have the best asses and that Pittsburgh's own Gene Kelly's was the best. Thank you for this exhaustively researched argument in support of my thesis.
posted by kinnakeet at 3:34 AM on November 30, 2014

His pants were cut short to show off his feet, not his ankles. Dancers want you to see the movement of the feet.
posted by Curious Artificer at 5:28 AM on November 30, 2014

on the one hand, i feel a little guilty objectifying any person of any gender

on the other hand, I want a huge poster of Gene Kelly and his butt. To hang in my house. To look at every day and sigh.
posted by angrycat at 6:47 AM on November 30, 2014 [5 favorites]

Thank you for this exhaustively researched argument in support of my thesis.

Logically, it's a posteriori.
posted by Devonian at 6:49 AM on November 30, 2014 [10 favorites]

+ Follow genekellysbutt
posted by vytae at 8:58 AM on November 30, 2014

I recently saw a show on his life from his widow. She married him when he was in his sixties and she was in her twenties when she was writing his biography and now she tours the country talking about his childhood and career. One of the stories she told was how most of the clothes he wore in his movies were his own and that he would hem his T-shirts for a more tailored look when they were tucked in his pants.
posted by euphorb at 10:22 AM on November 30, 2014

I Can't quite visualize it. I'll have to see it on film first.
posted by R.F.Simpson

I clicked the username 100% certain someone had spent $5 today just to make that joke.

I was wrong.

Well played.
posted by tzikeh at 1:29 PM on November 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Just had to log in again and lost my comment, but Boston-area Kelly fans should check out Harvard Film Archive's showing of "The Young Girls of Rochefort" on December 14. It's Jacques Demy's LSD-tinged paean to MGM musicals. Also, Catherine Deneuve sings and dances. Just go.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 3:28 PM on December 1, 2014