Documentary "Nancy/Tonya" | Page 3 | Golden Skate

Documentary "Nancy/Tonya"

skatedreamer

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Feb 18, 2014
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I was laughing when Tonya was singing the theme song to Ice Castles at a karaoke bar

Well, shoot. Never knew that song was from "Ice Castles." But take it from a singer: her pitch was way off (flat).

Sorry for the snark but my ears just about turned inside out when I heard her singing. Yikes! OTOH, there's so much in TH's background that makes me feel truly sorry for her, even though it doesn't excuse whatever part she may have played in the attack.
 

Jammers

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Nov 4, 2010
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I love how people say they love Ashley for being real but Nancy got killed for speaking her mind with a few comments. Nancy wasn't a ice princess either she was working class too but played the game and was molded into what figure skating wanted.
 

Angryyew

Rinkside
Joined
Jan 16, 2014
Well, shoot. Never knew that song was from "Ice Castles." But take it from a singer: her pitch was way off (flat).

Sorry for the snark but my ears just about turned inside out when I heard her singing. Yikes! OTOH, there's so much in TH's background that makes me feel truly sorry for her, even though it doesn't excuse whatever part she may have played in the attack.

I thought the amount of time the spent on her painfully bad karaoke performance was kind of mean. It's not like it added to the story. It just kind of had the mean spirited feel of a bad American Idol audition. Plus, it was really unpleasant to listen to.

Agree about her background. I think she got dealt a bad hand, but she made it worse with the sort of attitude of victimization, bitterness and refusal to accept her own role in it. The only time (that they showed anyway) she admitted anything that wasn't somebody else's fault was when she said she was too lazy and cocky to practice like she should have.

I think it's entirely possible that some people in the FS community did treat her like white trash and even before the scandal I remember fans making fun of her hair, makeup and costumes, but I think her attitude that the world was against her made her see insult where none was given. As for Nancy, she may or may not have given her the cold shoulder, but if she did I think it may have had more to do with them having very different personalities, as well as being rivals, than Nancy seeing her as trash.
 

skatedreamer

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Feb 18, 2014
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I thought the amount of time the spent on her painfully bad karaoke performance was kind of mean. It's not like it added to the story. It just kind of had the mean spirited feel of a bad American Idol audition. Plus, it was really unpleasant to listen to.

Agree about her background. I think she got dealt a bad hand, but she made it worse with the sort of attitude of victimization, bitterness and refusal to accept her own role in it. The only time (that they showed anyway) she admitted anything that wasn't somebody else's fault was when she said she was too lazy and cocky to practice like she should have.

I think it's entirely possible that some people in the FS community did treat her like white trash and even before the scandal I remember fans making fun of her hair, makeup and costumes, but I think her attitude that the world was against her made her see insult where none was given. As for Nancy, she may or may not have given her the cold shoulder, but if she did I think it may have had more to do with them having very different personalities, as well as being rivals, than Nancy seeing her as trash.

Very well said! And yes, the karaoke sequence was mean and didn't add much to the story. It certainly brought out my inner Snarkasaurus....

Below is a link to an article about Tonya and Nancy that I ran across last month in news stories about the anniversary of the attack. It's very, VERY long but worth reading. The author has clearly given a lot of thought to the issues surrounding the incident, including the image female skaters are expected to maintain.

I remember watching Tonya and thinking she needed some help w/ hair, etc. but especially that she was an incredible athlete. Seeing her land that 3A in the 1991 nationals was marvelous -- would have loved to have seen it live! The saddest thing is that she was so amazingly gifted and never fulfilled her potential because she was her own worst enemy. What a loss for figure skating, but most of all for Tonya.

http://www.believermag.com/issues/201401/?read=article_marshall
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Well, I read the Believer article. Thanks for linking to it; it was very interesting and gave some information I had not previously known. It certainly shows that Tonya had a joyless life and not much chance to develop a strong moral sense. In that I feel very sorry for her, though it doesn't excuse whatever part she played in the attack on Nancy.

One shortcoming of the article is this: As always with outsiders writing about skating, the author kind of squeezes the situation into a shape that confirms her views on certain issues about women in sports. For example, she sets up a metaphor (the dinosaurs on the brink of extinction underlined by Tonya's music choice of "Jurassic Park") to show that more mature, womanly skaters such as Tonya and Nancy were about to be replaced by young sprites of girls. While this held true for awhile (Oksana in 1994 and then Michelle and Tara in 1998), the cycle changed after that, with Michelle and Irina skating into their mid-twenties, becoming mature athletes and artists. After that, another long sequence starring YuNa, Carolina, and Mao occurred. So the metaphor in the article implies something inaccurate, or at least merely temporary, about skating. Later on, when the author talks about other skaters who had the triple axel, she describes the rivalry between Mao and YuNa as if Mao the scrappy, powerful skater with the triple axel, lost the gold to princess-like YuNa Kim. But YuNa won largely because she was a supreme athlete, with the best, most spacious, most consistent triple-triples in the world. The fact that she was also artistic was a plus. In fact, Mao was also exceedingly artistic as well as athletic, with ballet-infused posture. So the author used skating to say something about women in skating that isn't completely accurate.

I often find it frustrating that writers have such an equivocal view of female skaters. It's almost as if they expect true athletes to progress to sports such as snowboarding or skeleton, while skaters by contrast are somehow selling out. (Is that also true of male skaters, I wonder.) Because Tonya was so obviously from the wrong side of the tracks and was so powerful and tomboyish in her life and her skating, that kind of story almost writes itself. I wonder what all those writers would have done if someone like Nancy had attacked someone like Tonya instead.
 

Dr. Jenn

Medalist
Joined
Jan 10, 2014
Thank you very much for the links to the videos and article. :) I accidentally forgot to record it, so I'm glad I have the chance to watch it now.
 

WeakAnkles

Record Breaker
Joined
Aug 1, 2011
Well, I read the Believer article. Thanks for linking to it; it was very interesting and gave some information I had not previously known. It certainly shows that Tonya had a joyless life and not much chance to develop a strong moral sense. In that I feel very sorry for her, though it doesn't excuse whatever part she played in the attack on Nancy.

One shortcoming of the article is this: As always with outsiders writing about skating, the author kind of squeezes the situation into a shape that confirms her views on certain issues about women in sports. For example, she sets up a metaphor (the dinosaurs on the brink of extinction underlined by Tonya's music choice of "Jurassic Park") to show that more mature, womanly skaters such as Tonya and Nancy were about to be replaced by young sprites of girls. While this held true for awhile (Oksana in 1994 and then Michelle and Tara in 1998), the cycle changed after that, with Michelle and Irina skating into their mid-twenties, becoming mature athletes and artists. After that, another long sequence starring YuNa, Carolina, and Mao occurred. So the metaphor in the article implies something inaccurate, or at least merely temporary, about skating. Later on, when the author talks about other skaters who had the triple axel, she describes the rivalry between Mao and YuNa as if Mao the scrappy, powerful skater with the triple axel, lost the gold to princess-like YuNa Kim. But YuNa won largely because she was a supreme athlete, with the best, most spacious, most consistent triple-triples in the world. The fact that she was also artistic was a plus. In fact, Mao was also exceedingly artistic as well as athletic, with ballet-infused posture. So the author used skating to say something about women in skating that isn't completely accurate.

I often find it frustrating that writers have such an equivocal view of female skaters. It's almost as if they expect true athletes to progress to sports such as snowboarding or skeleton, while skaters by contrast are somehow selling out. (Is that also true of male skaters, I wonder.) Because Tonya was so obviously from the wrong side of the tracks and was so powerful and tomboyish in her life and her skating, that kind of story almost writes itself. I wonder what all those writers would have done if someone like Nancy had attacked someone like Tonya instead.

^This. We just went through the same eternal conflicts again this Olympics: art vs athleticism, age vs youth etc etc. And no doubt by 2018 we'll go through it again. But it was interesting to see an article which didn't automatically assume Tonya was a sociopathic monster. It was nice to see some complexity.
 

ManyCairns

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The Believer article was certainly an interesting read. It clearly seems to be an essay or thought piece determined to draw "conclusions" using analogies and metaphors rather than presenting or evaluating evidence, of course -- it's an essay rather than a report, that is to say. I thought it also made tons of assumptions about the psyches of all the characters which may have been true but may not have been and were assumptions in either case. The author didn't seem to take into account the notes found in Tonya's handwriting, and was pretty dismissive of Tonya's presence during the gathering of information about Nancy's whereabouts and other planning details. But again, I think the author was trying to write an essay about "female power and pain" rather than examine the facts of the situation.

But as an essay or thought piece it was interesting, though it really wanted to establish these archetypes or literary devices of "female power" and "female pain." And I agree with Olympia that the analogy was grossly inappropriately applied when the author tried to cast Mao in the athlete rather than the artist mode. MAO! ASADA! One of the most artistic, lyrical skaters ever! Has the author even seen Mao skate? Mao is certainly athletic but her artistry on the ice is incredible and to me the standout part of her skating -- she's an artist above all else.

Also, maybe the public's supposed disappointment in Nancy for losing gold is why they were so quick to turn on her for the parade comments, but I don't know -- I was avidly following skating at that time and I remember lots of discussion but I think pretty much everyone watching could see that Nancy had given two incredible performances. Plenty were charmed by Oksana, but plenty also felt Nancy wuzrobbed. I didn't see in the press or hear in conversations much feeling that Nancy had failed to deliver, just that the judging hadn't gone her way. But maybe the public did see her as failing and thus were ready to get so up in arms over the Disney parade situation.

Still, it shouldn't be dismissed that Tonya apparently went from one personal situation of abuse to another, and how difficult that is.
 

Angryyew

Rinkside
Joined
Jan 16, 2014
It seemed to me that the general sentiment among US viewers who tuned in for Nancy vs Tonya was that Nancy wuzrobbed, but that they didn't really care all that much because they were there for the drama not the skating.

The media played up Oksana's hard luck story quite a bit, which seemed to win some over to her side. I mean what's more Olympic dream than the story of a teen age orphan who wins Olympic gold by defeating a skater the public perceived as privileged?

Of course, there were also those who described her as "dressed as a fuzzy bedroom slipper," but overall I think the public was ready to dump whiny, Mickey dissin, Ice Princess Nancy in favor of underdog orphan Oksana, at least until Oksana got her DUI, but by then they had Kwan and didn't need her anyway. Celebrity is a fickle mistress.
 

anyanka

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 8, 2011
Twenty years later and we are STILL talking about this. I forgot how absolutely insane that all was, and the "breaking news" was that a few newscasts would actually insert any developments on this media circus while they were still covering the Bosnian war! "Live from Sarajevo ... but first, let's talk about Nancy and Tonya!" Literally this happened, not a joke.

Worlds will be in Boston in 2016, less than ten miles south of Stoneham, MA ... where Nancy lives. Wanna bet if Gracie becomes the gold medal favorite, that NBC suddenly carves out slots in their prime time schedule for figure skating coverage and they spend half the time obsessing over Nancy, who will likely join as a commentator?
 

dorispulaski

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Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
Nancy will be there, working for icenetwork, in any case, I suspect. Tonya, OTOH, is banned even from buying a seat as a member of the general public, I think I heard?
 

Mrs. P

Uno, Dos, twizzle!
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 27, 2009
Don't leave us hanging, Mrs. P! I hope you can complete your post.

Haha, I didn't realize that was posted!

Anyway, as I was saying, speaking of Nancy and commentating, do you guys remember when she did the commentary for Lifetime/Comcast coverage of various events such as Jr. Worlds and the Jr. National Championships?

Here's the one she did for the Shibutanis at the 2005 Intermediate FD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6NrB23vPx8
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I vaguely remember her doing some commentary. I'll check the YT when I'm home from work. Thanks!

One thing Nancy and Tonya both have is a nice speaking voice. Good pitch, no whining, and no obvious regional accent. In fact, I'm always surprised at how refined Tonya sounds. It makes me realize that I have a preconceived notion about how someone from a hardscrabble background would speak. Live and learn!
 

LiamForeman

William/Uilyam
Medalist
Joined
Nov 24, 2006
I will say that after watching this I have a much more favorable impression of Nancy Kerrigan. She was frosty back in the day, but the proof is in the pudding. She has had only one husband, the three kids, the family 'values' for lack of a better expression. A fine citizen.

As for Tonya, yeah, she's still in denial. Not much to say except I hope her son has a better childhood than her. Cycles repeat.
 
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