Well, Bonaly had of course not the best skating skills, not the best at all. But in my opinion she was one of the most telling victims of all this "lady/ice-princess" crap in FS. She was pure African by birth, with characteristic African features. That is where she should have played. Unfortunately FS was (and is) rather conservative in accepting a new style. So, she followed this "ice-princess" idea, with classic music, pretty dress, balletic features, etc. ... and she turned herself into a ridiculous show. She lost because she looked pathertic in that "ice-princess" field where she didn't belong to. But it looked like she had no choice, because her unique style was not accepted either. Seems like Meite learned Bonaly's lesson and now she is trying to be a black "ice princess". Well.
Yeah, it's wonderful to see a beautifully skating beauty on the ice, like Mao. But when you have to see a bunch of copies a la mini-Shizuka, like it happened with me in J-Nationals gala in Osaka, it bored me somehow.
In skating, this is also true, and it's rationalized that this makes jumping easier. But as you pointed out, it narrows down the possibilities of what makes a beautiful skating image. I didn't love Bonaly's basic skating skills: her stroking and one-direction-only footwork seemed choppy to me. But I liked a lot of what she brought to skating, and I wanted her to succeed, because she gave us a new way of looking at skating. Innovation in skating isn't just adding another rotation to a jump. Similarly, Rory Flack Burghardt was someone I always loved to watch, because her more jazz-based style as well as her ethnicity introduced refreshing diversity into the approach of skating, not just its look. (Thank goodness Burghardt got to take advantage of the heyday of pro skating, because we really got to see her shine.) Joannie Rochette, who has a real-girl strength to her skating, is another one I'd love to see staying around for the same reasons.
Now, this is interesting to me (and back on a topic that belongs in The Edge where the thread was posted originally).
Figure skating values effortless smooth gliding and smooth movement in general. It also explicitly values "clarity of movement" and what it considers good carriage and alignment (
see under Performance/Execution).
The reason is that those qualities describe a higher skill level than someone who lurches around and breaks at the waist, etc., while attempting the same moves, be they stroking or jump landings, etc. But the wording also makes it seem as though intentional choreographic choices that emphasize staccato movement or nonclassical body shapes should not be rewarded as much as smoothness and classicism. And maybe sometimes judges understand it that way as well and don't give less traditional choices their due.
If a skater is able to achieve those highly valued qualities, will she automatically come across as an ice princess, regardless of her body type or the style of music and choreography through which she chooses to present herself? The examples of Flack and Rochette given above suggest not. Debi Thomas and Tonya Harding come to mind as others who were able to place well with non-princessy choices of performance persona. Maybe Irina Slutskaya. Other examples?
Then you have Bonaly, who was deficient in those areas compared to her athletic power (speed; fairly big and fairly consistent jumps). So when she placed well it was on the strength of her superior athletic skills, and when she placed lower than others with comparable or weaker jump content it was because of her weaknesses in areas like skating skills and clarity of movement, carriage, and body line.
Male skaters could probably get away with weaker skating technique if there was enough power, and with rougher carriage, alignment, body line, etc. especially if the skating skills were good. But I can't think of any male examples where the disconnect between power and jumping ability on the good side and edge quality/control on the weak side was so extreme as in Bonaly's case.
Especially under 6.0. Under IJS it's easier for judges to separate the different areas that made up the second mark, so a skater with good skating skills but weak carriage could be rewarded and penalized appropriately, assuming judges are not blinded by preferences.
I.e., I think that mostly we're seeing smoothness and grace rewarded for both sexes because better skating is smoother and more graceful (except for nongliding moves such as toe steps, intentional skids like one-foot stops, etc.). Male skaters or proponents of male skating who consider those to be "feminine" qualities resist the need for men to exhibit them, but the judges mostly still tend to reward them for men as well as women, often as much as or more than the difficulty of the technical content.
On the other hand, I do think that judges are influenced by their ingrained cultural expectations/prejudices and are more likely to forgive roughness in edge quality in male than in female skaters.
Is that changing at all, as gender expectations in the wider culture change?
Can we give examples of female skaters who have solid or even good or great skating skills and successfully choose nonprincessy artistic styles?
Shall I move this question to a new thread in The Edge?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semu
That's why I've said, "No wonder..."
