Strange Fruit, Inappropriate for Skating? | Page 5 | Golden Skate

Strange Fruit, Inappropriate for Skating?

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Benoit has received a lot of backlash on Twitter and Instagram, maybe they will reconsider.

I would hope that such communications would be thoughtful and educational, and not accusatory.

But I fear that's not how Twitter and Instagram roll.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
I read the lyrics and if they keep it in the program it does look very inappropriate for skating. Why did they do it? There should be some concept that the team devised where this song fits. ...

My conjecture (I don't have any inside knowledge) would be that the the team discovered, or were introduced to, the once-famous American singer Nina Simone. They chose a small sampling of her iconic songs, full of angst and soul, as a tribute to the singer or as a representation of this style and genre in U.S. musical history.
 
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believed

On the Ice
Joined
Apr 20, 2018
I would hope that such communications would be thoughtful and educational, and not accusatory.

But I fear that's not how Twitter and Instagram roll.

From what I’ve seen, they actually are very thoughtful and educational.
 

pearly

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
I would hope that such communications would be thoughtful and educational, and not accusatory.

But I fear that's not how Twitter and Instagram roll.

It’s not bad. People are mostly offering background, pointing out that and why it is inappropriate for Moa to skate to it and asking to reconsider this music choice.
 

4everchan

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 7, 2015
Country
Martinique
Why only Thais? Because of prostitution and religion theme? Why not Madama Butterfly or La Traviata, scores of junior figure skaters from all over the world used these for their programs.

I mean it is equally bad for a 16yo to portray a woman returning to be a prostitute because she is forced to abandon her lover, no?

Edit. I ment to quote 4everchan's post :) it was an error

i singled out Thais simply because i just found our about pooja's SP, but you are correct, there are many examples in opera that are of bad taste to be skated by young teenagers... la bohème is another one... as a matter of fact, opera from that era is very misogynist : many women are killed, abandoned, commit suicide, are cheated on... etc.... so why would any teenage girl do it???/

then you have Gabby Daleman who comes out as Carmen, and though the version she used angered a lot of fans, was rocking it in Carmen... So, this is why I said I am conflicted as a musician.... not only do I have a problem with the context, lyrics or inspiration behind the music itself, but there are all the other instances when music is combined together in ways that it no longer makes sense at all... or for instance, like Patrick when he skated to Mac the knife.. that was an odd choice.. though it's not per se inappropriate... just odd... i think his team when for the line saying "he is back in town" as he was returning to competition... but yeah... they didn't care about the rest of the story... nor did Bublé really, who sang it with his beautiful honey voice... :) this is the original... we are far musically from bublé... listen to the very harsh voice... it's not a happy welcome to town https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QXJ3OXWaOY

I don't want to elaborate too much more not to derail the thread...
 

theharleyquinn

Medalist
Joined
Feb 25, 2014
I read the lyrics and if they keep it in the program it does look very inappropriate for skating. Why did they do it? There should be some concept that the team devised where this song fits. May be, if they don't drop it they will come up with explanations.

What is an interesting topic for me, though is who defines "the lines not to be crossed". North American history is just a part of the world's history. And in the world's history atrocities of much bigger order of magnitude happened and keep happenning. I wonder, what reaction from Japan would come if a European skater had a program to Hiroshima theme? I remember that there was some critique about Nicole Schott's picking SL a season ago but this critique was much milder from the American part of the audience than when EM had 9/11 program.

I don't find that surprising, considering the former was a German skater skating to Schindler's List. There are some complexities to that that an American fan may not be able to grasp properly, although I did see many casual Olympics-viewers comment on it in confusion at that time. Medvedeva's 9/11 program also became well circulated in American media that was trying to further stir it as controversial. The only thing I found in poor taste in that program were the recordings of victims' phone calls that played during her step sequence. The similarity between both Schott and Medvedeva: their programs borrowed music from films that themselves were a retrospective take on history. Strange Fruit is the history.
 

4everchan

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 7, 2015
Country
Martinique
I would hope that such communications would be thoughtful and educational, and not accusatory.

But I fear that's not how Twitter and Instagram roll.

twitter is the new supreme court of the entire planet... i agree with you here... i do not support this choice of music but it's not okay to violently attack someone through social media... i wish this would stop.
 

Ducky

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 14, 2018
I don't have a problem with a non-African-American skating to the song. Anyone could be horrified by the subject of lynching... everyone SHOULD be horrified... and that reaction could translate to a desire to reflect on that tragedy through artistic skating. So, no, I don't think it's a song that ONLY an African-American could possibly choose.

I'm going to make an assumption here is that you're not African American.

Lately, many members of the Black community have taken issue with non-Black people creating art that is based upon Black traditions or as is the case of "Strange Fruit" Black pain and suffering. Even if it has the best intentions, for instance as with Dana Schutz's painting "Open Casket" which depicts the mutilated body of Emmet Till and was created in response to the rash of police shootings of unarmed Black men, many saw it as not Dana Schutz's subject to depict or paint. And there were protests and calls for the painting to be pulled from the Whitney Biennial. It's not that the intentions were bad, but when the art world will give space to a white women meditating on a topic that is not a part of her history over recognizing Black or Brown artists who might be covering the same topic, or how historically Black music has only found love in the mainstream when it is made safe by being performed by white people, that it begins to seem that the only way the world is willing to see Black suffering and pain is when it is performed and presented by non-Black people.

So, yeah, in a perfect world anyone could play any part or sing any song because art is all that matters, but we live in a world where art has context and history that informs how it's received and what it means.
 

evasorange

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 22, 2015
It’s just....you can skate to literally ANY piece of music these days. Millions and millions of choices. Why choose one that’s so controversial? Unless you wanted to draw attention to a skater who doesn’t get much.... or are just clueless.
 

pearly

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
twitter is the new supreme court of the entire planet... i agree with you here... i do not support this choice of music but it's not okay to violently attack someone through social media... i wish this would stop.

Most people in this particular case are using it as a platform to contact the choreographer and point out there is a problem with the music choice. I haven’t noticed any violent attacks, just one comment (that is missing the point) about how he would now probably charge for a new program.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
... just one comment (that is missing the point) about how he would now probably charge for a new program.

Just skate the same program as planned, but to different music. A triple Lutz here, a step sequence there ...
 

nussnacker

one and only
Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 16, 2019
Just skate the same program as planned, but to different music. A triple Lutz here, a step sequence there ...

They might keep it. Only figure skating superfans, who speak english, will know who Moa Iwano is and be aware about the controversy, the rest of the world simply won't care or even know that the program like this even existed.
Moa had 1 international competition last year (JGP), 1 in the season before that (JGP).
Probably won't get a ton of international opportunities this season as well and the other competitions would be local, and I assume japanese crowd would not know about whether the music choice is controversial or not. So...
 

enzet

On the Ice
Joined
Sep 13, 2006
Very interesting topic and a real food for thought for me, because I usually find the reactions of how this or that music is age/culturally etc. inappropriate rather exaggerated, but in this case I have to agree.
How are they going to portray this? Is she going to skate in a pretty dress with a naive expression on her face ignoring the meaning of the song completely, or are they going to take it seriously and very realistically, which might make it even worse in the end?
All the possible scenarios I can imagine feel totally wrong.

However, generally speaking, I agree with TontoK that music and art are for everyone and not only to enjoy, but also to perform, if the interprets know and respect the original context.
Lynching for exapmle, is not something experienced only by the African-Americans during that horrible period in history, but by lots of other people all around the world even today.
If somebody has had some kind of personal experience e.g. of such a thing happening in their family, hometown or just simply studying about this period extensively, feeling very strongly about it and finding this song a perfect vehicle for sending out a message or drawing attention to such atrocities happening, should it matter that they are e.g. Chinese?

I repeat I'm NOT talking about this particular case, beacuse trying to convey something so deep and important in a figure skating competition is absolutely ridiculous.

On the other hand, I don't like the notion that teenagers shouldn't skate to anything that's not rainbows and unicorns.
They go through hard times and emotional turmoils too, and should be able to express them on the ice, if they choose so.

i singled out Thais simply because i just found our about pooja's SP, but you are correct, there are many examples in opera that are of bad taste to be skated by young teenagers... la bohème is another one... as a matter of fact, opera from that era is very misogynist : many women are killed, abandoned, commit suicide, are cheated on... etc.... so why would any teenage girl do it???/

I absolutely disagree here. The opera characters are just larger-than-life representations of emotions we ALL experience on everyday basis at any age, and it is actually very easy to identify with them without necessarily having to go to the very extremes like they do.
Don't teenagers even today fall madly in love, thinking no-one had ever experienced such strong feelings before, that this one particular person is the only one in the entire universe they could possibly love, and that they'd rather die than be without them? No-one has ever suffered so much, right? How about controlling, possessive or cheating boyfriends? Parents being against your relationship? Add some betrayal, thirst for revenge and desire to rule the world into the mix and you might have just covered most of what opera is actually about. Definitely much more so than prostitution, and I think it is entirely possible to totally identify with e.g. Violetta's feelings without giving prostitution a single thought.

I also don't agree at all that opera is misogynist. Actually, I've always found it fascinating that given the status of women in history, the central characters in operas are mostly females, and usually very strong and spirited ones that make their male counterparts look rather incompetent and weak in comparison. Yes, the male characters often ruin their lives, but it is never depicted as something positive or OK, cause they are just women, so who cares.
Carmen might have been stabbed to death, but she is still the heroin and I wonder how many people even know the name of the guy who killed her. The same goes for Madama Butterfly.

There is also a fair share of women characters, who enjoy torturing men, kill them or just make their life hell in general and yet somehow come accross as rather likeable.
They cheat on them too, by the way.
So no, I think opera is a genre that feminists might actually enjoy quite a lot!
 

4everchan

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 7, 2015
Country
Martinique
Very interesting topic and a real food for thought for me, because I usually find the reactions of how this or that music is age/culturally etc. inappropriate rather exaggerated, but in this case I have to agree.
How are they going to portray this? Is she going to skate in a pretty dress with a naive expression on her face ignoring the meaning of the song completely, or are they going to take it seriously and very realistically, which might make it even worse in the end?
All the possible scenarios I can imagine feel totally wrong.

However, generally speaking, I agree with TontoK that music and art are for everyone and not only to enjoy, but also to perform, if the interprets know and respect the original context.
Lynching for exapmle, is not something experienced only by the African-Americans during that horrible period in history, but by lots of other people all around the world even today.
If somebody has had some kind of personal experience e.g. of such a thing happening in their family, hometown or just simply studying about this period extensively, feeling very strongly about it and finding this song a perfect vehicle for sending out a message or drawing attention to such atrocities happening, should it matter that they are e.g. Chinese?

I repeat I'm NOT talking about this particular case, beacuse trying to convey something so deep and important in a figure skating competition is absolutely ridiculous.

On the other hand, I don't like the notion that teenagers shouldn't skate to anything that's not rainbows and unicorns.
They go through hard times and emotional turmoils too, and should be able to express them on the ice, if they choose so.



I absolutely disagree here. The opera characters are just larger-than-life representations of emotions we ALL experience on everyday basis at any age, and it is actually very easy to identify with them without necessarily having to go to the very extremes like they do.
Don't teenagers even today fall madly in love, thinking no-one had ever experienced such strong feelings before, that this one particular person is the only one in the entire universe they could possibly love, and that they'd rather die than be without them? No-one has ever suffered so much, right? How about controlling, possessive or cheating boyfriends? Parents being against your relationship? Add some betrayal, thirst for revenge and desire to rule the world into the mix and you might have just covered most of what opera is actually about. Definitely much more so than prostitution, and I think it is entirely possible to totally identify with e.g. Violetta's feelings without giving prostitution a single thought.

I also don't agree at all that opera is misogynist. Actually, I've always found it fascinating that given the status of women in history, the central characters in operas are mostly females, and usually very strong and spirited ones that make their male counterparts look rather incompetent and weak in comparison. Yes, the male characters often ruin their lives, but it is never depicted as something positive or OK, cause they are just women, so who cares.
Carmen might have been stabbed to death, but she is still the heroin and I wonder how many people even know the name of the guy who killed her. The same goes for Madama Butterfly.

There is also a fair share of women characters, who enjoy torturing men, kill them or just make their life hell in general and yet somehow come accross as rather likeable.
They cheat on them too, by the way.
So no, I think opera is a genre that feminists might actually enjoy quite a lot!

first i wrote about opera from a specific era... nowadays, opera is more varied.. and by the way, i would like you to list operas from the era i mentioned that are presenting women in such a powerful context because it is exactly coming from research about feminism in opera that musicologists have made arguments about how misogynist opera was in the 19th century. YMMV but here, I am baffled by what I am reading here... you simply need to have a short google search to see how many articles from various authors have called out opera for its misogynistic concepts... what you see nowadays, is adaptations... they will make Carmen or Butterfly appear as a heroine with a staging that is going away from the original. However, historically, what you affirm here is far from the norm.
 

Finley

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 19, 2014
For all the reasons that everyone else has already expressed, and so many more, Benoit needs to choose different music for this skater.

I'm finding it really hard to say what I feel about this.

If this piece of music is used in a performance it does not need to be cut and spliced together with Sinnerman. It should stand alone and complete. It does not need to be judged by a panel of judges trying to determine PCS for musical interpretation. How could you judge the interpretation of this song in a competitive environment? I don't think it's appropriate to even try. It is a tribute, a protest, a work of art. Not a figure skating spiral sequence.

Someday, someone may skate a beautiful performance of this song, but everything about this just feels so wrong. I'm sure Benoit only has the best of intentions and I have nothing but respect for him. In this case I would like to humbly request that he make another choice. Whether he understands the reason or not, I hope he will honor other peoples' feelings about it.
 

pearly

Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
I can identify three reasons for choosing this song and all three are wrong to me:

1. Not bothering to check the background and meaning
2. Trying to draw attention to a skater by making a controversial choice
3. Using competitive figure skating as a platform for a cause.

We've had an increase in programs whose very description states that the purpose of the program is to *raise awareness* (there was terrorism - not talking about Evgenia's program here; mental health, world peace, cancer...). A German team, I forget whether it was pairs or dance, had a program last season that started with something along the lines of "every third person in this audience today will get cancer". What's next, a program that promotes/questions vaccines or veganism? No thanks.
 

icybear

Medalist
Joined
Mar 18, 2017
If Benoit did understand the context of the lyrics and the gruesome history behind them and wanted to convey such concept why would he choose a random 15 yrs old Japanese girl to do so. My guess is that he had no had intention of acknowledging the context of the lyrics and just choose it cause he felt it was a "nice song"
 

enzet

On the Ice
Joined
Sep 13, 2006
first i wrote about opera from a specific era... nowadays, opera is more varied.. and by the way, i would like you to list operas from the era i mentioned that are presenting women in such a powerful context because it is exactly coming from research about feminism in opera that musicologists have made arguments about how misogynist opera was in the 19th century. YMMV but here, I am baffled by what I am reading here... you simply need to have a short google search to see how many articles from various authors have called out opera for its misogynistic concepts... what you see nowadays, is adaptations... they will make Carmen or Butterfly appear as a heroine with a staging that is going away from the original. However, historically, what you affirm here is far from the norm.

I wrote only about opera from that era, not about modern opera at all.
Do you actually see opera in the theater very often, or just read articles about its misogynistic concepts?
I'm also not talking about some often controversial modern productions where Trumps, Usama bin Ladens or Joseph Fritzls appear and which have little relation to the original story even though the libretto and music are still the same.

Carmen is a good example to start with, so is Tosca, Leonora (Fidelio), Dalila, Salome, Brunhilde, Norina (Don Pasquale), most of Rossini's female characters, Minnie (La fanciula del West), Marie (La fille du regiment), some Mozart's female characters, Lady McBeth, Abigaille. I consider Violetta or Marguerite etc. to be pretty strong characters as well, because even though their lives are ruined by men, they morally triumph over them.
Just off the top of my head, there are many more.

I don't need to google search, I see what I see in the actual theater. Do you?
And I often feel pretty empowered by these female characters. If you think I'm wrong or ignorant for feeling this way, I'm not sorry.
:eek:topic:
 

Sai Bon

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Country
New-Zealand
>There is also a fair share of women characters, who enjoy torturing men, kill them or just make their life hell in general and yet somehow come accross as rather likeable.
They cheat on them too, by the way.
So no, I think opera is a genre that feminists might actually enjoy quite a lot!

Yeah, just check out Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk!
http://www.israel-opera.co.il/eng/?CategoryID=260&ArticleID=187
I haven't actually seen the opera, but a movie based on the story, and boy, she is a nasty lady. Makes the original Lady Macbeth seem pretty tame in comparison.
Sorry, OT...
 
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