Infrequently Asked Questions: Figure Skating

Of figure skating, Herbivore asked me:

Q: but jill……why is it just so cheeeeeeeeeezy?

A: Herbivore, this is a tough question. There doesn’t seem to be any one single answer.

The hard part is dissecting the different threads of cheesiness, because the cheesiness that exists in men’s skating springs from different sources than the cheesiness in ice dancing, whereas you might notice the women’s and pairs choreography and costuming is comparatively uncheesy this year.

Now, in men’s and ice dancing, the cheesiness can be blamed in large part on the early success of certain talented but tasteless phenoms hailing from Eastern Europe, from whence all burgundy and orange hair dye flows.

However, where the current trend in men’s cheesiness goes back only as far as Alexei Urmanov at the 1994 Olympics (Elizabethan ruffles! Actual feathers!),

it is predated by cheesiness in ice dancing, which extends to a break that occurred immediately AFTER Torvil & Dean swept the ’84 Olympics and then turned pro. I think the up and coming skaters at that point kind of looked at each other and thought “what next?”

What turned out to be next were Russians, Natalia Bestemianova & Andrei Bukin, certifiably insane people known to skate programs themed around the life and times of Rasputin.

They were followed by Marina Klimova & Sergei Ponomarenko, pioneers in props, melodrama, the dragging of partners across the ice, and lots of eyeshadow and tragic hair.

Around the same time, Canadian siblings, Isabelle & Paul Duchesnay (coached by Christopher Dean, incidentally) defected to the French team and, unable to capitalise on sexual themes, resorted to challenging the definition of “dance” further with jungle dances and uber-strict masculine tangos and whatnot. (But note– they themselves were infrequently cheesy.)

The combined effect of these three teams on less-skilled imitators proved so cheesy that the rules for ice dance were subsequently changed several times in an attempt to crack down on the doodle factor. Yet cheesiness survives.

What it ultimately boils down to are terrible cheese spirals.

Imagine you are seven, and the top skaters you are competing against are cursed with insane skating mothers who buy eight times the amount of coaching and ice time your parents can afford, and also bedeck their daughters in crazy-ass costumes full of sparkle and chiffon. Your parents and coaches observe this phenomenon but perhaps lacking the wherewithal to invest in more practice time, what do they invest in instead? Sequins! And so thanks to your hard work, you rise through the ranks believing your costumes are not only normal, but actually helping.

Oh, and don’t forget, at least 30% of your judges are also crazy, so in a way, your costumes actually do help.

This is oversimplified but I think it illustrates one of the many ways the skaTER comes up with cheese, then skatING absorbs cheese, and then pushes cheese back on other skatERS.

I can remember one memorable incident where a coach insisted a skater wear a tropicana orange lamé dress that would make her look like a dancing fruit salad. The skater’s mother, a professional-grade seamstress, ultimately had to fire the coach to regain control of her daughter’s wardrobe, self-esteem and skating career.

On the international scene, you can see this playing out on the grandest scale among skaters from European countries who don’t have a decades-old history of podium density in figure skating. These skaters are particularly vulnerable to scooping up a bolt of fluorescent-pink spandex and deciding it will look good as two full sleeves of ruffles.

As for why American and Canadian skaters have been falling to this plague of late– I can’t help you. Toller Cranston at his most flamboyant never went further than a shocking colour and a plunging neckline. Maybe a little crimson velour and eyeliner. Gary Beacom reserved the neon for his professional career, and it was NEVER stretchy. God bless Brian Boitano and his simple, black leggings, Kurt Browning and his Humphrey Bogart tux, and the Wileys and Elderidges of this world for their understated if somewhat military sartorial details.

Cheese is not our history. In this post-apocalyptic century, it all comes down to individual choice and collective confusion.