Well, I haven't seen her skate in person. Perhaps that would help. When I watch Bradie skate, she skates with no emotion. It's boring, whether or not she lands her jumps. IMHO.
I have. She's not an actress, but she's fast and smooth on the ice (that comment that she was slow is just dead wrong--she was the fastest skater at Nationals) and her jumps just kind of twinkle (lower than Mirai's, but faster spins.) Her PCS scores are higher than some people expect because her choreography has some complex entries into jumps.
She is 20, but given how little international senior competitions she's had, she's a young skater and should be seen accordingly. She needs some polish and experience, but she's the real deal. And she was clean at the Team Short. She was the least experienced of the three Americans and she ended up in the highest position despite having to go first in the short.
More general rant--Schizoanalyst brings up some good points about helicopter moms--as a mother (kid does not skate), I'll add that it's generational-- you're really expected to managed your kid's extracurriculars and packaging for elite colleges. As someone who doesn't have natural helicopter tendencies, it's a damned nuisance. It's largely the result of how expensive college has become and how competitive it's become. That attitude certainly spills over into skating--which is both expensive and time consuming. Yes, a parent is going to monitor that kind of, well, investment. Anyway, it wasn't always like this. Skating was never cheap, but working-class families like Nancy Kerrigan's could find ways of making it work (Kerrigan's dad got a second job.) Often skaters weren't from affluent backgrounds (Tonya Harding, of course, but also Nicole Bobek for instance.) And that access matters because often your most driven kids are the ones who are striving for something. And if it didn't work out, there were decent jobs out there and affordable colleges.
That said, it's worth noting that these factors aren't having the same effect on Men's (where we have competitive skaters) or ice dancing (where we've got serious depth.). I think the issues with Ladies are many--I think a big one is that our coaching has been stuck in the past because we were so dominant in the past. That happens--you see it in other countries as well. Used to be Russia was dominant in everything, *but* Ladies and now it's the only discipline where it's dominant. And it's not because the Russians have superlative technique; it's because a couple of coaches have figured out to develop skaters for the current scoring system, while American coaches and, frankly, skating fans still prefer 6.0 skating with the lack of errors. Americans love Jason Brown, but he's not top-tier internationally.
