Define what you mean by standard image? Typical ballad ones or what?
It's difficult to define for me without sounding derogatory, because obviously I have my opinion on this.
I mostly mean the ice princess stuff. There's the sweet delicate flower ice princess, the elegant ice princess, the sexy little thing ice princess. Then there's also the fiery woman with a temper à la Carmen, and the hot sexy athlete in shades of orientalism or pop dance music, and of course, who could forget, the plagued soul, which is also very common in the male version though, skating to wheepy music. Then we have the cute little childlike girl, that one's a bit rarer, and the cheeky jazzy burlesque dancer which might just be a sub-category of the sexy little thing or something in between.
Of course all of that often requires strong sportive abilities, and I am not against most of these programs per se if they are some among others. But programs I want to see more are those which display a strong, powerful, quirky image, maybe to rock music, maybe to dance music, maybe to horror movie soundtracks, representing original characters, telling interesting stories - maybe with a more straightforward, sportive elegance, not focusing on being delicate, not focusing on being sexy.
I just want to see a range of images, more like in men's - I will still complain about the programs in men's and the many warhorses, but there are more different characters and there is a broad range of viril/feminine, while in women's I will watch a competition and get 90% delicate/sexy/wheepy. More delicate if it's Asian, more sexy if it's European, more wheepy if it's North American.
Sorry for the stereotypes. I don't mean to be as mean as this comes across. I'm just despairing and thinking no wonder so many girls and their families want nothing to do with figure skating and rather choose hockey.
But as we can see in this thread, there are some great original programs for women, too!
