Women's Figure Skating
Women's Figure Skating
Class, the Beauty Myth, and Women's Figure Skating Coverage
Bettina Fabos
Department of Communication
2020 Frieze Building
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285
Tel: (313) 769-6819
Email: [log in to unmask]
Running Head: Women's Figure Skating
Author notes
The author gratefully acknowledges Christopher Martin for helpful comments on
this article. The author is an independent video producer and a
lecturer in
the Communication Department at the University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, MI
48109-1285.
Abstract
Class, the Beauty Myth, and Women's Figure Skating Coverage
This paper analyzes coverage of the 1994 Olympic women's figure skating
competition, and explores how the mass media negotiates, interprets, and
reinforces a middle class value system based on (1) socially imposed
gender
roles and (2) middle class behavioral expectations. The
glamorization of
skater Nancy Kerrigan is an example of the media's constant search for
feminine
middle class icons. As soon as these icons err from the middle
class
narrative, however, they are easily replacable.
Class, the Beauty Myth, and Women's Figure Skating Coverage
In January, 1994, 24-year-old figure skater and Olympic favorite Nancy
Kerrigan was clubbed on the knee and cried her infamous "Why Me? Why
Now?" at
the US National Championships in Detroit, Michigan. Her
victimized image
filled the covers of every national news magazine, countless special
interest
publications, every national newscast, and nearly every
magazine-style
television program. The attack first was described as a typical case of
urban
violence, particularly Detroit-style urban violence. Then it was
suggested
that a "crazed" fan was experiencing rejection or wrath, like the
man who had
attacked tennis star Monica Seles months earlier. And finally it
was revealed
that associates close to rival figure skater Tonya HardingDand
perhaps even
Harding herselfDwere implicated in the attack. CBS saw the beginning
of more
publicity for its upcoming Winter Olympics coverage than the
network could
have possibly hoped for. Kerrigan, an instant media favorite,
received huge
endorsement contracts from corporate sponsors as the country
followed her
steady recovery, and the investigation of Harding's suspicious
associates.
Here was a story about greed, sportsmanship, stupidity, and female
rivalry.
Here was story about two skaters who represented the two sides of
the skating
discipline: artistic (Kerrigan) vs. athletic (Harding). But in
what began to
be the underlying narrative in the many newscasts and articles and
interviews
to follow, here was a story about two women who came to represent
two different
social backgrounds, two different classes. Here was a story,
above all,
championing the American middle class.
This paper is an analysis of how the mass media negotiates, interprets, and
reinforces a middle class value system that's based on (1) largely
uncontested
constructs of gender roles in our society and (2) middle class
behavioral
expectations. The intense glamorization and idealization of Kerrigan,
contrasted with the demonization of Harding, conveyed a wholesale
endorsement
of Kerrigan as a media-created star. She was cast as a star
championing middle
class female identity, and she (with her family) was cast as a
role model
championing middle class values.
A year later the story was rated first among all sports stories and fifth
among all stories in 1994, according to an Associated Press poll.
Kerrigan's
popularity, however, dwindled drastically only three months after
her attack.
In March 1994, Kerrigan complained in an interview with Jane Pauly
on NBC
(March 3, 1994), "I'm living in a fishbowl. It's not fair that they
put me up
on that pedestal. I didn't want to be there. I don't understand
why the same
people that put me there want to take me down so fast." Why was
she so easily
discarded by the media after being so highly esteemed? The
subsequent
post-Olympic media backlash against Kerrigan suggests the ultimate
rigidity of
the middle class value system and its continuous expectations of
discipline and
principled behavior, once class boundaries are overstepped. On
the last day of
1994, the USA Today sports section published a list of who was
"IN" and "OUT"
that confirmed the sentiment surrounding the persona of Nancy
Kerrigan (USA
Today, 12/30/94, pg. 1C). The skater once described as "the goddess
of good,"
Kerrigan, was in the OUT column. And who was IN for 1995?
Ukranian Figure
skater, Olympic gold medal winner, and new American middle class
sweetheart,
Oksana Bauil.
Media Representation and the Middle Class
Because the American middle class is most visible and dominant in areas of
education, the mass media, and politics, it has had the unique
ability to
control much of American culture(from what we see on television to
public
policy(and determine the direction of its own (and other classes')
representation. In doing so, the middle class' cultural ubiquity is rarely
questioned, even though this class only comprises no more than 20%
of the
population, and represents only a slice of overall American experience
(Ehrenreich 12). Middle class characters dominate American television
(Gentile
and Miller 263), and characters who are coded as working class or
upper class
are not only under-represented, they are represented as less
desirable (Thomas
and Callahan 186 ; Thomas and LeShay 98). "In our culture,"
writes
Ehrenreich, "the professional, and largely white, middle class is taken as
a
social normDa bland and neutral mainstreamDfrom which every other
group or
class is ultimately a kind of deviation" (3). "Its ideas and
assumptions are
everywhere, and not least in our own minds. Even those of us who
come from
very different social settings often find it hard to distinguish
middle class
views from what we think we ought to think" (5).
While the middle class' control over American culture is significant, its
power base, unlike that of the upper classes, can be described as
unstable.
The more financially secure upper and upper middle classes can pass
down wealth
in the form of property or trust funds from generation to
generation. The
middle class' greatest resource -- knowledge and skills -- is much
less
tangible, however. It's a kind of wealth, what Bourdieu refers to as
cultural
capital, that requires constant renewing and relearning, making
the middle
class perpetually insecure and giving them a strong compulsion for
achievement.
Ehrenreich writes:
[The professional middle class] is afraid, like any class below the most
securely wealthy, of misfortunes that might lead to a downward slide.
But in
the middle class there is another anxiety: a fear of inner
weakness, of
growing soft, of failing to strive, of losing discipline and will.
Even the
affluence that is so often the goal of this striving becomes a
threat, for it
holds out the possibility of hedonism and self-indulgence.
Whether the middle
class looks down toward the realm of less, or up toward the
realm of more,
there is always the fear of falling" (Ehrenreich 15).
The middle class, then, through all forms of mass media outlets (and political
agendas), has the power to convey its own determination for
continued striving
and stability. Our culture is consequently saturated with middle
class
morality tales that admonish those who are slothful, imprudent or
self-indulgent, and praise those that do everything in their educational and
financial means to "get ahead" and gain security. "They [the middle
class] are
drawn to novels, dramas, and biographies of individual achievement
and upward
mobility," says Herbert Gans. "Their fictional heroes are more
concerned with
the ability to achieve their goals in competition" (Gans 82).
Middle class
tales of cultural dos and don'ts, then, ultimately describe the goals
and
requirements necessary to maintain or reach upper middle class or
upper class
status and the realm of tangible stability. In the news coverage
that
surrounded Nancy Kerrigan, Kerrigan's looks, behaviors, and life
situation
represented all the "do's" according to middle class sensibilities.
And to
make the message more clear, Kerrigan was compared to Tonya Harding,
who
represented all the "don'ts."
By analyzing CBS Olympic figure skating coverage, television news magazine
spin-off coverage, newspaper articles, editorials, and feature
accounts from
popular, mainstream magazines like Time, Newsweek, People and
Sports
Illustrated during the nine week period from the Kerrigan assault to the
Olympics, the Olympics itself (the KerriganDHarding face-off) and the
few weeks
after (the new Kerrigan), this paper will explore the perspectives
of the
middle class, and the middle class media. By looking at how class
interpretation is mediated by this perspective, it will ultimately illuminate
how limiting this perspective is. With Kerrigan cast as the
embodiment of
middle class values, positively positioned in terms of image,
modesty, ability
to sacrifice, strive, be authentic, and encourage family unity,
she was
simultaneously and advantageously compared to those who are portrayed as
not
meeting those expectations and requirements (Harding). Her image,
then, offers
both affirmation and warning to audiences of all classes because
an iconic
Kerrigan conveys both access for some and boundaries for others. The
ultimate
goal, we learn from this coverage, is to achieve wealth with all
the necessary
means; beauty capital, cultural capital, and perseverance. But
once that
wealth is achieved, never reject or abandon the middle class values
that helped
get you there.
IMAGE AND CLASS ACCESSIBILITY
Naomi Wolf writes, " Since men have used women's "beauty" as a form of
currency in circulation among men, ideas about "beauty" have evolved
since the
Industrial Revolution side by side with ideas about money, so that
the two are
virtual parallels in our consumer economy. A woman looks like a
million
dollars, she's a first-class beauty, her face is her fortune. In the
bourgeois
marriage markets of the last century, women learned to understand
their own
beauty as part of this economy" (Wolf 20). If beauty can be defined
in our
culture as a "legitimate and necessary qualification for a woman's
rise in
power" (Wolf 28), then for those women who fulfill cultural standards
of
beauty, class accessibility and advancement seems a perfectly natural
consequence.
Popular narrative story lines, like Cinderella, explain class access for women
with the necessity of beauty capital. No matter how poor and
hopeless
Cinderella is before she tried on the glass slipper, her beauty permits
her
instant inclusion into the upper class of castles and glass
carriages. Liza
Doolittle, a working class flower seller with a cockney accent in
My Fair Lady,
has the beauty capital but lacks the right diction, which,
mercifully, can be
corrected. Julia Robert's character in the movie Pretty Woman, a
prostitute,
also suddenly enjoys upper class privileges because she looks the
part. Even
real-life fairy tales, like the rise of Grace Kelly from middle
class
Philadelphia native to princess of Morocco, reinforces our cultural
imagination
that all women need is beauty to achieve stability and wealth.
While Horatio
Alger-type rags-to-riches stories (re-popularized during the
Reagan era) dwell
on men's uncommon savvy and determination to explain their class
transcendence
(ie: Lee Iacocca, Steven Jobs, Bill Gates, David Geffen, Steven
Spielberg,
Bill Clinton), women's rags-to-riches stories focus on a culturally
approved
and endorsed image of beauty to explain their class advancement.
Nancy Kerrigan, too, was characterized as a beautiful princess-in-the-making
(she was compared to Cinderella, Snow White, and Grace Kelly), and
was
described as somehow naturally entitled to "the crown jewel" or the
Olympic
gold medal. The Olympic coverage surrounding Kerrigan took pains to
understand
her in terms of a working class beauty who would some day get the
crown and her
prince. Idealized because Kerrigan is of Northern European
descent and
physically resembles the fair-skinned, western-oriented princess image
mass
media (and the United States Figure Skating Association) has imposed
on the
Women's Figure Skating Competition (and culture at large), she was
supposed to
embody everything an ideal woman should be: white,
Grace-Kelly-elegant, with
artistic lines, charm, and grace to compensate for a lack of
athletic ability.
Approximating a New England Cinderella with a welder father and a
legally blind
mother, Kerrigan, more than any other skater, was a rags-to-riches
beauty who
was all too ready for a prince (Fabos, p. 10,11). And in the
world of figure
skating competition coverage, winning the event through grace and
artistry (ie,
having the right body type and image), and being characterized as
the leading
feminine ideal, has also been translated into commercial success.
Said
International Management Group spokesman Yuki Saegusa, "A gold medalist
in
figure skating is marketable for 10 or 20 years." (Muller &
Braunstein, 1992,
p. 4F).
Competitive skating makes it easy for the media to celebrate women's beauty as
a means for success because it is even geared towards the success
of the
artistic (thin, long-limbed - code "feminine") skater rather than the
athletic
(muscular, compact - code "masculine") skater. The sport's focus
completely
changed in the early 1970s when mandatory figures --like figure
8's-- were
minimized in favor of a longer free skate. In 1972, when figures
still
determined 75% of the skater's score, "plain" Beatrix Schuba of Austria,
an
expert in figures, disrupted the beauty order by winning the Olympic
gold
instead of "pixie" American Janet Lynn, who shone during the free
style skate.
(QUOTE from TAPE) . Scores for artistry have also been designed
to override
scores for technical merit. Consequently, media narratives can now
be
conveniently spun around the sport's prettiest skater, who could skate
for a
more and more reliable gold and use her beauty capital for material
gain.
In 1992, Kristi Yamaguchi, an Asian-American not fitting the American beauty
ideal, exhibited enough long-legged grace and perfection to win
the Olympic
gold medal, but was not awarded princess status. That honor was
given to Nancy
Kerrigan, at the time a mediocre bronze medalist, who was vaulted
up into
numerous high profile advertisement appearances, and was voted into
the pages
of People magazine's "50 most beautiful people in the world."
Kerrigan's
successful image of a rags-to-riches Cinderella, based on beauty
capital, was
in sharp contrast to Harding's image of reckless, shattered,
thoughtless, and
sexually tainted. The mass media identities of Harding and
Kerrigan had been
two years in the making by the time Kerrigan was clubbed on the
knee in 1994.
During the 1994 coverage, while the media embraced Kerrigan's continuous climb
from working class Stoneham, Massachusetts to the ultimate crown
jewel and
eternal marketability, it also grabbed every opportunity this time to
make
sense of her character in terms of all middle class values and
expectations.
Beyond the logical path to access and stability based on women's
natural
beauty, Kerrigan was additionally framed in terms of her hard work, her
many
sacrifices, her modesty, and her authenticity, all of which are
conditions
(male and female) for middle class advancement. And as the
antithesis of
hopelessly crass, working class, "unattractive" and non-advancing
Harding,
Kerrigan could be successfully positioned as the model the media
wishes we
would all be. Says Thomas Cottle, a clinical psychologist, "The
Tonya Harding
thing is actually made for us: she's clearly good, she's clearly
bad. She's
Snow White, she's the wicked witch. Isn't life great. Everybody
has this one
innocent, this one guilty. It solves all our moral problems"
("Shattered
Glory," Jan. 20, 1994).
In an effort to mask the uncomfortable notion of beauty favoritism in our
culture, the story line the mass media chose in its coverage of
Kerrigan and
Harding was based on individual struggle and perseverance. Rather
than
identifying the idea of beauty capital as a root of female class
difference,
the media identified the individual attributes of personality and
behavior as
the underlying causes of inequality between Kerrigan and Harding.
That one was
tacitly considered more beautiful became a side bar, with
discussions of beauty
coded in terms of femininity, personality, and behavior.
Individualism
According to Richard Campbell in his analysis of the magazine style news
program, 60 Minutes, if one central myth exists on American Television
and the
mass media in general that suspend conflicts and contradictions,
it is the
"fierce affirmation of American individualism" (Campbell, p. 138).
While the
media narrative shows Kerrigan in binary opposition with Harding
in terms of
their individual class characteristics, middle class vs. working
class, the
American myth of individualism is the story line in which both women
are
framed.
Behind the traditional assumption in American culture that the individual is
sacred lies the ideologically-based theory that in America,
individual hard
work is objectively rewarded by individual success. American
opportunities for
success were widely distributed as part of the (middle class)
cultural
identity, and as evidence of American equalityDevidence that it was up to
the
individual to pull up the bootstraps and succeed, not the
responsibility of a
larger society. Racism, feminism, and classism don't exist in
this framework
because everybody, even Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding, is
created equal.
Treatment of the two skaters, as coverage persisted, assumed initial equality.
Kerrigan, despite all the middle class accoutrements that constituted her
media identity, was not couched as middle class, but as, along with
Harding,
working class. "Both come from working class families," Adler of
Newsweek
wrote, "but the similarities more or less end there" (Newsweek,
Winter, p. 20).
"If there were ever to have been a bond between Kerrigan and Harding" penned
William Plummer of People, "it might have been forged by their
blue-collar
backgrounds" (Plummer, p.60). Time went as far as describing
Kerrigan as an
intimidated outcast when she trained at the "snobby," "affluent"
Skating Club
of Boston. "There was a wealthy membership and social patina
unknown to her.
'Sometimes it seemed like they thought they were better than
others,' she
[Kerrigan] recalls. 'And I'd say, like why? We're good people.
We're good
skaters.' A gutsy response, but Nancy hardly understood that some
of the
snobbery was a cover for envyDwhich was to cast a deeper shadow later
in life"
(Duffy, Feb. 21, p.56). Since both women begin at the low end of
American
financial status, the framing of Kerrigan and Harding as equals not
only
positions Harding as someone who just couldn't get her act together
(family,
personality, and image), but disguise the boundaries in which the
likes of
Kerrigan are groomed for advancement, and the likes of Harding are
not. Access
to the middle class, via the middle class media, is a highly
subjective
process.
In some cases the media began to position Kerrigan in terms of her "middle
class Boston suburb" (Starr, p.44) or her family's "home in suburban
Stoneham,
Mass" (Adler, Jan. 24, p.70a position that reflected the
post-bronze medal,
corporate endorsement phase of her life and emerging class status
("she plays
golf" (Adler, Winter 94, p. 20). CBS' Hard Copy compared the
women as "the
two skaters who came from the opposite ends of the rink" (Jan.
24,1994). But
other times coverage resorted back to "her parent's wood-frame
home in
blue-collar Stoneham, Mass" (Duffy, Jan. 24, p.55). While the working
class fr
aming had its genesis during the 1992 Winter Olympic coverage,
coverage that
squarely positioned Kerrigan in terms of a rags-to-riches
Cinderella (welder
father, blind mother who would never know just how beautiful her
daughter was,
skating in the shadows, gets the bronze- crown jewel) (Fabos 13),
the
subsequent corporate endorsements (e.g., Reebok, Northwest, Seiko,
Campbell's
Soup, Chadwicks of Boston) shifted Kerrigan's persona from
Cinderella to Snow
WhiteDthe princess who had arrived but was tormented by a wicked,
jealous
rival. Kerrigan's status became slightly more problematic after she
steps out
of the middle class all together, adopting, at least as the media
saw it, an
upper class set of attitudes that rejected middle class values, and
by default,
rejected the media.
The Middle Class Enters the Skating World of Privilege
It is important to understand the skating world as a logical place for middle
class pursuit, and for a narrative focusing on Kerrigan's upward
mobility from
working class, through middle class, and to upper class status.
The figure
skating world easily works as a metaphor for the privilege and
security of
upper middle and upper class society. In a sport where coaches wait
in the
sidelines wearing furs, commentators sport tuxes, and "serious
training can
easily cost $40,000 a year in coaching fees, costumes, skates, and
living
expenses" (Duffy, Jan. 24, p.55), "the high style world of skating"
(Adler,
Jan.24, p.69) has long been a sport associated with wealth, high
standing, and
inaccessibility; "a mink coat world of fame and celebrity" (60
Minutes, Jan.16,
1994). To confirm figure skating as a coveted realm, CBS Olympic
coverage took
great pains during "lull" periods between events to inform us just
how special
and coveted it is to skate at the competition level. CBS figure
skating
commentator Scott Hamilton visited a skating rink and talked to little
girls
who were just starting out, dreaming openly about the castle in the
sky
inhabited by 1976 U.S. Olympic ice-skating gold medalist Dorothy Hamill.
In
related coverage we learned how much a skate costs, we were told
that a
designer costume, like the one Kerrigan wore in her Olympic long
program, could
cost a staggering $13,000. And we were introduced to the affluent
American
spectators in the Olympic stands of the Northern Lights Hall in
Hamar, Norway,
who had not only paid for airfare to Europe, but had managed to
purchase the
privileged figure skating tickets ranging between $100 and $700 for
the live
event. While television coverage captures and builds on skating
world
extravagance at live figure skating competition venues, fictional
portrayals of
skating life paint a similar picture. The 1994 release Cutting
Edge, which
portrayed a snotty, spoiled daddy's girl figure skater, illustrates a
world
where the supremely wealthy naturally dominate. The idea that only
the idle
rich can spare the endless hours of skating practice, in rinks that
need
year-round maintenance is proliferated, and contributes to skating's
identity
as a sport for the secure and entitled.
Despite its consistent upper class attachments, however, an endeavor that was
until recently an upper middle or upper class pursuit has become
more and more
plausible for middle class children of middle class parents who
dream ofDand
work forDthe hefty payoff in the end. As skating coach Sonya
Dunfield reported
on CNN & Company, "There have been changes in the sport, that it
has gotten
into a big money league that it wasn't 20-30 years ago" (CNN &
Company, Jan.
20, 1994). The most money amateur skaters could win for a
performance in 1974,
according to pairs champion Randy Gardner, was $75 (Sally Jessy
Raphael, Jan
20, 1994). Now, corporate endorsements are handed to young amateur
skaters
who not only medal but are considered marketable. These
endorsements have
transformed the sport from a past-time for the privileged into a
big-money
sport suddenly worthwhile for middle class skaters, who are willing
to work
hard and accumulate the necessary skills to compete and succeed. As
articulated by Pete Wilson of NBC News, 1994 is the year when television
news
discovered the money possibilities for skaters from corporate
endorsements.
"There's more to having relatives in the Olympics than medals and
national
pride," he says. "Champion skaters can earn up to $10 million in
product
endorsements."(NBC News, Jan. 13, 1994). "The dreams for skaters is
not only
to win a medal," speaks Brian Rooney of ABC, "it's also the
millions of dollars
in endorsements money that can follow Olympic fame" (ABC News,
Jan. 13, 1994).
According to Wendy E. Lane of the Associated Press, "more training
money from
the U.S. Figure Skating Association means you don't have to be
well-heeled to
participate. These changes, [skating agent] Rosenberg said, are
bringing more
diversity to the sport. 'The sport of figure skating has a higher
percentage
of well-educated, intelligent, nice people from nice families in
it,' he said.
'With the big TV money and big federation money, that means a
broader spectrum
of people in it.'"
Perhaps even more lucrative than endorsements, ice shows like the Tom Collins
tour(a post-Olympic extravaganza featuring Olympic finalists and
other skating
favorites(promises huge dividends for skaters. "The pay [per
show]
variesDreportedly $5,000 for an Olympic bronze winner ascending to $15,000 a
gig for a gold medalist," wrote Duffy of Time. "For the skater who
turns
professionalDan evaporating distinction nowDthere are ice shows too.
For every
top performer, endorsements can pay for all the years of
sacrifice" (Duffy,
Jan. 24, p.56). With the possibility of such golden futures, ice
skating
"careers" are no longer cost-prohibitive for the middle class, they
are
understood as rational investments for the years ahead.. A sport that
now has
all the associations of class mobility and eventual security,
middle class
media have claimed figure skating and embraced it as an arena where
middle
class identity can continue to be defined and reinforced. Ice
skating's new
accessibility then, has made the sport an attractive cite for the
media to
explore stories about upward mobility.
The idea of sacrifice so commonly associated with the arduous world of ice
skating competitors fits nicely into the middle class value system
that honors
strict regimen, physical, emotional, and financial sacrifice, and
the gradual
amassing of cultural capital for future gain. We learned, through
CBS coverage
and other media spin-offs, that championship-level skating
requires long,
four-hour training sessions in the wee early hours of the morning,
five or six
mornings a week. We were told that private tutoring,
family-deprived living
situations, and a non-existent social life are just a few of the
emotional
hardships skaters endure. "It's well before dawn at seven below
zero," Richard
Threlkeld announced for CBS News, "at the outdoor rink in New
Canaan,
Connecticut. If you want to grow up and be famous in the world of figure
skating, this is what it takes...What they [the young skaters] don't
know yet
is what is not so pretty, the life of struggle, sacrifice, and
bitter
competition that those who hope to be champions must endure" (CBS News,
Jan.
31, 1994). "If you stop for two or three weeks, it's grueling to
get into
shape again," a skater was quoted in Time magazine. "Then comes
weight
training to strengthen the upper body. Finally, there are ballet or
jazz
classes," (Duffy, Jan. 24, 1994, p.56). "How many hours a
day...approximately
6 hours a day, 5 am to 8 am, go to school, 5 to 8 in the evening,
there are
weekly weigh-ins, and if you don't have a body type that's a long
lean body
type, it's a lot more difficult to deal with" (Sally Jessy Raphael,
1994).
Without beauty capital, the skater is implying, future success in
skating is
that much more evasive, but one must work harder all the same.
Like the rigors
of journalism, law, or medical school, figure skating training is
seen as tough
work, but it's pragmatic work if the young skater is talented,
disciplined and
pretty enough, and if the parents can keep their eyes fixed on the
future.
While the supposed Olympic ideal in figure skating (among other
sports) is to
"do one's best and have fun" according to CBS figure skater
commentator and
former gold medalist Scott Hamilton, (Hamilton 24), that smiling,
outdated
model is being replaced by the middle class ideal of working hard and
achieving
all the monetary accoutrements that come with a gold medal:
wealth, class
mobility, and above all, security.
The privileged skating world also offers an ideal arena from which to
negotiate and embrace another middle class aspiration: status. The
sport, in
becoming not a leisure sport for the affluent, but a sport that
allows middle
class athletes to attain prestige and affluence, is a rational
endeavor. In
addition, with its unique mixture of sport and artistry, figure
skating has
long been elevated into the prestigious realm of artistic spectacle
(a musical,
an opera, a ballet) rather than competitive spectacle (a football
game, skiing,
hockey). It is the glamour sport, the sport that is positioned
purely for
viewing pleasure, and the sport that still upholds signifiers of
"high
culture," culture enjoyed primarily for the upper and upper middle
classes
(Gans 83).
These assertions are supported in Pierre Bourdieu's discussion of class
habitus in the realm of sport. Bourdieu relates working class sports
with
elements of risk, bodily strength, and competitiveness, while
associating the
more privileged class sports (e.g., figure skating) with
developing the body
and learning specific skills geared towards a more rational,
non-competitive
end:
Gymnastics or strictly health-oriented sports like walking or jogging,
which, unlike ball games, do not offer any competitive
satisfaction, are
highly rational and rationalized activities. This is firstly
because
they presuppose a resolute faith in reason and in the deferred and
often
intangible benefits which reason promises; secondly, because
they
generally only have meaning by reference to a thoroughly theoretical,
abstract knowledge of the effects of an exercise which is itself
often
reduced, as in gymnastics, to a series of abstract movements,
decomposed
and reorganized by reference to a specific and
technically-defined end
.....Thus it is understandable that these activities can only be
rooted
in the ascetic dispositions of upwardly mobile individuals who
are
prepared to find their satisfaction in effort itself and to
acceptDsuch
is the whole meaning of their existenceDthe deferred
satisfactions which
will reward their present sacrifice. (Bourdieu 354-5).
Unlike contact sportsDfootball, hockey, basketballDfigure skating competitors
(as well as gymnasts) perform at individual intervals, isolated
from each
other. The sport is characterized by a series of abstract
movementsDthe triple
lutz, double toe loop, camel spin, and spiral, for example, that
make up the
technical elements of many programs. Figure skating is also
characterized by
"deferred satisfactions" in terms of waiting for the scores after
a routine,
and waiting for a medal order after all the skaters finish their
program. As
CBS' Verne Lundquist suggested every time he remarked that these
women were
"alone, on the ice," more emphasis was placed on these women skating
against
their own internal demons than skating against each other in the
world of
working class competition (Fabos 7).
While figure skating upholds and represents the standards of "high culture,"
it also, due to a new class accessibility, allows middle and
lower-class
athletes to attain prestige and affluence through skating. However,
because
lower classes are able to enter and influence the sport, figure
skating,
according to the US Figure Skating Association and its media backers,
is in
risk of "sliding." Indeed, part of the discourse in figure skating
competition
adheres to the notion that the "high culture' standards of figure
skating have
deteriorated due to an influx of difficult and elaborate jumps.
The triple
axle, for instance, is a jump that has been mastered by only two
women in
competition, one of them being Tonya Harding.
Oddly enough, the increase in jumping came as a direct result to the
abolishment of technical figures, which finally happened in 1988. The
decision
to get rid of the figures was intentionally meant to push skating
into a more
television-friendly, artistic-favoring, and spectacle-oriented
sport. While
the sport did gain a huge viewing audience, it also grew to
incorporate more
jumping. These jumps were not only abstract in movement, they came
to involve
a sort of courage and the development of the body in such a way
that, as far as
the media (and figure skating world) understood it, abused the
grace inherent
in the sport, and was evidence that figure skating was riding the
uncomfortable
fine line between high and low culture. Jumpers were first
understood in terms
of an intrusion of masculinity/lesbianism, as with the virtually
negative
portrayal of athletic skater Debi Thomas in 1988 (Fabos, p. 6). Four
years
later, jumping was further interpreted as an intrusion of working
class
culture. Since more and more championship-level skaters, male and
female, are
also challenging the stringent "high culture" musical standards of
skating
competition, which reward routines set to nineteenth century musical
styles
over popular tunes, there is tension that punchier musical choices
will even
promote more jumps. Comments from skating coach Sonya Dunfield
illustrate the
nostalgia for an earlier, less tainted time when the sport was
more pure and
without lower class infestation:
The fact that we don't do any school figures, it's just jump jump jump jump
jump now, we've forgotten part of our sport...the grace of figure
skating is
not really there anymore...Just because we don't go over a
finish line we
should still try to do a rounded sport and not just barrel and
think you're
going to do one jump and you're going to make it...So that I
think that it is
changing...and I came from Brooklyn too so I have a
background from where I was
brought up and I don't think that should have anything to do
with my thoughts"
(CNN & Company,1994).
As Dunfield implies, even working class skaters, like herself and Nancy
Kerrigan once upon a time, can embrace upper class aesthetics if they
want to,
if they try, and if they have the right body type. The ultimate
message, we
are reassured, is that if artistic skaters continue to be rewarded
as they have
been in the past, then the skating world is safe as a bastion for
the upper
class and for middle class aspiration.
Apart from the sport's philosophical battle, the assault on Kerrigan has also
made figure skating, for the first time according to the media, a
"contact"
sport. Competition and bodily strength were employed in what was
overwhelmingly characterized as an extreme example of sport rivalry, and
commentators feared that the pristine image of figure skating was
forever
smeared, again, by a working class affront. While other examples of
rivalry,
physical harm towards skaters, tripping, torn costumes, and other
forms of
skate sabotage crept into the narrative (Sally Jessy Raphael,1994;
"Shattered
Glory," 1994), Tonya Harding was continually used as the first
example of
invasion and corruption; an example of what can happen if access to
the sport
is extended down the class ladder. Just as the skating world
represents a
realm of middle class ascension, it also mirrors the same anxieties
the middle
class experiences in its process of affirmation and determination
not to fall,
not to indulge, and to remain pure, secure, and constantly intent
on reaching
"higher" goals.
Middle Class Ideals and the Iconization of Nancy Kerrigan
As a privileged(and contrasting(world, the Olympic women's figure skating
competition and the space of the ice rink easily work to symbolize
middle class
pursuit, and provide a domain from which to negotiate middle class
values.
Everything we read, watched or heard about figure skater Nancy
Kerrigan until
her last Olympic freestyle program positioned her with glowing
approval as
"doing everything right" in her middle class pursuit of ascension and
affirmation. On one level, as noted earlier, Kerrigan, a feminine ideal,
was
already slated for upper class status and financial security
because she looked
the part. In addition to an upwardly mobile image, however,
Kerrigan was
characterized in terms of her upwardly mobile personality. Kerrigan
(1) worked
hard, (2) sacrificed, (3) was modest and authentic, (4) and was
constant in her
ability to relate to common sense nuclear family values (the
family being a
traditional middle class possession). Through these portrayals,
Nancy Kerrigan
became 1994's icon for middle class values.
Hard Work
Before she was knocked on the knee, we were told that Nancy Kerrigan had, up
to that fateful day, been "training harder than ever. Brimming
with more
confidence than ever ...She's
never worked this hard before...she's never done the run-throughs she's doing
now. Double run-throughs. Going for perfect run-throughs"
(Swift, Jan.17,
p.17). "Those close to her are worried because Nancy Kerrigan
pushes herself
to be the best, to the point where she can be as fragile as the
ice she skates
on" (Inside Edition, Jan. 7, 1994). "She's very determined.
She's got a
mission in life. She's absolutely certain she's going to get that
gold"
(Duffy, Feb.21, p.56).
If skating wasn't enough, Kerrigan, we came to know, "earned a two-year
associate degree in business at nearby Emmanuel College," reinforcing
the
middle class drive for education (Plummer 61). Embodying the fear of
slippage,
People magazine further described Kerrigan as "always being
motivated not by
the possibility of success but by the fear of failure.... "'It's
kind of scary
giving everything you have," she is quoted as saying, "...what if
you're not as
good as you think you are?'" (Plummer 62). We learned that
Kerrigan was not
only striving to avoid sloth, but also to prevent being soft and
over-indulgent
if she made it. In effect, the audience discovered that Kerrigan
was not in
jeopardy of abandoning her middle class perspective.
Kerrigan's ultimate testament to striving and sacrificing, we were told, was
her tenacity after the vicious attempt by the rival faction to
destroy her
career, her "life work" (Starr 41). She had to face physical pain,
emotional
stress, and a potentially broken career path to a virtually
uncontested gold
medal ("a shoo-in for the Olympics"DAaron Brown, ABC News). The
story played
as a perfect example of overcoming extenuating circumstances
through
perseverance and a positive attitude. "Nancy's not a victim," fellow
skater
and Harvard graduate (an important upwardly mobile detail) Paul
Wylie wrote in
a Newsweek column. "She's a survivor. Nancy's not a worrywart.
She's not
someone who dwells on things. She's a strong individual, and she's
loved a
lotDand that helps a great deal" (Wylie 21).
Sacrifice
Along with reports of Kerrigan's tenacious striving, she and her family are
aligned with the common sense, middle class conviction of
sacrifice. We come
to know that when Kerrigan was a child and her skates were too
small, she was
commanded to "suffer in silence," and she did (Plummer 59). When
she was in
her teens, she would rise at 4 a.m., skate before school, do her
homework, and
crash at 7 p.m.. She had few friends, her life was full of
regimen to the
point of being monastic, and sexual flirtations or any other
deviations or
vices, we learn, were out of the question. Kerrigan had no time, for
instance,
to cruise the malls (Plummer 61).
The importance given Kerrigan's monastic regime overlooked one detail
scrupulously absent from all but a few reports on Kerrigan's life:
"There are
those who have found love not on the playing fields but at
homeDlike Nancy
Kerrigan, the beautiful blue-eyed brunette figure skater who won a
bronze medal
at last year's Olympics," reports William Sherman in a 1993
Cosmopolitan
article. "She spurned the attentions of a National Hockey League star
and
instead became engaged to accountant Bill Chase, who works near her
hometown of
Stoneham, Massachusetts, and is an old friend of her brother's"
(Sherman 203).
Preferring a profile of abstinence and sacrifice (in this case,
sexual), CBS
and all but the rarest of media coverage chose to keep Kerrigan's
virginity and
monastic schedule intact.
After the attack left her injured, Kerrigan's apparent ability for sacrifice
was systematically enhanced during CBS's coverage of the U.S.
National
Championships, where she was videotaped through the tinted glass of a
luxury
box, watching the event instead of skating. The coverage returned
to the shot
as a point of juxtaposition after every skater finished her
routine and each
time the program cut to a commercial break. We were guided to feel
the sorrow
and yearning of Kerrigan's inflicted and resolute point of view,
an
identification that came to dominate the event's media narrative.
Beyond Kerrigan's personal sacrifices, her family was also described in terms
of their stoic, middle class ability to "do without."
Precariously
re-mortgaging their family home and taking out loans to finance their
daughter's "life work," Kerrigan's family was applauded for their
continued
sacrifices, which made them likable and 'normal,' despite Kerrigan's
growing
number of endorsements. "'Since Nancy started skating,' says Dan,
'the family
hasn't been on a real vacation. We go to skating events'"
(Plummer 59).
The ultimate sacrifice, in many ways, seemed to come from Dan, the father, who
viewers were continuously reminded was a welder, a job that firmly
positioned
him as blue collar patriarch. Besides Dan Kerrigan's many jobs,
which had
included opening the ice rink in the early mornings where his
daughter had
trained, we also learned that he actually did the "household
choresDshopping,
cooking, laundry" because his wife, Brenda, was legally blind.
Dan was thus
presented as sacrificing his "proper" role within the family while
working long
hours in the public sphere; a double sacrifice. "Hard work and
self-denial
become our punitive "values," writes Ehrenreich," setting us
against all those
who have not yet made it (the young, the poor) and even against
our own
desires" (Ehrenreich 262).
Modesty and Authenticity
Kerrigan was assigned a virginal, girl-next-door status that cornered on her
modest appearance, and, according to the media, modest behavior.
Kerrigan's
fear of completing a full run-through was attributed to her
wholesome,
down-to-earth middle class modesty: "she didn't want to think she was
better
than she actually was" (Plummer 62). With her striving checked by
her
unpretentiousness, Kerrigan also was captured in terms of her shy and
uncertain
approach to money and fame. "Part of Nancy's problem, apparently,
was that she
simply couldn't stand prosperity. In the five years before the
'92 Olympics
she had always skated in the shadow of othersDmoving from 12th to
second
nationally. But now she was expected to win" (Plummer 61). As
Kerrigan was
striving, we were told, she did best quietly, and in the shadows.
During her
press conferences after the knee-bashing, Kerrigan was described
as silent and
serene, with commentators wondering how she could operate with so
much tact,
lack of pretension, and a seeming unwillingness to articulate a
desire for
outward competitiveness and revenge. Reports celebrated Kerrigan's
perseverance, lack of petulance, and optimism that her knee was getting
better;
Kerrigan would grin and bear it. "Kerrigan's only comment,"
marveled ABC's Bob
Jamieson, "was that the attack could have been worse" (ABC News,
Jan. 17,
1994).
Media coverage compared Kerrigan to Grace Kelly, Jaqueline Onassis, Katherine
Hepburn, and in a stretch, John F. Kennedy for her "disciplined
poise" [an
image that simultaneously linked her to Boston blue blood and a
princess
originally from middle class Philadelphia, both celebrated beauties].
In
essence, Kerrigan was applauded for behavior that could just have
easily been
designated bland (Vescey, p.26). "Asked about her possibility of
making
millions of dollars from commercial endeavors as a result of being
attacked,
again, Kerrigan gave an answer of an innocent. 'I'm not worried
about any of
this [money]...I'm not even thinking about any of this,' she said.
'My job is
skating, and what I love to do is skate'" (Madden, P. 51). Cast
as
unpretentious, disciplined and untouched, the media attributed her character
to
her family. "Kerrigan's sturdy life and stable upbringing imbued
her with a
manner so authentic and unassuming that even last week's media
barrage seemed
not to faze her," wrote Margaret Duffy of Time magazine (Duffy,
Jan. 24,
p.55). "The most important thing is to be happy and healthy," Nancy
Kerrigan
was reported as telling the news cameras. "Amazingly, through
everything,
[Coach] Evy's prize pupil found time to laugh" (Channel 2, WJBK,
Detroit, Jan.
7, 1994).
That Kerrigan's personality was described as 'authentic" socially identified
her as upwardly mobile and linked her again to middle class
affirmation. As a
product of middle class virtue, Kerrigan was described as real,
above mall
status. Her natural hair color and natural hairstyle were seen as
uncomplicated, honest, and pure. Reports that Kerrigan's skating costumes
were
original designs from prestigious designers (e.g., Vera Wang) also
gave her
another luster of authenticity. "The middle class uses consumption
to
establish its [educated] status, writes Ehrenriech, "especially relative
to the
working class. Typically, this has meant an emphasis on things
"authentic,"
"natural," and "frequently imported" (Ehrenreich 14). In contrast
to Harding,
who was lambasted for her cheap, homemade, immodest costumes and
"common"
styles of dress, Kerrigan shone as the desirable alternative.
Confirms
Margaret Carlson of Time: "The millions of people who have followed this
drama
want an international duel in which good sportsmanship, staying
within type and
fair play are triumphant; where intact families, modest costumes,
chemical-free
hair and good teeth are rewarded" (Carlson 58).
Nuclear Family Values
In America's postwar years, according to Lynn Spigel, "popular media
participated in the cultural revitalization of domesticity, taking the
white,
middle-class suburban home as their favored model of family bliss"
(Spigel 33).
But "by the end of the 1980s," says Coontz, "there was a widespread consensus
that the past two decades had seen an erosion of civic commitment
and social
responsibility in America...middle class parents had been too busy
with careers
to help their children with their homework, and urban teens had
committed
murder for a pair of jogging shoes" (93). Coontz further explains
that
Middle class Americans, seeking a way of distancing themselves from such
extravagant behavior without abandoning their resistance to
change from
below, found an answer in a 'turn toward home.' Anticipating
Phyllis
Schlafly's contention that America is a two-class society, divided
not
between rich and poor but between those who hold decent family
values and
those who do not, middle class spokesmen lumped the upper and
lower
classes together as lacking proper family values. The rich and the
poor,
they argued, were immersed in materialism and
self-gratification, whereas
the middle class worked for family betterment. (106-7)
If there ever was an intact family that turned toward home and worked together
for family betterment, it was, we were told, the Kerrigan family.
We first got
to know the Kerrigans two years prior to the 1994 Winter Games
during CBS' 1992
Winter Olympic coverage, through constant images of Kerrigan's
parents, Dan and
Brenda, cheering her on or waiting anxiously while Kerrigan
awaited her marks,
and through feature stories about how Kerrigan's mother thankfully
steered her
away from tomboyish pursuits like hockey and into the appropriate
domain of
figure skating (Fabos 13). This family, we were told early on, has
parents who
were not too busy to help their children with their homework. The
1994
coverage of Kerrigan's assault exploded with defining shots of (and
references
to) Kerrigan's family: Her father gently scooping her
upDchild-likeDafter her
attack, shots of her family standing stalwartly by Kerrigan's
side, extensive
press commentary on how Kerrigan's "close family has always been
her mainstay,
the lump of gold Harding never had" (Duffy, Feb. 21,p.53), and
sympathetic
interviews with the Kerrigan family in their home, including shots
with roses
carefully arranged in the background, and scenes where the
Kerrigans ate cake
with Connie Chung. The Kerrigans were shown to embody then,
everything that
seemed to be right with the "intact American family."
The Kerrigan home was also described as a "sanctuary" (Plummer 56) where
Kerrigan came home to mend, where it is warm and comfortable, and
where, we
were led to assume, everybody gets along. The family, we learned,
was so
connected that they all watched the unfolding of Harding's implicated
involvement together on their living room television. "Even the Kerrigan
family, holed up in their home in suburban Stoneham, Mass., was
finding the
tale of low-rent mesmerizing"(Adler, Jan. 24, p.70). The media also
focused on
aunts, uncles and cousins who supported her with unconditional
love.
Highlighting Kerrigan's dependency on her family network, we learned that
everyone helped, despite all the endorsements. "Even now, when the
money from
Campbell's Soup and Reebok is starting to flow, the Kerrigans
still pitch in,
ironing their daughter's fancy dresses: Brenda, barely able to
see, wields the
iron, Dan guides her on where to place it" (Duffy, Feb. 21,p.56).
The
Kerrigans would not, we were assured, lose or forget their middle class
ideals.
While the sacred image of the middle class "nuclear" family has been
complicated by the economic necessity of dual-income families (feminism
notwithstanding), the figure of Brenda Kerrigan, made treatment of the
nuclear
family (as a panacea for all social ills) blessedly easy. Because
she was
legally blind, we were led to understand her disability more in terms
of her
husband Dan having to take over the housework (double sacrifice)
than in terms
of Brenda's yearning to work outside the home. Her job was clear
and
non-controversial: be the emotional support for her young daughter,
Nancy,
while Dan was responsible for financial security. What was never
mentioned was
the fact that Nancy Kerrigan worked the most, but her "life work"
was seen not
as "work" but as the fulfillment of a "dream" while her intact
family, headed
by the patriarch, was entirely responsible, financially and
emotionally, to
take credit for Nancy's success. As Connie Chung said just before
interviewing
the wholesome Kerrigan clan, "The attack on Nancy Kerrigan did
more than injure
a brilliant athlete: it wounded an entire family. Nancy's
parents, Brenda
and Dan Kerrigan are at home in Stoneham, Massachusetts, still
trying to figure
out why" (Eye to Eye with Connie Chung, Jan. 20, 1994). Even
though Kerrigan
was present at the interview, it is troubling that her thoughts
weren't
included in the equation.
Understanding Class Conflict Through Individual Conflict
It is not difficult to compare middle class Kerrigan to working class Harding
because their comparison is the basis for CBS' and all mass
media's figure
skating narrative of 1994. Without Harding in the gritty shadows (as
symbolically illustrated by the Time cover featuring Kerrigan in the
foreground, dressed in white, leaping lightly over a darkened, grainy
enlargement of Harding's face)(Feb. 21, 1994), Kerrigan wouldn't have
seemed so
resolute, so perfect, such an ideal embodiment of everything that
is right and
good with America. Comparing the two figures is to safely
negotiate culture
and class differences on the level of the individual rather than
analyzing
broad social currents in the larger, more complicated context. Fiske
writes
that:
clearly the news is peopled by real individuals, but in representing events
through people the news is following conventions of classic
realism, for it
assumes that the way to construct an understandable and
authentic version of
the real is through the actions, words, and reactions of the
individuals
involved. Social and political issues are only reported if they
can be
embodied in the individual, and thus social conflict of interest is
personalized in the conflict between individuals (Fiske 284).
Consequently, if there are social, historical, or political contexts, Fiske
continues, they are limited and glossed over because "the social
origins of the
events are lost." By personalizing conflict, difference, and
inequality, and
by letting these stories represent the broader realm, the media
can make sense
of the conflict while vigorously maintaining and defining what is
considered to
be "normal"Dthe middle ground.
The class lines between Kerrigan, as upwardly mobile middle class, and
Harding, as immobile working class, were not only clearly defined, they
were
defined viciously, openly, and with the moralistic implication that
these
contrasts, exalted for Kerrigan, punitive for Harding, make perfect
common
sense. "Enlightened people," Ehrenreich writes, "who might flinch at
a racial
slur, have no trouble listing the character defects of an
ill-defined
'underclass,' defects which routinely include promiscuity, and sloth.
There
is, if anything, even less inhibition about caricaturing the white
or 'ethnic'
working class: Its tastes are 'tacky;' its habits unhealthful;
and its views
are hopelessly bigoted and parochial" (Ehrenreich 7).
The class comparisons between Kerrigan and Harding seem endless:
Kerrigan's smile was dazzling even in her press conference the day after
the beating, while Harding's expression is a wolfish grin.
Kerrigan has
taken up the hobby appropriate to her new station in
lifeDgolfDwhile
Harding has pursued interests including auto repair, hunting and
pool.
Kerrigan's first scheduled public performance after the attack
was at a
benefit for her favorite charity, the Lion's Club SightFirst
campaign
(her mother is legally blind). Harding, afforded an opportunity
to say
something inspirational on her return home from Portland,
Oregon, after
the Nationals, ringingly declared that "what I'm really thinking
about
are dollar signs." In Detroit Kerrigan dressed in a demure white
outfit;
Harding posed in an eye-catching, lavishly spangled purple costume.
Kerrigan swoops across the ice with the effortless grace of a
young
sapling in the breeze, while Harding hurls herself into her jumps
like a
steeple chaser. At 5 foot one, three inches shorter than
Kerrigan, she
cuts a powerful but not especially elegant figure on the ice
(Adler,
Winter 94,p.20).
Both Nancy and Tonya are soap opera fans, though only Harding's life
resembles one (Duffy, Jan. 24, p.55)
While Kerrigan has become the sweetheart of the skating establishment,
Harding is its hellionDCharles Barkley on ice, as she recently
referred
to herself. (Plummer, Jan. 24, p.60)
Nancy was seen as wholesomeDthe girl next store. Tonya was different.
She began to display and continues to display a lot of attitude
with her
talent. She's a kind of renegade princess ("Shattered Glory,"
Jan. 20,
1994).
Nancy Kerrigan has already cashed in as the girl next door. But Tonya
Harding, who can fix a pickup truck, has struggled with an image
of
toughness, not quite the one advertisers would bring back home (ABC
News,
Jan. 13, 1994).
For every characterization underlined as positive in Kerrigan's image of
beauty, hard work, sacrifice, modesty, authenticity, and strong
"family
values," a parallel negative characterization was meticulously
configured for
Harding. Even though their pursuits were the sameDskate well
enough to win a
gold medal and hope for payoffs in the form of publicity and
endorsements, the
media mocked, rather than rewarded Harding's desire to work hard
and succeed in
the upper class skating world. Instead of striving and
sacrificing, words
consistently used for Kerrigan, Harding was described as struggling
and barely
surviving. "A different person," wrote Adler of Newsweek, "handed
this
autobiography could have fashioned an inspiring story of transcending
poverty,
but somehow Tonya's personality keeps getting in the way" (Adler,
Winter 94,
p.23). While it was granted that she, too, had to "work hard" to
meet her
expenses, ["she has worked so hard, tried for so long, wanted so bad"
(Duffy,
Jan. 24, p. 52)], her inability to get beyond her "personality,"
her "behavior"
or her "turbulent background" was never questioned, but seen as a
natural
consequence. That she was described to be destined as the heroine of
the
shopping mall, a place for mass-consumerism and teenage sexual
display,
illustrated the limitations assigned to Harding's endorsement image and,
as a
consequence, to her skating career.
Harding's sacrifices, we learned, of gathering bottles on the side of the road
to afford expensive skating fees, of skating in homemade costumes,
of working
at a Mr. Spuds potato stand in the mall, and of self-reliantly
scrapping funds
together to make the smallest ends meet, paled next to the
monolithic
sacrifices of the entire, bonded, striving, Kerrigan family. We heard
more
about Harding's penchant for pool, hunting and auto
repairDextra-curricular
vicesDthan we heard of her constant training, Olympic preparation,
and
"suffering in silence." Perhaps she trained, but not seriously.
Constant
media references to Harding's cigarette smokingDdespite her asthma!--
not only
reinforced her lack of discipline but exposed what was seen as her
knack for
compulsion, spending her money on irrelevant, nasty habits. Unlike
the
Kerrigan family, who were imagined to be tucking it prudently away,
Harding was
cast as unable to save money despite the reported help from
millionaire George
Steinbrenner, who "stepped in with support" (Plummer 60). Other
compulsive
"facts" we learned about Harding: she met her future husband at 15,
suggesting
a rampant, uncontrolled sexuality (anything but
virginal/monastic). She was
the main breadwinner in her family after her husband, Jeff
Gillooly, became her
agent. She couldn't decide if she was married or divorced,
constantly
returning to and leaving an abusive marriage. She threatened a woman
with a
baseball bat during a traffic dispute, and parked in illegal
parking places.
Sacrifice for Harding was not seen in terms of paying her dues, or suffering
now for a better payoff, but in terms of an endless struggle for a
blatantly
commercial goal. Constant media references to Harding's
straightforward
comment after she won the NationalsDof "thinking about dollar
signs"Dnot only
implied impropriety in terms of etiquette but suggested an amazing
naivet on
Harding's part of her belief in her own position in upper and
upper middle
class territory. Compared to Kerrigan who didn't care about money,
Harding was
castigated as an open competitor who talked franklyDtoo
franklyDabout money,
and naively imagined her own success. "The high-profile title is
something
Harding craves," writes Jeffrey Ghannum. "I'm not coming home with
anything
less than the gold," Harding said last week. 'I'm going there to
win'"
(Ghannum 7A). Somehow, while Kerrigan was allowed to strive and
sacrifice, the
same characteristics only smudged Harding's media reputation. As
admittance to
the "middle class club" operated, Harding had no beauty capital,
no cultural
capital, was not willing to embrace the proper value system, and
would never be
allowed.
Perhaps the media's most revealing portrayal of class bias was in the
treatment of Harding's family. While the root of Kerrigan's glimmering
media
success came from her family's stability, Harding's hard times
came from her
family's instability. Add a husband that bordered on abusive, and
supposedly
dreamed up the entire scheme to immobilize Kerrigan, and we are
told that
family instability may have been at the bottom of it all. "Tough,
self-sufficient, and bruised well beyond her years, Harding has never known
stability either on the rink or home. She has moved between eight
different
houses in six communities in her first eighteen years...Did the
scrappy girl
from the trailer parks, who has climbed so high and suffered so
much possibly
plot to destroy her rival?....And if Tonya Harding turns out to be
innocent,
how searing must it be that more than a few people could imagine
her guilt"
(Smolowe 53, 54). Harding was guilty on many levels, and in this
case she is
guilty of family immorality. Coontz brings this point home in her
discussion
of family standards and the working class in terms of cycles in
middle class
America's moral discourse, which returned again in the 1980s and
1990s. "The
new emphasis on family relations and private morality," she
writes," led easily
to scapegoating and victim blaming. Poverty was attributed not to
unemployment
or low wages but to lack of middle-class family norms....Abstract
idealization
of family and motherhood coexisted with condemnation of real
families and
mothers in their imperfect day-to-day existence. An emphasis on
private
morality led to punishment more often than to prevention, to revenge
instead of
to relief" (Coontz 111-113).
Jimmie Reeves and Richard Campbell point out that while American middle class
morality is believed to be hinged on family stability, family
stability is
likewise believed to be dependent on good mothering. The term "bad
mother,"
like "crack mother," somehow implies that every negative social
situation is
the mother's fault (Reeves and Campbell, 1994). Ascribing to this
media
stereotype of bad mothering, Harding's problem character was
irrevocably linked
to her recalcitrant mother, LaVona. A woman who had been married
and divorced
six times and worked as a night waitress, we learned how she
provided
instability as well as hostility. Harding's father, Al, served as a more
naturalizing function: he taught Harding how to hunt, play pool, and
build up
her muscles. In another sense, he was held accountable for the
unfortunate
masculinization of his daughter, who had neither the body type nor
the feminine
credentials to be considered a U.S. skating star. The typical
portrayal of
one-dimensional LaVona Harding as "evil mother" was momentarily
cracked in a 60
Minutes interview (done years earlier for a Yale student's video
project).
LaVona Harding's comments briefly brought class issues back into
the skating
narrative: "She can't come up to their standards no matter how
hard she tries.
That gets to me. No matter how hard we try, we're always wrong. That's
normal" (Jan. 16, 1994, my italics.).
According to the mainstream media accounts, (as well as that of Harding's
mother) Harding could work as hard as she wanted, but her punishment
would
eventually be realized through her inability to medal, and her
inability to be
a role model for endorsement contracts. The social and cultural
reasons for
these barriers, and the media's implicit storytelling devices that
marked her
overall image, style, behavior, family instability, and poverty as
an
aberration from middle class norms, were absent from all mainstream
coverage.
Rather than discuss the root of Harding's exclusion, it was more
comfortable to
point out how obvious and normal it was, due to Harding's
personality and image
deficits, that she should be destined to suffer. The implication
that she may
have been guilty of planning the assault aside, her entire working
class self
was positioned as a hopeless deviation from what should be
embraced: Kerrigan.
As Ehrenreich notes, "there are no models, in the mainstream media, suggesting
that anything less than middle-class affluence might be an
honorable and
dignified condition, nor is there any reason why corporate advertisers
should
promote such a subversive possibility...the more the poor are cut
off or
abandoned, the less they are capable of inspiring sympathy or even
simple human
interest" (Ehrenreich 250).
An interesting development in the intensely covered saga was the outpouring of
support Harding received from fans. Thousands of people stopped
by the mall
ice rink to watch Harding skate and hang "We love you Tonya"
posters from
above. By confrontingDor exposingDthe reality of working class
non-advancement, Harding became a hero for many people with
similar struggles
against poverty and inequality. The Comedy Channel also turned
out a
five-minute, pro-Harding, anti-Kerrigan satire that twisted mainstream
mediaDimposed roles, positioning Harding as the honest striver and
Kerrigan as
a privileged brat. Brett Butler, the working class-associated
heroine of ABC
sitcom Grace Under Fire, also told David Letterman, while chatting
about
Harding, that "I've been secretly rooting for Tonya Harding," and more
ironically, "...yeah, I felt bad for Nancy Kerrigan and stuff like that,
you
know, when she said 'why me, why me.' I was just thinking that,
you know,
maybe it was some sort subconscious wish from everyone who never got
picked for
cheerleading...Tonya Harding, she's an idol. She's great. I love
Tonya
Harding" (Late Show with David Letterman, Feb. 24, 1994). Pro-Harding
editorials were also printed in college newspapers ("Why I'm the last
Tonya
Harding fan," Michigan Daily, Jan. 25, 1994, p. 4) and in local
editorials or
alternative presses ("Getting tired of Kerrigan's image," Daily
Hampshire
Gazette, Feb. 14, 1994, and "Harding's luck," Village Voice, Feb. 8,
1994).
Although they were few, alternative sentiments (negotiated or
oppositional
readings) did exist besides the homogeneity of mainstream coverage
(preferred
readings) (Hall 90), most alternative readings reacted to gender
representation, but a few, along with Harding's fans, reacted to the media
portrayal of Harding's class.
In a revealing quote in Newsweek, however, the depth of Harding's fan support
was minimized: Quoting Oregonian sportswriter Abby Haight, the
magazine
printed that "They're really nice people, whose only shortcoming is
feeling a
little too strongly that everything is against Tonya. Especially
the media"
(Adler, Winter 94, p.23). Peter Jennings of ABC News also
referred to her
fans as "loyal but zealous" (ABC News, Jan. 13, 1994), and ABC's
Brian Rooney
described them as "a devoted fan club of 400 followers. They
don't think she
has been treated fairly by reporters." Such characterizations are
never given
to Kerrigan's "normal" fans, including Nancy and Ronald Reagan,
who were among
the thousands who could be described as loyal and zealous because
they wrote
her letters of good luck (Eye to Eye with Connie Chung, Jan. 20,
1994). To
lend scientific weight to the tone of their skating coverage (but
without ever
discussing the impact the extensive media coverage might have on
public
opinion), local and national newscasts, like CNN and NBC (Feb. 2, 1994)
broadcast phone poll results to the question "Do you think Harding
should be
removed from the Olympic team?" The results were usually in the 70%
(no) and
30%(yes) range, putting the majority of the public squarely on the
side of the
reporters. "Person-on-the-street" news interviews were also
edited
consistently with the anti-Harding supporter always getting the last word.
Very often there were no Harding supporters edited in these popular
"person-on-the-street" montages.
The question must be asked, how different would the working class media status
of Tonya Harding be if Harding fulfilled standard notions of
beauty and
therefore, with beauty capital, had a place reserved for her in the
middle and
upper class realms? If Harding had high cheekbones, and the will
to change her
"rough" sides like Liza Doolittle, how would the story work
differently, and
what kind of class access would Harding have had early on in her
skating
career?
Kerrigan Backlash
Nancy Kerrigan, after being built up to middle class icon status, was then
poised to fall from grace. "Caught on tape" is the way Doug
Bruckner of Hard
Copy described it. "Could it be that American's sweetheart isn't
so sweet, or
is she finally buckling under pressure?" (March 3, 1994). With so
much
publicity confirming her $2 million deal with Disney, her continuous
cascade of
endorsements and appearances, and her upcoming hosting of Saturday
Night Live,
Kerrigan's humble Stoneham beginnings were already paling next to
her (and her
family's) new and comfortable status as millionaires. While she
had arrived at
status, wealth and security, the American public felt responsible
for putting
her there. They had bought the story of Kerrigan's rise from next
to nothing,
they had supported her from victim to silver medalist, they had
participated in
the bashing of her rival. And they were about to feel abandoned
by that
feathered middle class image of female identity that could no longer
sustain
itself.
Kerrigan's responsibility in this unspoken contract with her fans was to
continually serve as an icon for middle class values. Thus, when
cameras
snagged images and sound of Kerrigan complaining and looking sour at
the
Olympic medal ceremonies (she was awarded a sliver medal to Oksana
Baiul's
gold), she triggered the moralistic ire of the middle class.
Kerrigan became
scrutinized for more other acts of intemperance and indulgence.
Leaving the
Olympics before closing ceremonies to wave in a Disney parade
(Kerrigan signed
a $1 million contract with Disney) was interpreted as a selfish
snub to the
entire Olympic establishment. Sitting next to Mickey Mouse on a
float and
commenting within the range of microphones and television cameras
that "this is
the dumbest thing I've ever done" was evaluated as a spoiled,
ungrateful and
spiteful jab at her new employer. A new middle class lesson was in
the making.
"When you wish upon a star, maybe you should act like one," scolded Ann
Oldenburg in USA Today (Oldenburg 1). "Everyone is sick of it..."
"Well, I
think that she's a spoiled little itch with a B in front of it,"
said callers
on a radio show. "People who make billions have to be gracious,
and if you're
not gracious, people won't like you," warned Doug Bruckner of Hard
Copy. And
CNN Headline News' Judy Fortin said that "she said she was
satisfied with her
silver medal but questioned the Olympic judges who voted her
second. Kerrigan
told reporters that gold medalists Oksana Baiul made a couple of
mistakes.
Kerrigan called her own performance 'flawless.'"
With concrete examples of Kerrigan slipping and "not working hard," Kerrigan
was chastised for her sudden lack of discipline, striving, and
sense of
sacrifice. With her post-skate comment that "she was flawless," her
sense of
modesty evaporated. As a "bitch," Kerrigan was compared to
another woman
so-labeled, hotel heiress Leona Helmsley, (Hard Copy, March 3, 1994)
and cast
as indulgent, haughty and unappreciativeDnegative associations for
the upper
class. Well beyond the boundaries that constituted her middle
class "roots,"
Kerrigan no longer had the villain, Harding, to offer a comforting
contrast.
...without Harding's magnificent working class glare, Kerrigan's
(human)
imperfections were now exposed. As Stacey D'Erasmo wrote in the
Village Voice,
"Did Kerrigan's jaw get bigger overnight, or were we just noticing
it for the
first time? What big teeth you have, Snow White. No one ever got
anywhere
without them, my dear," (40). In a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup nationwide
telephone
poll of 1,016 adults conducted in December of 1994, 53% had a
favorable
impression, down from 61% in March. "Solomon says Kerrigan's
relationship with
the media "needs" to be rebuilt," USA Today reported, quoting
Kerrigan's agent.
"They jumped on the bandwagon to build her up before the Olympics and jumped
even harder to tear down after the Olympics" (Becker, 2C)
Kerrigan's image was further smudged in when it became public knowledge that
she had become the sexual partner to her agent, Jerry Solomon.
Solomon had
divorced his wife, the media reported, and Kerrigan was cast as a
home wrecker.
She had abandoned the safe environment of her stable family and disrupted
family stability elsewhere. She was no longer virginal and
dependent,. but
sexually indulgent and independent. She was going to be Solomon's
new wife
(Terry, 1995). That Oksana Baiul was IN and Kerrigan was OUT came
as no
surprise by the end of 1994. Baiul, as her story would be told and
re-told,
had been orphaned when she was 13 and skated on inferior rinks in
the harsh
environment of the Ukraine. She won the crown jewel at the 1994
Olympics,
edging out Kerrigan on artistic (feminine) merit while Kerrigan's
skating was
re-interpreted as "cold." Like Kerrigan, Baiul was skating on an
injured leg
(injured by an accidental on-ice collision during warm up) but
only had one day
of recovery time compared to Kerrigan's three weeks. Her musical
choices, like
Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky, embraced high musical culture(her
routine was even
reminiscent of ballet. Fitting the mold of rags to riches princess
far more
exactly than Kerrigan, Baiul was cast as a carefree, young,
uncorrupted fawn
next to her cold-as-ice rival; in effect, she was Bambi and
Cinderella
combined. Baiul, coming from a newly capitalistic Soviet bloc country,
also
came to represent success the "American" way and was shown to
embrace American
middle class shopping culture, having been deprived for so long.
She also
embraced and was shown to represent the American middle class values
of hard
work, sacrifice, modesty, authenticity, and family values. When
asked why she
was crying after she won her gold, the quote that her tears were
kisses from
heaven, where her mother was looking down on her, was widely
circulated and
warmly applauded by the media. Had her mother been alive, it was
suggested,
she surely would have watched Baiul skate, cheered her on, held her
hand, and
guided her. Baiul was even voted one of the ten most interesting
people of
1994 by Barbara Walters, and interviewed in an ABC special that
aired in
December as a program packaged to "wrap up" the year. The media had
found
another champion, and the skating world had found another star.
Conclusion
It can't be overlooked that classifications in gender play a huge, if not
fundamental role in the character configurations of women in mass
media's
coverage of women's figure skating. As there is a constant search for
media
icons to represent a middle class ideal, there is also a search to
identify a
feminine ideal, and in most cases what is "feminine" and what is
"middle class"
is not a contradiction. Skaters coded as having a "feminine"
skating style
were also coded in terms of their "artistic" approach, and couched
in terms of
middle class aspiration. Skaters coded as "unfeminine" were also
known as
"athletic" skaters who could then be understood as undesirably
working class.
How much did Kerrigan being white, with Northern European features (e.g. high
cheekbones) and long, model-like legs have to do with her class
mobility?
Five-time gold medalist speed skater, Bonnie Blair, who was 30 years
old at the
time of her many victories and beautifully muscular, was referred
to by CBS
Olympic commentators as "the kid sister," and not slated for class
advancement,
although her hard work, discipline, and family cohesiveness were,
like with
Kerrigan, celebrated in the media narrative surrounding her
performances.
How would the story change if Harding, celebrated for her athletic feats,
muscular body type, and hard-nosed sense of ambition, was given class
access
and endorsements from the onset? Perhaps such an act of
desperation, the
clubbing of a rival, wouldn't have been considered by those
surrounding
Harding, and even Harding herself.
That there is a constant search for feminine middle class icons, as we first
saw with Kerrigan, then with Baiul, means that these women
athletes are
expected to adhere to and exemplify almost impossible standards of
appearance
and behavior as they compete on and off the ice. Kerrigan's star
fades and
Baiul's star rises, but they are both just characters in the
continuous
narrative that defines the middle class ideal for women.
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