Skaters Facing Pay Cuts

[Mathman]

Hey, Bijoux. About "everything is beautiful" and all the skater bashing that goes on on other boards, I think it's best to take all that with a shrug. Silly children who rush to the Internet to post things like, "Michelle is ugly, Sasha looks like a monkey, Peggy Fleming's face is all plastic surgery, Nancy Kerrigan has a horse face, Katarina Witt looks like a man in drag, Jenny Kirk is ... (OK, bad example -- everybody agrees Jenny is gorgeous, LOL) -- basically, didn't we leave that behind when we left middle school?

There is a board called "ihatemichellekwan." It has four members. (People who cruise Internet skating boards regularly can probably guess who they are, LOL.)

Worse, to me, are the so-called adults who want to insult skaters or other posters, but they want to do it in such a subtle and clever way that nobody can tell for sure whether they have been insulted or not. I get a kick out of that. It's a catch 22. If the meanies are too clever in their bashing, then nobody knows that he or she has been bashed and thus nobody realizes or appreciates just how clever the basher has been. So what's the point?

Back on topic (= "why can't figure skating bring in the big bucks"), Eyoka makes some interesting points, especially about so-called "professional" skating. I say "so-called" because nowadays the distinction is really between "Olympic eligible" skaters (those who are in the good graces of the ISU) and "ineligible" skaters (those who are not). "Olympic eligible" means skating in tours (COI) and shows (U.S. television specials) that pay a fee to the ISU and the USFSA to have their events so designated. "Ineligible" means skating in SOI, which does not pay Cinqunata a fee.

I think this points out one of skating's biggest problems: it is regarded -- indeed, it regards itself -- as an "Olympic sport." No "Olympic sport" makes much money or attracts very much fan interest. Sports like track and field, swimming, and skiing come across the public radar only once every four years and are quickly forgotten.

In contrast, "real" sports like football, basketball, hockey and (internationally) soccer, or even golf, tennis and NASCAR, if they participate in the Olympics at all it is more of a recreational outing for the players. Their serious business is winning the Stanley Cup, the Super Bowl, Wimbledon, or the Masters. If you ask the athletes in any sport what they like about the Olympics, they invariably say something like, "it's an opportunity to represent my country." They rarely say, "it's an opportunity to test my skills against the best athletes in the sport." That would be the World Championship.

It is inevitible that any "Olympic sport" suffer from bloc judging and other scandals, and hence run the risk of not being taken seriously. This is because the Olympics is dominated by patriotism and national Chauvinism -- what country can bring home the most medals, by hook or crook. Nations boycott the Olympics for political reasons having nothing to do with sport. Judges who blantantly cheat at the Olympics are welcomed as heros when they return home.

This is not a criticism of the Olympics. Not at all. I think the Olympic games are a great spectacle, and I wave my flag as vigorously as anyone. But if we are talking about making money, we have to face the fact that sports that tie their fortunes to the Olympics, don't.

Having said all that, I don't know that there is anything we can do about it. The Olympics is the big show of figure skating. How to maintain fan interest in the intervening years, that's the $64 question.

Mathman

 

[Bijoux]

to mm

Very interesting and spoken with clarity. I guess the discussions veer in the long threads. Just to mention Nancy and Peggy as examples that prove 1 thing still is a factor. I did not like people slaying Nancy over her veneers. I read an article Paul Wylie was quoted in re: Nancy. She came home crying, (probably from the anesthesia to do all those teeth) asking Paul, her rinkmate why she had to do this, why was it necessary. Clearly her agents, her coaches or some one in her camp was telling her she needed to look perfect, she needed the smile of a beauty queen. She herself did not come up with the idea. They pushed her, she was young and obeyed.

Peggy has had her nose done and lifts to stay young looking. She has no choice any more than Barbara Walters does. The men in FS can be unnatractive (but never overweight) but the ladies are judged on beauty. It is, as I said in my first post, a man's world. Could Peggy ever get away with Dick's wrinkles?

If she had called teenage boys "delicious little things" as we all remember his comment, she'd be off the air, and we would all suspect 'off her rocker'. There is no other sport where appearance from head to toe counts so much.

I have been reading and hearing how offended people are by the halftime football show, not just Janet, the whole thing. Maybe parents will now turn off football to watch the "clean" sport of skating! Well I can hope can't I? LOL

I think most people hate what I do, unfair judging. 6.0 or Cop, there have been some careers ruined and careers made. I have never seen the unbiased judging I want to see in FS and I never will because of the subjectivity of "artistry."

We have picked up a lot of viewers in this thread, prob. 'cause of the blue shocked emoticon someone put next to it in The Edge listing. I recently saw a post where a few people questioned the mens' final outcome of 4Cs. There was merit to the inquiry, yet another member saw that as bashing as she was very happy with the result. I hope GS doesn't get stultified and people don't express their real feelings. No matter what you think, say or do, you are going to have people disagree. My favorite skater was called "part of the us stockpile." I decided not to say anything. I think Jenny can outskate anyone given the right music, but I'm too ? dare i say mature? maybe just plain old to pick on anyone's opinion. A few years ago all the boards were battlefields. But I only look at three general ones, and I don't see bashing, I see disagreements and debate. If we all see the same way--there is nothing to discuss. Plus people often give short posts. As for not snapping back at you, your welcome! Why should I? I just have to remember that some fans are gaga over some skaters!

Love,
ain't it grand? (and yes I'm implying you are head over heels in love with Michelle, LOL. Have you sent out your St. Val's gift yet?
)

 

[Mathman]

No, but I just sent a CD to my other girlfriend, Yuka Sato, and her husband. The sound track to "Love Actually." It has some really great songs for pairs skating, starting with Norah Jones' "Turn Me On."

Mathman

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

good previous post, Mathman. I agree even to the extent that we glorify the Olympics as the end-all in any particular sport. It really is no more than the best skate that night; the fastest downhill that day, that hockey team that breaks the tie just before the game ends. I don't believe any of those wins and many others can be called "The Best". They are the best of that particular competitor or team at a given time in a given place. I've often thought, if the entire sport were done the next day/night, would the results be the same? Just my thoughts.

Now for the topic again - All the sports Mathman mentioned and others are sports that the layman often participates in. Every high school has a variety of sports activities, e.g., swimmers, gymansts, track and field, tennis, teams sports. How many have figure skating? Does it exist in high school? All of these studentswill have a soft spot in there hearts for when they were activfely in a particular sport and they will carry that interest when they are adults.

In the case of Tennis and Golf, (maybe skiing, equestian), adults continue that sport so it is of interst for them to watch Andy Roddick and Tiger. Figure Skating has an 'Adult branch" but is it as big as Tennis and Golf?

I believe if Figue Skating cecame available to the students, the sport would grow increasingly popular, and the demand to see the best in figure skating would go beyond the Olympics.

Joe

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

I forgot to add, in Vermont and I am sue in Colorado, the studients spend their Gym Class on the Slopes.

Joe

 

[Bijoux]

The lovely Yuka, MM

is fortunate to have Jason. He's so handsome, and a great skater. When Kyoko and Jason split, I was surprised as they were so good, MM. I felt they were podium quality and undermarked because they were American. Never thought Yuka would be a pair skater. I know she has always looked up to Kristy. Well, MM, Michelle is still available if there is no Mrs. MM, send her a tape, too! I love Yuka's skating. I like your pic of her.
She seems to be the favorite skater among skaters.


Joesitz, the schools can barely afford teachers, books and so on. Art is an extra. FS rinks are not in the budget, but some towns and cities in the Northeast have them. I have to say ours are in poor condition. And I live in one of the richer states. I would love for the money being wasted on space vehicles, war and tax cuts for the top 2% to go where we the people want. Education with all the extras. Sport, Art, music, more public rinks with special times for children who are disabled in some way, poor kids of AFDC families, inner city youth. Sadly, this govt is dismantling social services as we speak. But I too wish every child were exposed to a wide variety of sports. Lives would be changed in every generation, and we would see more black and hispanic champions.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Bijoux - totally agree! Figure Skating for underprivileged kids is not going to happen. That's unfortunate, because it has already been shown in a variety of sports, when given the chance, the talented ones emerge.

Serious figure skating is a very expensive sport even for the middle class family. They need to make sacrifices, but the underprivileged need sponsors, and sponsors look for talent first so it is a catch 22 situation.

Joe

 

[pipsqueak]

eyria hit all the nails squarely on the head. I can't add any more to it when it comes to figuring in the sport's and skater's culpability for declining numbers of viewers.

I still don't think (in a perfect, fair world) amateur skating should be pitted against professional team sports and be expected to garner the same viewing numbers. However, I do believe, as does eyria, that we've seen the same skaters and same numbers and costumes over and over---and yes, the quality of some disciplines (men's singles, mostly, IMO) has declined steadily since the emphasis has been on quad jumps instead of a balanced, artistic performance. I don't know about anyone else, but, after moping over last season's U.S. Nationals and competitiors, I have seen new hope this year (when the empasis for the men, it appears, was NOT on the quad jumps, but on a REAL and well-skated performance) in the men's competitors coming up---a continued strong women's field, and a surprising "new order" in the offing for pairs and dance. It makes me feel that, not only do we have some talented competitors coming up--but that our U.S. judges MIGHT be responding to external pressures that call for them to judge the skate--and not the skater.

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

Silly costumes and silly props killed the silly Pro Skating competitions. If you seen them once, do you really want to see them again? That question is for the average viewer and the more serious fan of figure skating - not the fans who love whatever the competitors do.

As for Eligible competitions, I think the problem lies with the networks. They've got themselves into a format which I believe they can not get out of. The top 3 skaters will be shown, and in the case of ABC, an additional American. Plus lots of fluff in which much of it is not new and even repeated. The average viewer can take this or leave it. No rush to see it. The serious view just gets angry. And why aren't the networks seeking other corporations as sponsors?

IMO, the whole problem needs a reevaluation and I think Dick and Peggy should be speaking out.

Joe

 

[berthes ghost]

I still don't think (in a perfect, fair world) amateur skating should be pitted against professional team sports and be expected to garner the same viewing numbers.

Amateur skating is being pitted against itself.

Starting with the Lillehammer SP, it was getting the same ratings numbers as the other sports. Any company who once had a huge success and then saw a drastic decline in sales should look at the situation and asess it. If Sunny Delight was making huge sales between 94 and 98 and making just as much if not more money than Pepsi and Coke, it shouldn't shrug it's shoulders at declining sales just because "oh well, they are a colas and we are a juice.". Juice once beat out the ever popular cola, and it's a valid point to see why the former success has faultered.

I agree that pro skating had it's window (even if it was a fluke given to them by an unforseeable accident) of oportuinty and let the window close before making any kind of moves to catcht he wave and make make a future from it.

Paul Wylie defering his grad school for a few years says it all: "I'm gonna milk this while it lasts, then I'm gonna move on to something else for income once this dies it's natural death."

 

[sarahmistral]

room for one more opinion...

amidst many well-made and substantiated points and arguments; I agree with many points and counterpoints made on this thread, but as a person who's generally passionate about sport (I have avidly followed baseball (okay, Yankee baseball), basketball, boxing, tennis, figure skating, gymnastics, at one time or other) and more specifically a diehard fan of tennis and of figure skating, I was waiting to see the comparison of my two favorite sports come up. As far as garnering viewer interest, if in a sport like tennis where looks have NO role in determining the outcome, where judging is seldom, if ever, a factor, the bombshell factor (typical "beauty" in the eyes of the average, media-brainwashed bear, i.e. blonde, young, slender, yadda yadda yadda) of an Anna Kournikova brought tennis a whole lot of publicity, then I'd have to think that the same type of cookie-cutter bombshell beauty (whatever a more discerning person not subject to the stereotypical, ethnocentric images of "beauty" that the media would have one find beautiful, to the exclusion of many other possibilities) would call attention to skating, at least ladies skating, as well.

The funniest thing for me about all this is that, at the age of 11 and 14, respectively, I got into tennis and figure skating because of --get this--CRUSHES on Andre Agassi and Philippe Candeloro, respectively Though I obviously can't speak for the general populace, I would think that the general public does respond to that type of stimuli in their sport, as the effect of an image-driven Hollywood and music industry, rather than satisfy their need to consume such "beauty" all the time, spills over into their perception of other pastimes, such as sport. Please note that by voicing this opinion, I'm not reducing the solution to skating's current situation as discussed on this thread to the looks factor.

I read a book called "Venus Envy" on how rivalries, diva complexes, catfights and fashion consciousness--as much as increasing athletic prowess and fitness--has thrust tennis into the limelight in recent years; in this book, the Williams sisters, Anna Kournikova, Martina Hingis and others are the "stars" credited for the fact that the women's game is a bigger draw than the men's these days, due to the soap opera like character of their interactions and media interest in their lives. Of course, it doesn't hurt that, when it's all said and done, this terribly interesting, sometimes scandalous subplot doesn't decide who won the most matches at Slams in a given year, who played a tightly contested match that went on for four hours before winning or losing, 7-6, 6-7, 14-12 in the third, but rather the drama merely complements the real, "Sport" side of it.


With skating we have to factor in all that previous posters have mentioned, judging controversies, the Olympic sport stigma, the advancement of the technical at the expense of artistry, the fact that we have to watch the same program over and over again in a competitive year...I think it's very hard for the average sports fan to come to terms with what the skating fanatic loves about the sport, that combination of sport and art that effectively rules out the possibility of a hard and fast, "accurate" judgment regarding a given skater's victory in a competition, someone mentioned the subjectivity of artistry. Forget the judges for a moment; think about how we as fans get so attached, sentimentally, emotionally, sometimes irrationally, to a particular skater, and sometimes it makes us unwittingly forget, ignore, or "tune out" all the virtues of a second skater if s/he's competing against "our" skater...not that I'm not prone to this when rooting for the Yankees against the Red Sox ))...but I think the way of deciding the outcome in a sporting competition may strike the average viewer as indecisive, wishy washy, subject to the whim of a judge...basically some may think that a sport so reliant on taste for a decision, a sport so similar to art forms such as dance, where competition isn't necessarily the highest goal...for some sport equals competition, and competition requires a winner, and if the decision can't be as clear cut as one churned out by a scoreboard (in this, CoP may help, as someone pointed out), people who love to watch sporting showdowns may not get the same rush from watching skating competitions, in which so many elements are relative and no one's really competing head to head against just one other person (as Michelle noted when asked about Sasha Cohen as rival at Nationals)..

sorry for going on and on...just feeling out ideas on this extremely interesting thread.

Sarah

 

[LBC]

I think skating like all sports has ebbs and flows and the popularity of the sport is driven by the personalities of the athletes as well as their skill. Tennis goes up and down in popularity with the different athletes. You can get tired of seeing the same players winning everything and turn it off until someone new comes along to challange. When an Andre Agassi comes along to stir up the sport it brings people in to watch. Same with Tiger Woods as golf has been more popular. It is when there are no stars or only one star that a sport kind of goes back to the die hard fans. People like to see someone rise to the top and stay there for a little while but then they want someone new to challange as well or it gets boring.

Skating used to go in 4 year cylcles with the olympians turining pro and new young skaters becoming the new stars. You could still love your favorites and get new favorites at the same time. You didn't have divided loyalties and after they turned pro the skater you may have not liked because they challanged your favorite didn't look so bad anymore. You got a lot of stars that way and it was good for both. Now with less skaters turning pro you're seeing the same people over and over again and to the casual viewer it is tiring. The old pros are retiring and there aren't as many big name new pros to take their place.

I do think that it will change though. Michelle is going to turn pro one of these days most likely after 2006 along with a lot of other skaters who've been around awhile. Michelle could revitalize pro skating as she is the kind of star than can bring in sponsers and TV to do competitions and more shows. With Michelle and others "retiring" you'll see more young stars on the elgible circuit. It all goes in cycles and I think skating is just in a low one right now but it will bounce back.

 

[Jennifer Lyon]

Just a few thoughts...

1. Men's figure skating is pretty much always going to be thought of as a "gay" sport. Forget about winning over the football and NASCAR dudes. It ain't gonna happen in this lifetime. Instead, encourage a few of these male skaters to come out of the closet and target a gay male audience (and their advertising dollars). Pretending that these men don't exist has hurt the sport more than it has helped, IMO.

2. Michelle Kwan is nice and reliable and we all watched her grow up. The USFSA couldn't ask for a better competitor. But as a celebrity, let's face it-- the girl is BORING. Her interviews are all the same. ("I had fun... I did my best... I felt good out there.") And does she even have a life off the ice? Just once, I'd like to hear her say something that doesn't make her sound like some PR department's puppet. Just once, I'd like to see her behave in a way that's less than perfect, if not a wee bit naughty. I'm not saying she should adopt a "bad" girl image, a la Tonya, Nicole, Oksana, etc. But if we want to bring more people to this sport, we need a female star that female viewers can either relate to ("she's a lot like me") or envy ("I wish I was her"). This is why the young Dorothy Hamill appealed to so many people. In front of the cameras, she was natural (as opposed to PR-trained perfect) and easy to like-- hence, the "girl next door" image. The average American female could imagine sitting down to talk to her. At the same time, Dorothy was pretty, she had a cool hairdo, and she had an Olympic gold medal-- hence, female viewers wanted to be like her. Dorothy's appeal continues to this day.

3. This sort of goes with what I've written above, but the image of the female skater has to change with the times. Let them wear pants. Let them act like genuine human beings instead of media-trained seals. Let them have a few faults. Let them have boyfriends who appear in public. Let them tell the truth about their lives on and off the ice. Read the Russian press-- their female skaters are allowed to be a lot more interesting than ours.

4. Encourage eligible skaters to make public appearances that have nothing to do with skating. These people need to be "seen" BEFORE they win the Olympics. Again, this ties in with what I have written earlier. The mainstream media has to be convinced that these skaters are interesting people with "star quality." This is why it's so important to shed the Miss Perfect and Mr. Closetcase images. Not that Hollywood celebrities don't have fake images. But they're actors. They know how to look and act the way the public expects them to. They know how to draw attention to themselves. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the eligible skating world needs a Madonna or a Cher.

 

[Mathman]

Hi Jennifer. I am always curious when people hold up Dorothy Hamill as the person that they wish Michelle Kwan was. Did Dorothy, in her competitive days, ever say anything more than, "I tried my best, I had fun, I felt good out there?" (I have heard that in real life Droothy swore like a sailor -- and still does -- but that wasn't her carefully crafted image in the 70s when she was so popular.)

Is Dorothy Hamill more "interesting" because of her divorces and bankruptcy? To me, Dorothy's image was as carefully upheld by her PR team as Michelle's is, and with less honesty. That is, I think that Michelle really is this sweet girl that celebrity hounds find boring.

Isn't Michelle Kwan "the girl next door, a lot like me, I want to be like her?" She seems so to me. Plus, Michelle has a cool hairdo. I think Michelle is "natural and easy to like." I don't want her to be naughty (OK, maybe just a little bit), and I respect her for keeping her private life private instead of fodder for the National Enquirer.

But I agree that they should let skaters wear pants. Just think how fine Michelle looks in that black leotard that she warms up in.

Mathman

 

[Rgirl]

Hi and welcome Jennifer Lyon,
You make a lot of interesting points in your post. Although I agree with you that if gay male figure skaters came out of the closet it would probably help the sport, I don't think that would have been true in the past. I recently saw an interview with the creators of the show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." They were very adamant about the role of timing in the success of the show. They said that even as recently as two or three years ago would have been too early for the show to have even been accepted.

I also watched the movie "Philadelphia" not long ago on TV. When I saw it came out in '93 I had to remind myself of how controversial it was a mere 10 years ago. "Tom Hanks playing a gay man with AIDS! It'll ruin his career!" Of course the movie wasn't really even about gay men with AIDS--if it was, that was the most conservative gay party I've ever seen, lol--but rather about every other character's response to a gay man with AIDS. I was also with a dance company from 1976 to 1982 and had danced since I was a kid. Gay men had always been a part of my life. I had to stop dancing because of an injury and went back to school in Sports Medicine. This was the mid-'80s. I was surrounded by well educated people in their mid-20s to mid-30s and the one surefire way to freak everybody out was for me to mention one of my gay friends. These were not NASCAR guys, these guys wanted to buy tickets to see 1984 Nationals, which were held in our city. But gay men still scared the bejeezus out of them. Anyway, my point is that "acceptance" of homosexuality, which I put in quotes on purpose because for all the acceptance of gay celebrities, wait till you bring your gay friend into your average middle class home--it's still a minefield.

I think that starting right about now, it will indeed be better for the sport if gay male skaters are open about their sexuality. What's going to be tough is the first US ladies champion who is openly lesbian. I'm thinking we're a good 25 years from that girl ever getting any endorsements.

Re Dorothy and Michelle, I used to feel similar to the way you do in that I felt when Michelle was with Frank she was too programmed. But even before she left Frank, I thought, "Maybe she's not the most interesting skater, but she's making the most money." The figure skating audience is by and large very conservative. What was okay in the '70s was not okay in the '90s. Look how people reacted to Sasha Cohen when all she did was say things like, "I'm an aggressive person. I want to win. It's part of my personality, it's who I am." All of a sudden she's an out-of-control Devil's Child who's trying to mow down every other skater on the ice during warm-ups. Personally, I liked the '02 Sasha--give it to me straight, girl!--but a lot of people hated her for having such a "bad attitude."

I don't think figure skaters can play the fame game the way other celebrities do where all publicity is good publicity. I would love an atmosphere where these athletes could be themselves, but the public is buying not only skating, but skating's image and most figure skating fans want what Mathman described.

Those of us who like a little vinegar in our salads will just have to wait until the next shift in cultural perspectives JMO.

Great post, though, with interesting ideas.
Rgirl

PS to Sarahmistral--for just feeling out some ideas, I thought your post hit the proverbial nail. Loved it.

 

[RealtorGal]

Let's not forget Nancy Kerrigan's "naughty" remarks, which totally destroyed her image as "the perfect girl next door" (the ones caught on tape--the one about Oksana just going to cry again so why bother freshening up before the medal ceremony, and the one about feeling stupid at the Disney parade). Yes, she's had a nice pro career, but she lost the public's sympathy with those remarks (not to mention her ghastly performance on Saturday Night Live!)--Unfortunately, the public is fickle and its opinion sways in a heartbeat.

On the OTHER hand...!!! We've got Oksana! She's been SUCH a bad girl (alcoholism, loose lips--saying whatever she feels like saying) and the public still adores her. Of course, there's that whole orphan thing, and the public (at least the American public) feels sorry for her so it forgives her transgressions.

 

[hockeyfan228]

You could still love your favorites and get new favorites at the same time. You didn't have divided loyalties and after they turned pro the skater you may have not liked because they challanged your favorite didn't look so bad anymore. You got a lot of stars that way and it was good for both.

That is such a great point!

 

[Mathman]

1. Men's figure skating is pretty much always going to be thought of as a "gay" sport. Forget about winning over the football and NASCAR dudes. It ain't gonna happen in this lifetime. Instead, encourage a few of these male skaters to come out of the closet and target a gay male audience (and their advertising dollars). Pretending that these men don't exist has hurt the sport more than it has helped, IMO. -- Jennifer Lyon

I recently saw an interview with the creators of the show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." They were very adamant about the role of timing in the success of the show. They said that even as recently as two or three years ago would have been too early for the show to have even been accepted. -- Rgirl

About timing. IIRC the big knock (by film critics) on Philadelphia was that by 1993 it was already too late. That is, it was not controversial or thought-provoking because by that time everybody knew that beating up gays, etc., were wrong, whereas if the motion picture industry had had the balls to say it 15 years earlier it might have meant something. To me, it was a little like Raisin in the Sun. A powerful play in 1959, already by the time of the 1961 Sydney Poitier movie it seemed behind the times.

See, I can be rational, as long as the subject isn't MK. (I even got "were wrong" right in the second sentence above. )

Just this morning I watched "the first nationally televised (the nation being Canada) gay wedding." Very interesting. Judging just by appearances, it looked like the typical union of a rich old sugar daddy with a young doll-faced bimboi.

But what struck me most about Jennifer Lyons' post was that little part about marketing the sport to the gay audience. Men's gymnastics, for instance, to the extent that it is marketed at all, seems so aimed. What if we took the bull by the horns and openly declared men's figure skating a gay sport? This would not be to imply that all of the skaters are gay, only that we would undertake aggressively to market the sport to this demographic. This would not risk losing the "NASCAR Dads" demographic that the political pundits have suddenly discovered this year, because they don't watch figure skating anyway. In fact, it would not risk any of the heterosexual male audience because they are too busy watching the girls.

Would such a marketing ploy pay off, or would it backfire on the sport?

(I can see the advertising slogan now: PYMWYMI.)

Mathman

 

[Joesitz (RIP)]

In tennis, golf, gymnastics, and other sports for the single guy, the uniform is very much constant. There are no bugle beads, rhinestones, sequins, etc. When a straight guy checks out Men's figure skating events, he sees all that glitter (Pro comps are worse) and reaches his own conclusion about male figure skating. If you've listened to Jay Leno mock male figure skating, you'll know the impression he is leaving on his audience.

I don't see much one can do about the misrepresentation of male figure skating. When attending Nats in Atlanta this past season there was a big football game on at the same time, and the TVs arund the lobby of the arena were packed with men.

And by the way, there are no obvious gay men attending skating competitions. There are much more in Tennis.

Joe

 

[pipsqueak]

I am offended by the proclamation that we might as well declare what everyone "knows"---that men in figure skating are gay--etc etc and that same old rot. Of course there are gay figure skaters, and gay ball players, and gay wrestlers, and gay men in the armed services, and on and on ad nauseum. What in particular makes figure skating a "gay sport" as opposed to, say wrestling, or football, both sports where grown men are writhing all over each other's bodies? Is it that figure skaters move to music? Oh my Gawd!!! How gay of them!!! Is it that they are weaklings....they can only move at 50mph on knife-width blades for 5 min. while performing gymnastics or throwing a 100-lb girl overhead. How gay of them!!!! No football hunk would be caught doing that, but you WILL see him copping a feel on his team-buddies' butt without apology on nationwide TV....which we accept as an expression of joy. I submit that you think of it as a "gay sport" because gay figure skaters have been largely more open and honest than gays in other sports.

Give me a break. Paleeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzz. This is a coarse, American view of art and sport. It is not universally the case, and is harmful and crass to classify ANYTHING into one pigeonhole (beiing a nurse, a teacher, a cook, are "girly" jobs, but being an EMT, professor, chef are "manly"???????)

Human beings are capable of the finest accomplishments....every man and woman should be able to write a symphony, clean the toilet, build a house, prepare a gourmet meal, learn algebra, paint a watercolor, diaper a baby, or become an astronaut....... What does gender or orientation matter? Half the human race has been effectively misused, mistreated, hidden away, thwarted in their goals for the last umpteen years due to being gay, female, differently abled, or so on. We're barely crawling out of the DARK AGES on this matter ourselves, but not so in most of the rest of the world--in particular THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES. If you are a part of those who would limit any of us with labels, then YOU are part of the problem. BAH Humbug!