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February 25, 2006
Ice Dancing = Horrendous Costumes and Jerry Springer-Style Commentary
Sorry for the sparse blog posting. It's not for lack of bloggable subjects -- I just don't have the time with my new schedule. I can't promise that it'll pick up, but I'll try not to let this completely fall apart.
Did anyone follow the various sagas in the winter Olympic figure skating events? We watched a good deal of the ice dancing, which seems to be an odd sport, but which we were admirably prepared for after watching the ridiculous (but addictive) 90s flick The Cutting Edge in fits and starts while it played 100 times on NBC over the previous weekend.
The Italian ice dancing couple gave the (exceedingly annoying) announcers something to gush about. The couple came out of retirement (the announcers says this with great seriousness: "they came OUT OF RETIREMENT to be here today") to compete in their home country (sob), and they skated, well, so-so the first time around, I thought. The judges thought they skated GREAT, though, and gave them a great score. This would suggest a little bit of Italian-style corruption, no? But what do I know about judging figure skating. The next night, if I'm remembering right, was the night of the DISASTER. The man -- the "weaker skater" (the announcers will also CRUSH less-than-perfect skaters at the first opportunity they see) DROPs his partner. He "can't get the job done", and she stumbles down from a lift. Italian diva that she is, she finishes the program and storms off, furious. The feud lasts all the way to the following day, when they're scheduled to skate the next program. The TV crews love the soap opera-style fight, filming them refusing to look at each other in the locker room, filming him sulking, filming her fuming (stand-off photos here). The announcers have great fun referring to her as "icy", "frosty" and waiting for things to "thaw". Finally, they skate out on the ice, still not speaking, and skate their program without any major mistakes. When it's over she gives him a hug and smiles. The announcers say something like "he's back in the big house" or whatever. Saga over.
Can you see how the stupid announcers would drive you nuts? We had to mute the sound during programs just so we could watch. The female announcer will disparage every skater, no matter how accomplished (these are the best in the world, no? Can we give them a break?). She'll say, "only a double" if anyone doesn't do a triple toe loop, and talk about a skater "reeeeally struggling here" when he/she seems just fine. When she's not doing that, she's making over-arching statements like "She's not just playing Juliet here. She IS Juliet." She said that in reference to the doomed-to-win-silver Sasha Cohen. What does that even mean? Is Sahsa dating someone from Russia? Is she suicidal? Ugh.
Back to the ice dancing, though. I was aghast at the parade of completely tasteless costumes we saw one night. It seemed like there was some kind of outlandish costume contest going on. I know there's a history here, because even in "The Cutting Edge" there are some questionably shiny, oddly-cut get ups. Solo figure skaters seem to have some fashion sense, but many ice dancing couples looked like they were dressed for Halloween. One American woman had on a mostly sheer outfit with little florets of white popping up all over her chest and arms. She looked diseased, like she might have eaten a poisonous mushroom and subsequently developed a violent fungus infection. Did nobody else realize this before she decided to wear the outfit in front of millions of people? Then, and I think this might have been the dueling Italian couple, there was a couple that looked like they had just climbed out of a swamp. They had green and brown ugly flowing things on. Another man's outfit had this completely pointless, long light blue piece of satiny fabric sewn to the back of an otherwise acceptable outfit. It matched his partner's dress -- maybe they had some fabric left over and decided to just sew it on? Ugh. There were a few decent, even nice and tasteful costumes, but for a while I had more fun making fun of the costumes than watching the skating, which doesn't seem quite right. I've just noticed an article on NBC's site about this same issue, so maybe someone will do the skaters a favor and tell them to stop designing their own costumes.
Update: Have the unitard-wearing skaters not realized that they all look like Seven of Nine?
Posted by csageday at February 25, 2006 02:08 AM