Is it time to get rid of the kiss and cry?

[Arigato]

I fact-checked myself.

No, you did not. This what you posted:

"This is the actual historical truth of the matter. The Kiss and Cry was invented and so-named in 1983 by a TV crew at an event in Finland who explicitly sought opportunities to get close-ups of emotional outbursts from the overwrought participants.."

It was not named by a TV crew at all. Jane Erkko was simply explaining to a TV technician why she labeled it as such on a map. It's unnecessary to turn their conversation into something dark or self-serving for dramatic effect.

 

[Arriba627]

Thinking of senior competitions, I love the K & C and the tension of waiting for the scores to see if my favorites did or didn't make the podium. Yes there can be sadness and disappointment, but usually the joy makes up for it.

 

[Mathman]

No, you did not. This what you posted:

"This is the actual historical truth of the matter. The Kiss and Cry was invented and so-named in 1983 by a TV crew at an event in Finland who explicitly sought opportunities to get close-ups of emotional outbursts from the overwrought participants.."

It was not named by a TV crew at all. Jane Erkko was simply explaining to a TV technician why she labeled it as such on a map. It's unnecessary to turn their conversation into something dark or self-serving for dramatic effect.

Well... iI'm going to hate myself in the morning for continuing this conversation, but I think that if you dig a little deeper into primary sources you will come away with a more nuanced perspective. The account by Bianchetti (pages 44-56) seems (to me, reading the English translation) to make it clear that the discussion was motivated by the TV folks wanting to find a good place to get "personal imterest" shots from.

As for the name itself, Dictionary.com puts it this way:

"The coining of the name kiss and cry is often traced back to the late 1970s or early ’80s. According to some accounts, it was coined by Finnish skating official Jane Erkko. It is also variously credited to figure skating broadcasters or producers in the 1980s, when it became popular within the figure skating community and also began to gain more widespread usage."

So I guess it would make an interesting research project for someone's master's thesis on the history of figure skating.

 

[Arigato]

Well... iI'm going to hate myself in the morning for continuing this conversation, but I think that if you dig a little deeper into primary sources you will come away with a more nuanced perspective. The account by Bianchetti (pages 44-56) seems (to me, reading the English translation) to make it clear that the discussion was motivated by the TV folks wanting to find a good place to get "personal interest" shots from.

If any so-called TV folks wanted to find a good place to get their shots or angles, it in no way means there's a sinister quality to their work as you suggested by saying they:

explicitly sought opportunities to get close-ups of emotional outbursts from the overwrought participants.


Now, I'm tired of people thinking the K&C is a pit of demons awaiting skaters who screw up. I will end here with one of my all-time fav Kiss and Cry photos. Ever. Light up the world and skate on.

 

[Skating91]

Given the inconsistencies and at times blatant biases from judges (I think we can agree not every person or region is judged equally) in how figure skaters are scored (we can watch how one skater can make one landing in an entire program that looks like a q and given an underrotation for it, while the very next skater can have 3-4 genuine underrotations but merely receive 1-2 q's), I find it extra troubling that a skater has to subserviently sit there before the judges. I find the process quite cruel to some skaters.

Really, it should be purely optional, and if a skater does opt to sit in the kiss and cry, then there is no reason a director should not cut away if a skater is visibly uncomfortable or upset. If a skater wants to jump up before the next skater starts their program then let them.

What would be wrong with just showing highlights, the commentators analysing the previous program for an extra 1-2 minutes until the scores are read out. Help educate the audience some more at the same time.

Or maybe instead of the kiss and cry, we have the tech panel and judges mic'd up or live scoring on the screen. All this is more informative, more educational, more respectful to the skaters than almost baiting them into crying by making people who would rather be anywhere else at that moment be made a spectacle of.

Surely callously broadcasting a distraught 14 year old skater to the world for posterity is in violation of their Vision 2030 framework.

Safeguarding: promote athletes’ physical and mental wellbeing, enforce zero tolerance for doping and competition manipulation for clean competition and do our part in environmental sustainability.

How does broadcasting for 1-2 minutes to the world for posterity a child suffering severe mental anguish as they are having one of the worst days of their life fit within the Vision 2030 framework of promoting an athletes mental wellbeing. The ISU couldn't be doing more in that moment to exacerbate mental suffering. Instead the ISU is making a spectacle and exploiting mental suffering.

 

[TallyT]

Given the inconsistencies and at times blatant biases from judges (I think we can agree not every person or region is judged equally) in how figure skaters are scored (we can watch how one skater can make one landing in an entire program that looks like a q and given an underrotation for it, while the very next skater can have 3-4 genuine underrotations but merely receive 1-2 q's), I find it extra troubling that a skater has to subserviently sit their before the judges. I find the process quite cruel to some skaters.

Really, it should be purely optional, and if a skater does opt to sit in the kiss and cry, then there is no reason a director should not cut away if a skater is visibly uncomfortable or upset. If a skater wants to jump up before the next skater starts their program then let them.

What would be wrong with just showing highlights, the commentators analysing the previous program for an extra 1-2 minutes until the scores are read out. Help educate the audience some more at the same time.

Or maybe instead of the kiss and cry, we have the tech panel and judges mic'd up or live scoring on the screen. All this is more informative, more educational, more respectful to the skaters than almost baiting them into crying by making people who would rather be anywhere else at that moment be made a spectacle of.

Surely callously broadcasting a distraught 14 year old skater to the world for posterity is in violation of their Vision 2030 framework.

Safeguarding: promote athletes’ physical and mental wellbeing, enforce zero tolerance for doping and competition manipulation for clean competition and do our part in environmental sustainability.

How does broadcasting for 1-2 minutes to the world for posterity a child suffering severe mental anguish as they are having one of the worst days of their life fit within the Vision 2030 framework of promoting an athletes mental wellbeing. The ISU couldn't be doing more in that moment to exacerbate mental suffering. Instead the ISU is making a spectacle and exploiting mental suffering.

Why do I get the feeling there is one and one only skater whose KnC tears you are concerned with?

In any case, as @TontoK said, it's all philosophical. TPTB are not going to relinquish the clickbait.

 

[Karoltyna]

Given the inconsistencies and at times blatant biases from judges (I think we can agree not every person or region is judged equally) in how figure skaters are scored (we can watch how one skater can make one landing in an entire program that looks like a q and given an underrotation for it, while the very next skater can have 3-4 genuine underrotations but merely receive 1-2 q's), I find it extra troubling that a skater has to subserviently sit their before the judges. I find the process quite cruel to some skaters.

Really, it should be purely optional, and if a skater does opt to sit in the kiss and cry, then there is no reason a director should not cut away if a skater is visibly uncomfortable or upset. If a skater wants to jump up before the next skater starts their program then let them.

What would be wrong with just showing highlights, the commentators analysing the previous program for an extra 1-2 minutes until the scores are read out. Help educate the audience some more at the same time.

Or maybe instead of the kiss and cry, we have the tech panel and judges mic'd up or live scoring on the screen. All this is more informative, more educational, more respectful to the skaters than almost baiting them into crying by making people who would rather be anywhere else at that moment be made a spectacle of.

Surely callously broadcasting a distraught 14 year old skater to the world for posterity is in violation of their Vision 2030 framework.

Safeguarding: promote athletes’ physical and mental wellbeing, enforce zero tolerance for doping and competition manipulation for clean competition and do our part in environmental sustainability.

How does broadcasting for 1-2 minutes to the world for posterity a child suffering severe mental anguish as they are having one of the worst days of their life fit within the Vision 2030 framework of promoting an athletes mental wellbeing. The ISU couldn't be doing more in that moment to exacerbate mental suffering. Instead the ISU is making a spectacle and exploiting mental suffering.

If it's optional and the skater decides to skip, they will get huge backlash and even more pressure to show next time. It's better to endure a few moments than to be labeled as spoiled and unstable - see the uproar and speculations on other forums when Adam Siao asked to not to broadcast his runs at his last comp.
I agree, they should broadcast the judges.

 

[Mathman]

If any so-called TV folks wanted to find a good place to get their shots or angles, it in no way means there's a sinister quality to their work as you suggested by saying they:

explicitly sought opportunities to get close-ups of emotional outbursts from the overwrought participants.

Now, I'm tired of people thinking the K&C is a pit of demons awaiting skaters who screw up.

I don't think that anyone on this thread expressed the opinion that there is anything sinister going on. The post that started this chain, post #42 by Sis5572, advanced the view that television folks like to produce footage that is emotionally gripping to audiences.

Well, that's their job. Do you remember the old "Thrill of Victory, Agony of Defeat" lead-in to ABCs Wide World of Sports? Every week we got to see the same unlucky ski jumper (one Vinko Bogataj) falling off the take-off ramp. Good TV? I guess so. Jim McKay thought it was, anyway.

 

[lariko]

Given the inconsistencies and at times blatant biases from judges (I think we can agree not every person or region is judged equally) in how figure skaters are scored (we can watch how one skater can make one landing in an entire program that looks like a q and given an underrotation for it, while the very next skater can have 3-4 genuine underrotations but merely receive 1-2 q's), I find it extra troubling that a skater has to subserviently sit their before the judges. I find the process quite cruel to some skaters.

Really, it should be purely optional, and if a skater does opt to sit in the kiss and cry, then there is no reason a director should not cut away if a skater is visibly uncomfortable or upset. If a skater wants to jump up before the next skater starts their program then let them.

What would be wrong with just showing highlights, the commentators analysing the previous program for an extra 1-2 minutes until the scores are read out. Help educate the audience some more at the same time.

Or maybe instead of the kiss and cry, we have the tech panel and judges mic'd up or live scoring on the screen. All this is more informative, more educational, more respectful to the skaters than almost baiting them into crying by making people who would rather be anywhere else at that moment be made a spectacle of.

Surely callously broadcasting a distraught 14 year old skater to the world for posterity is in violation of their Vision 2030 framework.

Safeguarding: promote athletes’ physical and mental wellbeing, enforce zero tolerance for doping and competition manipulation for clean competition and do our part in environmental sustainability.

How does broadcasting for 1-2 minutes to the world for posterity a child suffering severe mental anguish as they are having one of the worst days of their life fit within the Vision 2030 framework of promoting an athletes mental wellbeing. The ISU couldn't be doing more in that moment to exacerbate mental suffering. Instead the ISU is making a spectacle and exploiting mental suffering.

Think of the children will be served better by training them with the right mindset that doesn't turn an athletic competition into the worst day of their lives independent of the outcome. It's wrong to raise humans with the idea that they deserve to only succeed and then shelter them from the consequence of failure or even remove it. It's wrong to rob the many, many children who enjoy their moment in spotlight and personal triumph. Most young skaters lit up in that kiss and cry in JGP, independently of scores or handle disappointment with a grin. Those divas can learn from them. The modern attitude of just taking things away and shutting them down to avoid expense of managing properly, doing things the right way is wrong. How many forums shut down because they didn't want to moderate or deal with bad actors? No, no. Let's cancel and leave people who done nothing wrong and enjoyed it high and dry... Bad behavior, egoism and narcissism should not be excused, let alone used as a cause to shut down stuff for others.

So many people focus on Trusova's melt down in Olympics, but Trusova dealt with the disappointment and came back from that like a champion she is. She went through so many things afterwards and that's worthy of respect.

Sweeping under the carpet the fact that in a competition people lose, that they have feeling and that they can deal with them is a strategy that will only reduce resilience of the athletes. Losing and winning gracefully is a part of the skillset.

 

[Skating91]

If it's optional and the skater decides to skip, they will get huge backlash and even more pressure to show next time. It's better to endure a few moments than to be labeled as spoiled and unstable - see the uproar and speculations on other forums when Adam Siao asked to not to broadcast his runs at his last comp.
I agree, they should broadcast the judges.

This is the type of bullying we need to eliminate from the sport.

 

[Karoltyna]

This is the type of bullying we need to eliminate from the sport.

As much as I agree with you, it would mean closing sport for the public. This is how most people are - not particularily decent or compassionate and searching for emotions they lack in their lifes. Unfortunately in every sport large part of fans are toxic and entitled to discuss or comment on athletes.

 

[Mathman]

OK, for some reason I have become obsessed by the project of tracking down the Kiss and Cry story. Here is the best account that I have read o far:

Why Do Figure Skaters Go to the “Kiss and Cry” to Get Their Scores?

Stefan Fatsis also read a version of this story on the Feb. 18 episode of Slate's sports podcast “Hang Up and Listen.”

slate.com

This article gives the name of the “chief TV technician” mentioned in the Bianchetti account as Peter Donovan, a London-based CBS sports producer. According to Donovan’s boss, CBS sports executive producer Rich Gentile:

“Donvan first called it the kiss-and-cry area ‘and so it ever shall be.’ (Gentile) said it’s possible that Joe Aceti, another CBS Sports director, came up with the phrase, but that “Peter was the one who made it an internationally accepted term” — but Gentile later backed off somewhat when he heard about Bianchetti’s account.

All of the principals have since passed away (RIP), including Jane Erkko (2014), so I guess we will never know any more than that.

(I don’t know why I find stuff like this to be of riveting interest — I guess I am just weird that way. )

 

[Skating91]

Think of the children will be served better by training them with the right mindset that doesn't turn an athletic competition into the worst day of their lives independent of the outcome. It's wrong to raise humans with the idea that they deserve to only succeed and then shelter them from the consequence of failure or even remove it. It's wrong to rob the many, many children who enjoy their moment in spotlight and personal triumph. Most young skaters lit up in that kiss and cry in JGP, independently of scores or handle disappointment with a grin. Those divas can learn from them. The modern attitude of just taking things away and shutting them down to avoid expense of managing properly, doing things the right way is wrong. How many forums shut down because they didn't want to moderate or deal with bad actors? No, no. Let's cancel and leave people who done nothing wrong and enjoyed it high and dry... Bad behavior, egoism and narcissism should not be excused, let alone used as a cause to shut down stuff for others.

But they are forced to be in the kiss and cry against their will. It's really unfair to continue to focus on a child going through emotional distress, with the ISU causing additional embarrassment and humiliation when they could simply cut away to another camera with nothing lost (except for people who enjoy watching people suffer or humiliate themselves), or the skater could simply skip the kiss and cry.

In other sport when someone is hurt they cut away they don't just continue focusing on their face for 60 seconds.

Strange double standards in this sport, where a coach might scold or scowl at a skater (something that happens in any Olympic level or professional sport) and the internet goes into meltdown.

However, when something is proposed as simple as switching camera shots or allowing skaters to skip the kiss and cry if they are suffering emotionally, or maybe not in the best frame of mind not wanting this on the internet forever, then the attitude is 'we can't shelter these children these are the realities of life', 'these children that are crying are a bunch of divas', etc. We have to exacerbate the mental suffering by forcing them to sit there and focusing the camera on them for what must be a humiliating 1-2 minutes. And for what? To teach them some kind of life lesson (a lot of these same people would have a fit if a coach constructively scolded a skater)?

Maybe the sport is just not that interesting to regular sports fans, so they need these gimmicks like the kiss and cry, or having the three leaders sitting in a green room so we can see them feign happiness for their competitor when they get knocked off the podium, or even worse that chair they made Kaori sit in at the world championships while she waited for the inevitable result.

Is it a sport or a variety show?

 

[Mathematician]

I mean its definitely true skating is not like other sports. The junior category especially is just inextricably exploitive and morally dubious. Its obvious from social medias too that it affects their lives holistically. The sport attracts the sort of "variety show" type as some call it, even more so towards total pageantry. Parents too who like that sort of image for their kids.

Its definitely wasted energy to argue morality or child protection in figure skating and such communities. K&K is really just a superficial symptom ultimately.

 

[Karoltyna]

I mean its definitely true skating is not like other sports. The junior category especially is just inextricably exploitive and morally dubious. Its obvious from social medias too that it affects their lives holistically. The sport attracts the sort of "variety show" type as some call it, even more so towards total pageantry. Parents too who like that sort of image for their kids.

Its definitely wasted energy to argue morality or child protection in figure skating and such communities. K&K is really just a superficial symptom ultimately.

Parents send their kids to abusive coaches because these coaches have support of feds and this influences the scores. Parents make their kids train until their bodies can't recover properly. Parents go deaf when kids tell them they don't want to do it anymore/with this coach. These are problems of FS, not 5 minutes in K&C.

 

[Arigato]

Given the inconsistencies and at times blatant biases from judges (I think we can agree not every person or region is judged equally) in how figure skaters are scored (we can watch how one skater can make one landing in an entire program that looks like a q and given an underrotation for it, while the very next skater can have 3-4 genuine underrotations but merely receive 1-2 q's), I find it extra troubling that a skater has to subserviently sit there before the judges. I find the process quite cruel to some skaters.

Your incessant belief you are the only one who thinks they know what is legitimately a q or not in a skater's program has run its course.That's not your wheelhouse, kiddo. It's a judge's. And rather than continue to kick the judges with a metaphorical toe pick, season after season, why not watch a sport that doesn't cause you so much "suffering."

Or maybe instead of the kiss and cry, we have the tech panel and judges mic'd up or live scoring on the screen. All this is more informative, more educational, more respectful to the skaters than almost baiting them into crying by making people who would rather be anywhere else at that moment be made a spectacle of.

The only person I know of who was a spectacle was the one who made an ass of themselves, by choice.

 

[Mathman]

Is it a sport or a variety show?

Quite seriously, that has always ben figure skating's dilemma. It's part sport and part -- well, I don;t think that it has enough variety to be a variety show -- but anyway, a show.

Personally, I like that about it. There are a thousand sports that are as sporty as you please. But only one figure skating.

 

[fliptzies]

I thought skaters were already free to leave the KnC if they felt like it? Personally I see no issues with that. The camera can just follow the next skater warming up on the ice instead, and show the scores as they are announced.

I feel like that puts even more, so to say, 'shame' on the skater. It's one thing to be sitting in there, dreading the cameras, knowing you did badly, and another thing to avoid the cameras, but instead let the public form their own opinions about you for leaving the KnC, some may be positive, but I am not embarrassed to say that I could imagine many hurtful things people could say.

Apologies if someone else has mentioned this, I didn't look through the entire thread

 

[TontoK]

Kiss and Cry Truther Mathman may be my favorite @Mathman

it's because I sometimes fall into rabbit holes over inconsequential topics myself. I can relate.

 

[Demandred]

Is there any judged sport where it's allowed and accepted for athletes to just go to the locker room after they end their performance before they get their score? I can't think of any off the top of my head.