Hollywood praising Tonya Harding

[Anonymous]

I have no interest in reliving this. I was a little girl when it went down and I had been really into skating before that.

She then was allowed to leave the ice and relace in 1994 at Lillehammer because she was crying like a puppy with a broken paw. That should never have been allowed. She didn't care about Nancy when she had her injured, why should judges care for her?

I don't get Hollywood reliving the dregs of our cultural moments- where people inflict violence on each other and we pretend like they COULD have any valid reason or alibi- OJ, Menendez bros, Harding's assault on Kerrigan, etc etc. But I guess enough creepy people watch it that they make money. I think it is sad and disgusting and the criminals should be left to live out their lives in the shadows, not invited into society.

It's like a modern day 18th century French court where you can loiter in infamy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have no interest in reliving this. I was a little girl when it went down and I had been really into skating before that.

She then was allowed to leave the ice and relace in 1994 at Lillehammer because she was crying like a puppy with a broken paw. That should never have been allowed. She didn't care about Nancy when she had her injured, why should judges care for her?

I don't get Hollywood reliving the dregs of our cultural moments- where people inflict violence on each other and we pretend like they COULD have any valid reason or alibi- OJ, Menendez bros, Harding's assault on Kerrigan, etc etc. But I guess enough creepy people watch it that they make money. I think it is sad and disgusting and the criminals should be left to live out their lives in the shadows, not invited into society.

It's like a modern day 18th century French court where you can loiter in infamy.

So funny how events that happen in our childhood can effect different people in different ways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not one of you remembers Tonya's lousy start of her routine and then her fake claim that her "laces broke"? Or Tonya's involvement in "America's Dumbest ___"? This is not a person to praise.

I remember the laces incident and I was shocked/disgusted that they let her just restart her routine again as if nothing had happened. That pissed me off. I'm like all these other girls worked their asses off to perfection down to the most minute detail and this cow can't even tie her skates but gets a free do-over. SMH

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you guys seen the movie? I saw it last week, its really excellent. I enjoyed the perspective. Kerrigan is a whore anyway.

The movie is a lie and from the point of view of a sociopath who wants to be seen as a victim. Congratulations on being manipulated by Hollywood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The movie was great, and I personally don't think Tonya knew the guy was going to physically hurt Nancy Kerrigan. Harding had a crazy life and I find her sympathetic.

The movie wants her to be portrayed as the victim. It was a movie that is not set in reality of the actual events. Plenty of people have crappy lives and would not contribute to the assault of another human being. Hollywood movies manipulate the facts, your brain while they take in the cash.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The movie was great, and I personally don't think Tonya knew the guy was going to physically hurt Nancy Kerrigan. Harding had a crazy life and I find her sympathetic.

The movie wants her to be portrayed as the victim. It was a movie that is not set in reality of the actual events. Plenty of people have crappy lives and would not contribute to the assault of another human being. Hollywood movies manipulate the facts, your brain while they take in the cash.

I think how some people like you are so bizarrely emphatic even years later that nothing about her life and situation can generate empathy. I feel like its so like...it was such an encapsulation of how we (American's) view the world.

Nancy was this good traditional hardworking elegant girl, and got the whole country behind her. And Tonya was a tough, poor, arguably far more hardworking considering what she was overcoming, crass girl who never learned how to be a good person but who wanted a different life for herself and fell victim to the habits her crappy life instilled in her. Nancy was always going to be fine. In another life she may or may not have won the gold but no matter what she was going to be fine. Tonya needed that gold to escape, so she behaved badly. And was very very thoroughly punished for it. And still 30 years later people are unable to find empathy (which is not the same as forgiveness or acceptance) for her. Its amazing to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The movie was great, and I personally don't think Tonya knew the guy was going to physically hurt Nancy Kerrigan. Harding had a crazy life and I find her sympathetic.

The movie wants her to be portrayed as the victim. It was a movie that is not set in reality of the actual events. Plenty of people have crappy lives and would not contribute to the assault of another human being. Hollywood movies manipulate the facts, your brain while they take in the cash.

I think how some people like you are so bizarrely emphatic even years later that nothing about her life and situation can generate empathy. I feel like its so like...it was such an encapsulation of how we (American's) view the world.

Nancy was this good traditional hardworking elegant girl, and got the whole country behind her. And Tonya was a tough, poor, arguably far more hardworking considering what she was overcoming, crass girl who never learned how to be a good person but who wanted a different life for herself and fell victim to the habits her crappy life instilled in her. Nancy was always going to be fine. In another life she may or may not have won the gold but no matter what she was going to be fine. Tonya needed that gold to escape, so she behaved badly. And was very very thoroughly punished for it. And still 30 years later people are unable to find empathy (which is not the same as forgiveness or acceptance) for her. Its amazing to me.

You don't get it.

There are many people with Tonya's background who deserve a leg up and all the sympathy in the world for how hard their childhoods are.

But if that person is suspected of having her partner go and beat up her opponent so she can gain an unfair advantage? You actually think it's the obligation of the audience to sympathize with such a scumbag? Are you obtuse?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not one of you remembers Tonya's lousy start of her routine and then her fake claim that her "laces broke"? Or Tonya's involvement in "America's Dumbest ___"? This is not a person to praise.

I remember the laces incident and I was shocked/disgusted that they let her just restart her routine again as if nothing had happened. That pissed me off. I'm like all these other girls worked their asses off to perfection down to the most minute detail and this cow can't even tie her skates but gets a free do-over. SMH

I have always thought that she sabotaged her own skate to make it look like someone else (Nancy?) had tampered with it - "See! She's just as bad as I am!"

Something about that whole thing seemed so contrived.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The movie was great, and I personally don't think Tonya knew the guy was going to physically hurt Nancy Kerrigan. Harding had a crazy life and I find her sympathetic.

The movie wants her to be portrayed as the victim. It was a movie that is not set in reality of the actual events. Plenty of people have crappy lives and would not contribute to the assault of another human being. Hollywood movies manipulate the facts, your brain while they take in the cash.

I think how some people like you are so bizarrely emphatic even years later that nothing about her life and situation can generate empathy. I feel like its so like...it was such an encapsulation of how we (American's) view the world.

Nancy was this good traditional hardworking elegant girl, and got the whole country behind her. And Tonya was a tough, poor, arguably far more hardworking considering what she was overcoming, crass girl who never learned how to be a good person but who wanted a different life for herself and fell victim to the habits her crappy life instilled in her. Nancy was always going to be fine. In another life she may or may not have won the gold but no matter what she was going to be fine. Tonya needed that gold to escape, so she behaved badly. And was very very thoroughly punished for it. And still 30 years later people are unable to find empathy (which is not the same as forgiveness or acceptance) for her. Its amazing to me.

You don't get it.

There are many people with Tonya's background who deserve a leg up and all the sympathy in the world for how hard their childhoods are.

But if that person is suspected of having her partner go and beat up her opponent so she can gain an unfair advantage? You actually think it's the obligation of the audience to sympathize with such a scumbag? Are you obtuse?

I totally get it. Pulling oneself out of that kind of situation is hard. Some people are able to do it and become Oprah and some people aren't. What would Nancy have been like if she'd grown up like Tonya? Would she have been the rare person who had the ability to get out of it relatively unscathed or would she have been a complicated person too? I didn't use the word sympathy BTW, you did, it means something different and more condescending than empathy.

I think we have an obligation as a society to try to create fewer Tonyas and in order to do that one needs to understand the Tonyas AND the ones who made it out, you need to understand both to understand why there will always be more Tonyas than Oprahs so we should try to help less kids be born into that fate that is so hard to scrape your way out of. And try to give resources to those kids who are born there to help them if they show the fortitude to try to get out. Tonya showed that fortitude and was mocked by the media for a long time before that bat was swung.

AND FWIW I am not saying her punishment was unjust, I'm not saying it wasn't understandable to be disgusted with her in the moment. I'm saying that now, 30 years later, we have the ability to view her as a whole three dimensional person which is not something anyone bothered to do back then. Tonya wasn't able to overcome all the obstacles thrown at her. Would you have been? Would Nancy have been? Why do we hold poor people to a standard that we probably couldn't meet ourselves?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not one of you remembers Tonya's lousy start of her routine and then her fake claim that her "laces broke"? Or Tonya's involvement in "America's Dumbest ___"? This is not a person to praise.

+1

Yes. I remember the lace thing vividly. Her leg on the wall, her face screwed up. It was embarrassing.

Even she knew that she had no business being there.

OK, skating obsessives like me will correct you on this point: Tonya ROUTINELY did break laces because of the torque involved in hitting the big jumps she hit. You can see for yourself how she describes breaking a lace in the middle of one of her Skate America wins--when she's in the Kiss and Cry area (area where you await your scores and talk with your coaches), she marvels at the fact that she was able to land jumps after breaking a lace mid-program. She broke it on a triple flip, I believe, and was able to go on and land like three more jumps.

So yes, it was crazy, and ill-timed, but anyone who had followed Tonya's career knew that she had a habit of breaking laces with her huge jumps.

Rewatch the video of her skating before that lace break. There were no big jumps causing that lace to break. She skated out onto the ice and aborted an attempted jump. She skated a little more and then she skated over to the judges box crying. It was not obvious at all what the hell had happened to her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not one of you remembers Tonya's lousy start of her routine and then her fake claim that her "laces broke"? Or Tonya's involvement in "America's Dumbest ___"? This is not a person to praise.

I actually vividly remember this. I was just a little kid, maybe 7, and I have a lasting lifelong impression of how horrible it was to watch someone that everyone hated come out and try only to have that happen and have to start over. I remember looking at her face and seeing real genuine agony and as a result my entire life I have always had more sympathy for Tonya Harding than anyone thought was appropriate.

No one wants to do a real thoughtful examination of this of course, it is easy to label her trailer trash. But someone can be a not-very-good-person and you can still have empathy for why they are who they are. Tonya grew up abused and her only ticket out was skating. If you back an abused dog into a corner they are going to lash out when they try to escape. I think the whole thing also showed how insanely classist figure skating was (is?). Tonya was 'athletic' and not 'graceful'. She didn't have the prettiest costumes because she couldn't afford them, she didn't have the grace of a girl raised in a wealthy family in new england. Those things were not her fault but resulted in the whole skating industry/country rooting for Nancy because she was prettier and more graceful and more what people wanted their daughters to be.

I think Tonya probably knew something. I think she isn't particularly good about accepting responsibility for her mistakes. I also think she was treated terribly long before the Kerrigan incident. Tonya Harding is a product of her circumstances, and so while I think she acted poorly, I think she's entitled to a redemption and I think perhaps we as a country should look back on that incident in a new light considering the growing economic divides in this country and the way it is causing us to stereotype and pigeonhole people. I don't think we ever need to create another Tonya Harding. But I'm grateful that she taught me such a serious lesson in empathy at such a young age, it has made me a better person I think.

Interesting. Nancy Kerrigan’s face of agony—the look of shattered dreams—after she was hit taught me a lesson in empathy. The fact that Tonya Harding is capitalizing on a crime does not indicate remorse or redemption

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The movie was great, and I personally don't think Tonya knew the guy was going to physically hurt Nancy Kerrigan. Harding had a crazy life and I find her sympathetic.

The movie wants her to be portrayed as the victim. It was a movie that is not set in reality of the actual events. Plenty of people have crappy lives and would not contribute to the assault of another human being. Hollywood movies manipulate the facts, your brain while they take in the cash.

I think how some people like you are so bizarrely emphatic even years later that nothing about her life and situation can generate empathy. I feel like its so like...it was such an encapsulation of how we (American's) view the world.

Nancy was this good traditional hardworking elegant girl, and got the whole country behind her. And Tonya was a tough, poor, arguably far more hardworking considering what she was overcoming, crass girl who never learned how to be a good person but who wanted a different life for herself and fell victim to the habits her crappy life instilled in her. Nancy was always going to be fine. In another life she may or may not have won the gold but no matter what she was going to be fine. Tonya needed that gold to escape, so she behaved badly. And was very very thoroughly punished for it. And still 30 years later people are unable to find empathy (which is not the same as forgiveness or acceptance) for her. Its amazing to me.

Tonya chose to fight dirty. No one made her to that, she chose to do that. No one hates Tonya Harding for being poor, no one hates her for not having the best skating outfits that money can buy. People dislike Tonya Harding because she chose to fight dirty. When her goons tried to break Nancy Kerrigan's leg in order to give Harding a leg up (no pun intended) - that was just incredibly and blatantly wrong on so many levels. Just think for a second who Harding was representing at the Olympics.....Was it herself? Was it her ex husband or the hit man? Was she there to say a big FU to her crappy mother? No.

She was there to represent the USA and skate on our country's behalf. If she had just done that and not attacked and eliminate her fellow American teammate maybe things would have gone a bit better for her.

No sympathy. None.

[Anonymous]

This bitch needs to go away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not one of you remembers Tonya's lousy start of her routine and then her fake claim that her "laces broke"? Or Tonya's involvement in "America's Dumbest ___"? This is not a person to praise.

+1

Yes. I remember the lace thing vividly. Her leg on the wall, her face screwed up. It was embarrassing.

Even she knew that she had no business being there.

OK, skating obsessives like me will correct you on this point: Tonya ROUTINELY did break laces because of the torque involved in hitting the big jumps she hit. You can see for yourself how she describes breaking a lace in the middle of one of her Skate America wins--when she's in the Kiss and Cry area (area where you await your scores and talk with your coaches), she marvels at the fact that she was able to land jumps after breaking a lace mid-program. She broke it on a triple flip, I believe, and was able to go on and land like three more jumps.

So yes, it was crazy, and ill-timed, but anyone who had followed Tonya's career knew that she had a habit of breaking laces with her huge jumps.

Rewatch the video of her skating before that lace break. There were no big jumps causing that lace to break. She skated out onto the ice and aborted an attempted jump. She skated a little more and then she skated over to the judges box crying. It was not obvious at all what the hell had happened to her.

You do realize they do a warm-up, with jumps, before they go on, right? Six at a time: warm up, six performances, next group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The movie was great, and I personally don't think Tonya knew the guy was going to physically hurt Nancy Kerrigan. Harding had a crazy life and I find her sympathetic.

The movie wants her to be portrayed as the victim. It was a movie that is not set in reality of the actual events. Plenty of people have crappy lives and would not contribute to the assault of another human being. Hollywood movies manipulate the facts, your brain while they take in the cash.

I think how some people like you are so bizarrely emphatic even years later that nothing about her life and situation can generate empathy. I feel like its so like...it was such an encapsulation of how we (American's) view the world.

Nancy was this good traditional hardworking elegant girl, and got the whole country behind her. And Tonya was a tough, poor, arguably far more hardworking considering what she was overcoming, crass girl who never learned how to be a good person but who wanted a different life for herself and fell victim to the habits her crappy life instilled in her. Nancy was always going to be fine. In another life she may or may not have won the gold but no matter what she was going to be fine. Tonya needed that gold to escape, so she behaved badly. And was very very thoroughly punished for it. And still 30 years later people are unable to find empathy (which is not the same as forgiveness or acceptance) for her. Its amazing to me.

You want to know about hardship? Read up on Oksana Baiul, the skater who won the gold medal fair and square. Then get back to me and tell me how bad poor Tonya Harding had it. Give me a break.