Sequins and Manhood in the USA

Re: Are the judges against gay skaters?

Fetal-

"Are there other elite female skaters that are more manly than most? I can't think of any."

I can. One immediately popped into my mind. But since I am not in the mood to get cyber disembowled, I will keep that opinion to myself.

Re: Are the judges against gay skaters?

MMM -- Who, who? I can think of two myself.

MM

(Edited: Three, counting ice dancers.)

Re: Are the judges against gay skaters?

Denise Bielman doesn't come across as the frilly china doll type.

Piel

Perfect Example

I've got a perfect example in woman's skating where the results may have been distorted because one skater fit the stereotype of "feminine" and the other didn't.

In the famous Debbie Thomas - Katt Witt Olympic showdown, you can watch the tape of the short program for a million times and you end up feeling pretty certain: Deb Thomas should have won the SP. But she didn't.

Deb wore a black unitard and skated with undeniable power. Kat wore a fluffy blue ballroom-type outfit and skated with grace. Am I remembering this correctly?

Now, we will never know if history would have been different had Deb won the SP and gone into the LP with confidence. As it was, she went into the LP and had a major meltdown. That performance would not have allowed her to maintain a lead, even if she had won the SP... BUT who knows what her performance would have been if things were different in the SP?

Linny

Imperfect example

No,Piel,Denise does not conform to the china doll type.Yet she remains quite popular.Her trademark spin is amazing.And I,as a straight male,find her magnifique physique quite pleasing to the eye,especially in her skimpier costumes.

Good job

This has been a long and contraversial thread and, so far, everyone has conducted themselves with a decent degree of sensitivity. Good job, guys!
Linny

Re: Are the judges against gay skaters?

" MMM -- Who, who? I can think of two myself."

LOL, Mathman. You go first.

Re: Are the judges against gay skaters?

To answer Joe's question, I think it might matter with some judges who were homophobic. Figure skating judging seems to be to some extent subjective and perhaps biased in favor of a particular skater due to, perhaps, nationalism or preference for a particular skating style. If a judge were deeply homophobic than even a male skater who appeared gay might suffer.
Other judges might prefer a don't ask don't tell approach and if a male skater breached that (or someone outed him) that might affect that segment of judges. Alexei Urmanov (sp? Help, Grgranny!) won an Olympic gold medal over Elvis and he certainly, to my eye, came off as gay and, if memory serves, both had successful programs, yet, as I said, AU won. So, yes, Joe, I think it could engender bias if one came out. If that brave soul did, would it change anything? Well, with the new judging system, how could we tell what any judges reactions were and therefore how could any judges be held accountable for explaining their marks and ordinals.
I wouldn't if I were a skater and lusting after not only medals but also endorsement deals. Look at what happened to Martina Navratalova (tennis). Of course, she is very much admired and respected as a person and had a banner with her name on it hung at Madison Square Garden. Then again, she's a woman, so who knows how a male tennis player in the same position would have been treated. So who knows what the right choice would be.
yelyoh

Martina

Martina, I think I heard, was the first non-swimsuit female to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Oh, and, BTW, she has some pretty darned good commercial endorsements at the current time. So advertisers musta figured out that she does have sale-ability.

Linny

Re: Martina

Midori Ito was a power skater, hardly fitting the "doll" mold--and she won a World title and Olympic silver.

Rudi: He's so popular--regardless of his sexual orientation. He won the Nationals and a World bronze -- and judges knew he was gay but obviously didn't care (or if they did care, it was not reflected in his marks). Clearly he was judged on his talent and performances.

More thoughts

Hello Fetal and everyone:

I think I mentioned earlier that I know I have been placed low in competition for doing a style of presentation based in a lyrical, flowing and emotional skating for being "feminine". The judges told me so using the euphamism, "lady-like".

Moves in dance that are beautiful when performed by women are still beautiful when performed by men, so at first I was upset hearing this and translated it to homophobia so I could understand. But after more experience, I understand the system here in the US in judging.

Simply said, they don't really care if a skater is or isn't homosexual, bisexual, etc. They couldn't care less what the skater is in private life. What they want is for their own visions of the male/female/pairs/dance skaters to be presented in competition. The rules regarding music, costumes and what is awarded points all shapes what the Federation would like to have represent the country in competition.

These visions of the ideal skater...male, female, pair or dance are different from place to place, culture to culture, person to person. The variety is enormous. To analyze it completely would be the same as cataloging all the cultures you encounter throughout the world. This is difficult.

Back to judges. I have skated in this style for competition after learning what is was the judges wanted. I can sum up what they want quickly for the image of the "male figure skater"...

Physically: Long limbed, 5'7"-5'9"....any taller makes they rink appear smaller and cramped, and any shorter and the skater seems small (the boards ar 4 feet high) within the 200' x 100' space. No body fat. Not muscle bound. Ballet dancer build is perfect.

You must skate powerfully and with great speed.
You must cover the entire ice surface, even skating close to the boards.
You must complete all the jumps and spins allowed in your level.
You body lines must be clean and in classic positions without much affectation in the hand movements.
Your spins must be centered and fast, your jumps high and landed securely.
You must present the elements to the judges with simple movements and facial expressions.
Your footwork must have speed, deep edges, turn in both directions and have variety.

Your music should be powerful and dramatic and when slower, the music should be dramatic too.

Your costume should be non distracting and handsome or athletic.

When a skater presents a different style than this, they must have the jumps, spins, speed, ice coverage be PERFECT to get the marks. A more effeminate style, whether skated by straight or gay men, will not get the marks unless it meets all the conditions of being the best technically in every facet of the program---speed, ice coverage, no little errors anywhere...everything must be the best. This is why Rudy only won once. It was the best in every way that night in 1996, without question, so he couldn't be denied. It just so happens he is openly gay also.

A straight man skating as Rudy does would also be held down for this style. The homophobia and dislike of the effeminate is translated to the sport. A straight skater can be exposed directly to homophobia if he skates in a way deemed "gay" by whatever society is doing the judging.

This creates the interesting facets to discuss because the connection between homophobia to the sport of figure skating is indirect, occuring through the participants.

AS

Same as before

Linny,
After her orientation became public, Martina was asked, on a talk show, if she had lost any of her endorsement deals as a result and her response was, "Any? All!!."
And it remained that way for several years. Now it is not the case, I am happy to say but she did lose a lots of $$$$$$ at that point in her life.
Yelyoh

Re: Same as before

We will never know if Rudi would have won again, since he retired that year. Happily, he reached his peak that year, as he had never skated that perfectly before.

Re: Only in America

Whether Rudi says now that his previous low marks were due to bad training (and certainly the failure to conquer the triple axel for the longest time was a training failure) and not homophobic judges, if you compared his programs to skaters who finished ahead of him, I would say yes, he was often undergraded at Nationals. And he was deliberately stuck below the line that insures money from USFSA and assignments to skate at what are now the Grand Prix events. And I think either open homophobia or the surpressed type of homophobia contributed.

At Nationals 96, he was Perfect. It was one of the all time greatest ever performances. And Todd was not perfect.

You should look at the performances in that time frame of Michael Chack and Scott Davis. Both were often falling all over the ice and were scored ahead of Rudi. It made me quite sick at the time.

The test of the grading proposition is not when 2 skaters skate clean, and the gay (or gay looking whatever that means to a particular judge) skater is unfairly undergraded. That almost never happens. The test of homophobia in the system is when 2 male skaters skate less than perfectly and the one perceived as gay is always downgraded.

With the new system, I don't think anyone could track down the homophobic judges.

And I agree with whomever said that Tonya's case was part of the same thing. Always portrayed as Tomboy Tonya.
Don't think of the Tonya you saw in 1994 and afterward. Go back to the 14 to 18 year old Tonya competing with Jill Trenary, Kristi Yamaguchi, and, yes, with Nancy Kerrigan.

Nancy Kerrigan at that time was an example of a skater who always disappointed and fell multiple times to the point where it was very painful to watch at Nationals. Always competing in what appeared to be a cut down wedding dress. Always somehow sneaked into the top 7 so that there would be international GPF assignments and support no matter how many times she fell.

So if you want what US judges liked in women's skating, at least in that time frame, it was Nancy Kerrigan. It was Jill Trenary, also famous for being inconsistent but knockout beautiful.

It was not high jumping, Lutz landing Tonya, who also had a great fast layback and some interesting moves no one else was doing (and some very bad hair days in addition to homemade costumes). Before her first championship in Minneapolis, Tonya was quite a consistent skater, BTW. It was only after that year that she completely disintegrated.
Apparently couldn't deal with the temptations, etc, of success. For Tonya to be US champion it took Perfect plus a triple axel.

And BTW, what the US judging establishment liked, was also not the Japanese Kristi either, who had to be Perfect to score well. Even Perfect would not do it for Tonya. (I saw her end up 3rd and out of the trips to Worlds being perfect, with all the 3 jumps).

It was no wonder that the person Tonya hit the knee of was not Kristi in 1992, it was Nancy in 1994.

And as to why little American boys don't skate, I am sure that everyone is right and the fear of name calling and of appearing gay is part of it. But I feel that individual sports for boys in general don't make it for American boys. The high profile, I AM A SUCCESS, sports in American are the TEAM SPORTS. Here's a story that points out why.

My children grew up in Northern Vermont, which is kind of an abberration in the US. The big sport at the time was Skiing, with a subtext second place of Hockey. Vermont kids were going to the Olympics, getting on the US development teams, going to UVM which was always in the skiing NCAA's. It was the only sport that Vermont had where there was any road to the limelight, so to speak. My sons skied, particularly my youngest son. Competitions had about 50 to 60 skiers at each skill level. One day when he was 11, my son finished 6th. He brushed the snow off, turned to me and said, "That's it, that's the best I can do, and I still lost. I'm going to play hockey. At least in hockey, half the people win every time. In skiing, I may never win."

In the American crossword puzzle, if the clue says "Finish second" the answer is "Lose". Only in America is getting an Olympic silver medal considered "Losing." And in the individual sports, only one person wins and everyone else loses. That is not an attractive proposition to little American boys, who have a lot of team sport options. So figure skating as a choice for boys already has a strike against it being an individual sport. Being an individual sport with homophobia problems is the 2nd strike. It is amazing how many good male skaters America has had, under those circumstances.

dpp

Early morning post

dpp, Doris:

That was a fabulous post to bring up another idea, team v. individual sports. How you did it at 4 AM or whatever is even more amazing. I'm up this Saturday morning at 6AM to skate, and I could never get that erudite that early.

Thanks for great morning coffee reading.

AS

Early morning post

Doris,Kristi is not Japanese,she is an American of Japanese descent.Also,Tonya never whacked Nancy's knee,it was Shaun Grant.And it was never sufficiently proven that she herself was invovled in the attack.She was convicted of obstructing justice (by not reporting immediately to the authorities when she discovered her ex-husband & associates were involved),but that is a different thing.I am by no means a fan of Tonya's,but let's not indulge in untruths.

Re: The Early Morning Post

Great Post, Doris P., especially the story about your son's experiences as a competitive skier.

This thread has brought up quite a few interesting sub-topics. Shall we go for 300 posts?

I never thought of Tonya Harding as unfeminine. I thought she was kind of cute, more so than Nancy K, in my humble opinion.

But then again, I thought, and still think, that Martina Navratalova is a sexy woman. More so than Chrissy Evert, for example. Martina always had that little twinkle in her eye, if you know what I mean. OK, I found out later that it wasn't me she was twinkling at, but still...

There was a recent tennis tournament on TV, and Martina was commentating on a Venus Williams match. Just then, Venus bent over to pick up a ball. Martina literally stopped in mid-word. She was unable to finish her sentence and one of the other commentators had to jump in for her.

Later on there was a report that Anna Kournakova had been voted the sexiest female tennis player by someone or other. Martina's comment, "Hmmpf, they must not have let the women vote."

About athletes as commercial pitchmen: It seems quite mysterious to me what the criteria are for offering endorsement oportunities to famous athletes. Jack Nicklaus never got any significant TV ads, perhaps because he has a funny voice. Compare to Tiger Woods, who makes about 40 million a year from Nike alone.

Mohammed Ali never got any endorsements (except roach motels -- roaches check in, but they don't check out). Perhaps he was too controversial for main stream corporations. Carl Lewis never got anything. Too wierd? Maybe he was gay? Not as tough as his sister?

As for "American of Japanese descent" Kristi , well, I am only one person. But as for me, I will buy anything Kristi tells me to. Even as I write, my freezer is full of Smart Ones dinners.

But I am almost down to my last bar of Caress Deodorant Soap that Michelle sold me four years ago. Got to shower up so I can drive my new Chevy down to the theater for the latest Disney movie.

Mathman

Re: The Early Morning Post

As for "American of Japanese descent" Kristi , well, I am only one person. But as for me, I will buy anything Kristi tells me to. Even as I write, my freezer is full of Smart Ones dinners.

But I am almost down to my last bar of Caress Deodorant Soap that Michelle sold me four years ago. Got to shower up so I can drive my new Chevy down to the theater for the latest Disney movie.
______________

Are you reading Michelle's Heart of a Champion, and The winning Attitude with your pearl vision contact lenses (endorsed by Kristi)?

Re: The Early Morning Post

Hey guys - I think this post has had it at this point. It is becoming more like it belongs in Le Cafe. Let's wind itk up.

Joesitz

Re: Early morning post

John King, you are absolutely right and I got a little fast and loose with the fingers on the keyboard. Kristi is Japanese American, not Japanese. But there was a perception at the time that she was Japanese, and I believe that in her earlier years, she actually looked into skating for Japan, but there were problems.

As to Tonya, you are also right, and I agree too that she has done enough time in the penalty box.
dpp