Content-Type: text/html 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. Works Cited ABC World News Tonight, ABC (1994) with Peter Jennings. Adler, J. "On thin ice." Newsweek 24 Jan. 1994: 69-72. Adler, J. "Tonya trouble." Newsweek Winter 1994, special ed.: 18-23. Becker, Debbie, "After the hoopla, Kerrigan 'needs a break.'" USA Today 5 Jan. 1995. 2C. Bourdieu, Pierre. "How can one be a sports fan?" The Cultural Studies Reader. Ed. Simon During. London: Routledge, 1993. 339-356. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1984. cultural CBS Evening News. CBS. Anchors, Dan Rather and Connie Chung. WJBK, Detroit. 1994. CNN & Company. CNN. Host, Person's Name. Guest, Sonya Dunfield. 20 Jan. 1994. CNN Headline News. CNN. Anchor Judy Fortin. 3 March 1994. Campbell, Richard. 60 Minutes and the news. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1991. Carlson, Margaret. (1994, Feb. 21). With blades drawn. Time, p. 58. "News program title." Reporter Mike Lewis. WDIV, Detroit. 12 Jan. 1994. Coontz, Stephanie. The way we never were. New York: Basic Books, 1992. D'Erasmo, Stacey. "Title?" Village Voice 8 Mar. 1994: 40. Duffy, M. "No holiday on ice." Time 24 Jan. 1994: 55-57. Duffy, M. "With blades drawn." Time 21 Feb. 1994: 52-58. Eye to Eye with Connie Chung. CBS. WJBK, Detroit. 20 Jan. 1994. Ehrenreich, Barbara. Fear of Falling. New York. HarperPerennial, 1990. Fabos, Bettina. "Alone...on the Ice: Narrative Strategies in Women's Figure Skating Championships." Commission on the Status of Women. AEJMC Convention. Kansas City, 14 Aug.1993. Fiske, John. Understanding Television Culture. London. Methuen, 1987. Gans, Herbert J. Popular Culture and High Culture. New York. Basic Books, 1974 Gentile, F. and S.M. Miller. "Television and social class." Sociology and Social Research 45.3 (1961): 259-264. Ghannum, J. "Kerrigan attack probe points to rival's husband." Detroit Free Press 13 Jan 1994: 7A. Hall, Stuart. "Encoding, Decoding." The Cultural Studies Reader. Ed. Simon During. London: Routledge, 1993. 90-103. Hamilton, Scott. "How the games have changed." Newsweek Winter 1994, special ed.: 24. Hard Copy. Reporter, Doug Bruckner. WJBK, Detroit. 24 Jan. 1994. Inside Edition. Anchor, Bill Reilly. WJBK, Detroit. 7 Jan 1994. Lane, Wendy E. "Ratings rise, but skating's image on thin ice." Ann Arbor News 3 April 1994: D10. Late Show with David Letterman. CBS. Guest, Brett Butler. WJBK, Detroit. 24 Feb 1994. Madden, Michael. "No reason to feel sorry for me," Boston Globe 13 Feb. 1994: 51. Marshment, Margaret. "Substantial Women." The Female Gaze. Ed. Lorraine Gammon and Margaret Marshment. Seattle. The Real Comet Press, 1989. 27-43. Muller & Braunstein, (1992, March 16). Is Yamaguchi's endorsement career on ice? Detroit Free Press, p. 4F NBC Nightly News. NBC. Anchor, Tom Brokaw. 1994. Oldenburg, A. "title?" USA Today 3 Mar. 1994: 1. Plummer, W. "Poisoned ice." People 24 Jan. 1994: 56-62. Reeves, Jimmie L. and Richard Campbell. Cracked Coverage: Television News, the Anti-Cocaine Crusade, and the Reagan Legacy. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1994. Ryan, L.T. "Swimsuit models or victim stories, who will cover for me?" New York Times 20 Feb. 1994: 26. Sally Jessy Raphael, (1994, Jan 20). Gardner, R., guest. Shattered Glory. Host: Leeza Gibbons. WDIV, Detroit. 20 Feb, 1994. Sherman, William. The sexy, scandalous world of women sports stars. Cosmopolitan Dec. 1993: 202+. "episode name." Correspondent, Steve Croft. 60 Minutes. CBS. WJBK, Detroit. 16 Jan. 1994. Smolowe, J. "Tarnished victory." Time 24 Jan. 1994: 50-54. Spigel, Lynn. Make room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America. Chicago. U of Chicago P, 1992. Starr, M. "I'm so scared." Newsweek 17 Jan 1994: 41-43. Swift, E.M. "Violence." Sports Illustrated 17 Jan 1994: 16-21. Swift, E.M. "On thin ice." Sports Illustrated 24 Jan 1994: 16-20. Terry, Lauren. American Journal 27 Mar 1995 Thomas S., & Callahan, B.P. (1982). "Allocating happiness: TV families and social class." Journal of Communication 32 (1982): 184-190. Thomas, S., & LeShay, S. (1992). "Bad Business? A reexamination of television's portrayal of business persons." Journal of Communication 42 (1992): 95-105. Vescy, George. "Boston fans welcome home their Nancy." New York Times 6 Feb. 1994, natl ed., 24+. Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth. New York. Doubleyday. 1992. Wylie, Paul. "Tougher than she looks." Newsweek 24 Jan. 1994: 73.