I'm not gonna teach your boyfriend how to Tango Romantica with you.
Wow! There's a lot of you new here. This is exciting.
If you're just joining me, I'd appreciate it if you read my friending policy in my userinfo. I'm a grad student in the middle of dissertation hell, and I can barely get through my friends list as it is. I am really really glad to have new readers and look forward to getting to know people, and anything fannish that I post here is always public.
There are a couple of things about my participation in skating fandom that I want to make really clear. You might have noticed the first thing, which is that I'm really cautious about what skater gossip I share in unlocked, nonfiction posts. One reason for this is that a lot of the gossip, while confirmable, is not intended for public knowledge - stuff is sort of known, but for various reasons, the skaters and their various managers and handlers don't want the press reporting on it. In non-Olympic years, figure skaters aren't all that famous, and a lot of them are quite young, so I don't want my fannish activity to harm them. The other reason is that skating fandom is quite international, and many fans read English well enough to get the gist of things but not well enough to get the nuance. Most of us who have been in the fandom for a while have said something catty or as a joke, only to learn that it's being reported as fact on the Russian or Korean message boards. I, and the fandom as a whole, are actually less cautious about posting fanfic, since that's clearly labeled as fiction. (We think some of the skaters know there is fanfic about them; we are pretty sure they find this to be some combination of funny, flattering, and nutty; please do not show my fanfic to Johnny Weir.)
The other thing I want to bring up is, a lot of the people coming into the fandom are coming in because Johnny Weir is a magical sparkle diva. I think this is a really good reason to get into the fandom, because he is one. I think the first time I watched him skate on TV was sometime around 2004 at a Grand Prix event, and all I could think was, Who is that glorious queen in the glittery blue pajamas? He's not the only reason I started following men's skating seriously (see: Stephane Lambiel, Jeff Buttle), but he was a big part of it.
But the point is, I'm a skating fan before I'm a fan of any individual skater. There are skaters who I can't stand as people (see: Evan Lysacek, Brian Joubert) but whose skating I enjoy watching when they're at their best. I'm a former skater myself (not a particularly good one), and I've been following the sport since the late '80s, when I was a little kid who dreamed of growing up to be Paul Wylie. I obsess over ice dance as much as I obsess over men's singles, and I perv on the ice dancers way more. There are definitely skaters I root for and root against, but there are multiple skaters in both categories.
To put it another way: somebody else is going to have to write you your Adam Lambert/Johnny Weir, because I think Jeremy Abbott is more Adam's type. I actually did try, and they ended up sitting backstage at the Gaga concert talking about shoes. It was so boring and so far from porn.
This relates to why I've been quiet about the OMG OUTRAGE about Weir's scores so far. Like almost everyone else, I think he should have placed higher, but I don't think he was robbed per se. Having looked at his detailed scores, they reflect what I saw on the ice. And what I saw, in the moment, made me squee like crazy, because Weir was absolutely beautiful out there, elegant and poised and in-the-moment, skating like he didn't care how he placed. I was on my feet for most of it, thinking, Paul Wylie, 1992, Henry V. And if these Olympics had been the bloodbath that Albertville was, Weir would have medaled.
But they weren't, so he didn't. The problem with both of Weir's programs is, they look beautiful when he skates clean, but he's not being scored on how pretty he is. That might seem unfair, but this isn't So You Think You Can Figure Skate. The judges aren't choosing the world's favorite skater; they're choosing the skater who best shows that he's mastered the athletic demands of the sport. All season, and really for the past two years, the judges have sent detailed score reports telling Weir and his coaches that if he wants to raise his Program Components scores, he has to put more difficulty into the connecting moves of his programs - the stuff that happens in between the jumps and spins. Weir's response to this has been to complain about how crappy the scoring system is and to leave his programs the way they are. As a result, his programs are breathtakingly beautiful but also kind of easy, at least in comparison with the programs of the other skaters at his level. I think he maybe deserved another point or two in PCS, but another point or two still would have left him in sixth place.
On the other hand, I think there were two skaters who were overscored in this competition, Plushenko and Chan. (I thought Lysacek, Takahashi, and Lambiel received scores that reflected their performances.) There's widespread agreement about this, and there are obvious reasons for the overscoring in both cases. Plushenko's technical ability, both historically and earlier in the season, is superior to any other skater in the sport, so the judges tend to give him extra credit for choreography and transitions even though he doesn't really do them. He received an 82.80 for program components in his free skate, but I think his PCS should have been right where Johnny's were, if not lower. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt a little and give him a tie on PCS with Johnny, 77.10. With that 5.7 point deduction, Plushenko's overall score drops to 250.66, which still gives him the silver medal, although Lysacek gets to enjoy a more decisive victory.
Chan's overscoring comes from the home team advantage: Canadian skaters have consistently been doing just a little better than they deserve. It's why Dube and Davison were in medal contention in pairs after a mediocre short program, and it's why Virtue and Moir are ahead of Davis and White after the compulsory dance. Chan got handed about three points in his short program and about four points in his free skate, most of it in positive grades of execution, that he didn't really earn from what I saw on the ice. If I take those seven points away from him, he winds up in seventh place behind Weir and Oda.
In other words, I think Weir should have been fifth and Oda should have been sixth, and everyone else landed more or less where they should have. I think the free skate I will be watching over and over again with tears in my eyes will be Weir's, because he was so damn gorgeous and fabulous. But the important thing here is, I don't think the scoring conspiracy, to the extent that there was one, was centered around Johnny Weir. I don't think anyone was purposely keeping Weir out of medal contention, especially not when Weir's exhibition program is a YouTube sensation that would have raised TV ratings for the gala. He's not OMG SO OPPRESSED.
And now he can go retire and do shows and give Tanith a pedicure and learn to sew and eat an enormous steak, all of which I'm sure he has been looking forward to.
*
I found myself really enjoying all of the top five compulsory dances last night. It was neat to see each team put their own spin on the same steps. I thought Tanith and Ben's angry tango was the most fun. Virtue and Moir were so sexy I thought she was actually going to shove her hand down his pants. Domnina and Shabalin were stately and ice-cold, and their performance of the steps was by far the best. Davis and White were kind of sweet and coy, two people who had just met and were flirting each other out. And Faiella and Scali, as usual, looked like it was three in the morning and it was their last dance before they got kicked out of the bar. I'm somewhat, but not entirely, surprised to see the judges basically informing Delobel & Schoenfelder and Khokhlova & Novitski that they are not in medal contention.
In conclusion, I realized I did not have an icon of Adam Rippon being a fabulous mini-diva, so I have fixed that. US figure skating will be just fine when Weir retires and Rippon becomes the new HBIC.
If you're just joining me, I'd appreciate it if you read my friending policy in my userinfo. I'm a grad student in the middle of dissertation hell, and I can barely get through my friends list as it is. I am really really glad to have new readers and look forward to getting to know people, and anything fannish that I post here is always public.
There are a couple of things about my participation in skating fandom that I want to make really clear. You might have noticed the first thing, which is that I'm really cautious about what skater gossip I share in unlocked, nonfiction posts. One reason for this is that a lot of the gossip, while confirmable, is not intended for public knowledge - stuff is sort of known, but for various reasons, the skaters and their various managers and handlers don't want the press reporting on it. In non-Olympic years, figure skaters aren't all that famous, and a lot of them are quite young, so I don't want my fannish activity to harm them. The other reason is that skating fandom is quite international, and many fans read English well enough to get the gist of things but not well enough to get the nuance. Most of us who have been in the fandom for a while have said something catty or as a joke, only to learn that it's being reported as fact on the Russian or Korean message boards. I, and the fandom as a whole, are actually less cautious about posting fanfic, since that's clearly labeled as fiction. (We think some of the skaters know there is fanfic about them; we are pretty sure they find this to be some combination of funny, flattering, and nutty; please do not show my fanfic to Johnny Weir.)
The other thing I want to bring up is, a lot of the people coming into the fandom are coming in because Johnny Weir is a magical sparkle diva. I think this is a really good reason to get into the fandom, because he is one. I think the first time I watched him skate on TV was sometime around 2004 at a Grand Prix event, and all I could think was, Who is that glorious queen in the glittery blue pajamas? He's not the only reason I started following men's skating seriously (see: Stephane Lambiel, Jeff Buttle), but he was a big part of it.
But the point is, I'm a skating fan before I'm a fan of any individual skater. There are skaters who I can't stand as people (see: Evan Lysacek, Brian Joubert) but whose skating I enjoy watching when they're at their best. I'm a former skater myself (not a particularly good one), and I've been following the sport since the late '80s, when I was a little kid who dreamed of growing up to be Paul Wylie. I obsess over ice dance as much as I obsess over men's singles, and I perv on the ice dancers way more. There are definitely skaters I root for and root against, but there are multiple skaters in both categories.
To put it another way: somebody else is going to have to write you your Adam Lambert/Johnny Weir, because I think Jeremy Abbott is more Adam's type. I actually did try, and they ended up sitting backstage at the Gaga concert talking about shoes. It was so boring and so far from porn.
This relates to why I've been quiet about the OMG OUTRAGE about Weir's scores so far. Like almost everyone else, I think he should have placed higher, but I don't think he was robbed per se. Having looked at his detailed scores, they reflect what I saw on the ice. And what I saw, in the moment, made me squee like crazy, because Weir was absolutely beautiful out there, elegant and poised and in-the-moment, skating like he didn't care how he placed. I was on my feet for most of it, thinking, Paul Wylie, 1992, Henry V. And if these Olympics had been the bloodbath that Albertville was, Weir would have medaled.
But they weren't, so he didn't. The problem with both of Weir's programs is, they look beautiful when he skates clean, but he's not being scored on how pretty he is. That might seem unfair, but this isn't So You Think You Can Figure Skate. The judges aren't choosing the world's favorite skater; they're choosing the skater who best shows that he's mastered the athletic demands of the sport. All season, and really for the past two years, the judges have sent detailed score reports telling Weir and his coaches that if he wants to raise his Program Components scores, he has to put more difficulty into the connecting moves of his programs - the stuff that happens in between the jumps and spins. Weir's response to this has been to complain about how crappy the scoring system is and to leave his programs the way they are. As a result, his programs are breathtakingly beautiful but also kind of easy, at least in comparison with the programs of the other skaters at his level. I think he maybe deserved another point or two in PCS, but another point or two still would have left him in sixth place.
On the other hand, I think there were two skaters who were overscored in this competition, Plushenko and Chan. (I thought Lysacek, Takahashi, and Lambiel received scores that reflected their performances.) There's widespread agreement about this, and there are obvious reasons for the overscoring in both cases. Plushenko's technical ability, both historically and earlier in the season, is superior to any other skater in the sport, so the judges tend to give him extra credit for choreography and transitions even though he doesn't really do them. He received an 82.80 for program components in his free skate, but I think his PCS should have been right where Johnny's were, if not lower. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt a little and give him a tie on PCS with Johnny, 77.10. With that 5.7 point deduction, Plushenko's overall score drops to 250.66, which still gives him the silver medal, although Lysacek gets to enjoy a more decisive victory.
Chan's overscoring comes from the home team advantage: Canadian skaters have consistently been doing just a little better than they deserve. It's why Dube and Davison were in medal contention in pairs after a mediocre short program, and it's why Virtue and Moir are ahead of Davis and White after the compulsory dance. Chan got handed about three points in his short program and about four points in his free skate, most of it in positive grades of execution, that he didn't really earn from what I saw on the ice. If I take those seven points away from him, he winds up in seventh place behind Weir and Oda.
In other words, I think Weir should have been fifth and Oda should have been sixth, and everyone else landed more or less where they should have. I think the free skate I will be watching over and over again with tears in my eyes will be Weir's, because he was so damn gorgeous and fabulous. But the important thing here is, I don't think the scoring conspiracy, to the extent that there was one, was centered around Johnny Weir. I don't think anyone was purposely keeping Weir out of medal contention, especially not when Weir's exhibition program is a YouTube sensation that would have raised TV ratings for the gala. He's not OMG SO OPPRESSED.
And now he can go retire and do shows and give Tanith a pedicure and learn to sew and eat an enormous steak, all of which I'm sure he has been looking forward to.
*
I found myself really enjoying all of the top five compulsory dances last night. It was neat to see each team put their own spin on the same steps. I thought Tanith and Ben's angry tango was the most fun. Virtue and Moir were so sexy I thought she was actually going to shove her hand down his pants. Domnina and Shabalin were stately and ice-cold, and their performance of the steps was by far the best. Davis and White were kind of sweet and coy, two people who had just met and were flirting each other out. And Faiella and Scali, as usual, looked like it was three in the morning and it was their last dance before they got kicked out of the bar. I'm somewhat, but not entirely, surprised to see the judges basically informing Delobel & Schoenfelder and Khokhlova & Novitski that they are not in medal contention.
In conclusion, I realized I did not have an icon of Adam Rippon being a fabulous mini-diva, so I have fixed that. US figure skating will be just fine when Weir retires and Rippon becomes the new HBIC.