Yes, I am an Olympics freak. Every two years, I watch sports; that’s how often I can stand them, but when I watch, I watch with focus and devotion.
I don’t normally take to ice dancing, but the reporting on all the falls got me pruriently interested, so I tuned in last night. The focus of all the buzz was the Italian couple.
(I’m going to tell you the truth, which is that I watched uncritically, and only started thinking about the coverage afterwards. Any comments I make were absent from my brain while zombied in front of the TV.)
On Wednesday night, Maurizio Margaglio dropped Barbara Fusar-Poli during a lift. They’d been in first place but this destroyed their chances for a medal. The real buzz, though, was the dirty look she gave him. While she glared at him for 31 seconds (yes, they clocked it!) the commentators called her “ice diva,” the “dominant partner” in their team, and joked they were afraid of her. This went on, at length, on the Olympic Ice wrap-up.
(There’s a video of “the glare” on the right side of this page.)
So here’s where I want to point out that he dropped her. She’s the bitch, he’s the victim? He. Dropped. Her. The Canadian woman also fell from a lift on Sunday (this time she was the one who lost her grip) and had to withdraw from competition because she was in too much pain to skate on Monday. When interviewed, she said she was just grateful she hadn’t broken her hip. So I’m thinking, not a trivial thing, such a drop. I’m thinking, I’d be mad too.
Anyway, all the chatter last night was about how they weren’t speaking to each other. Arrived separately to the arena. Warmed up separately. So now the camera is in the dressing room/waiting area watching them, and the commentators capture and remark upon every instance of one walking past the other without speaking. Sandra Bezic said “I’ve never seen anything like this!” several times. (Rather disingenuous given the camera placement!) Dick Button wins for the meanest remark: ‘Is this how she wants her little two year-old daughter to remember her parents’ Olympics when she’s twenty?’
Now it’s time for them to skate. They go onto the ice, still not looking at each other. Just as they’re about to begin, she says something to him, just a word, looked like “Okay” but was probably in Italian. He nods. They begin.
Well, I didn’t dig the program, but apparently they skated really well. As soon as they finished, she burst into tears, and they hugged and kissed while the commentators said “He’s back in” (her good graces).
And suddenly I thought “I’ve had a marriage like that.”
Suddenly I thought “She’s been telling him for months that his hold is loose and she’s afraid he might drop her at that point. She’s been telling him and he’s been saying ‘Don’t worry.’ And now, in front of everyone, she looks like the bad guy.”
The passive partner wins the audience to his side. ‘Look at me,’ his passivity says, ‘I’m the victim here.’
At first I thought it was sexism, y’know? All that “diva” talk and the way they all laughed at her. But if you reverse it, it’s worse. If a man is the angry one, he’s abusive rather than amusing, so I don’t think the mockery is about gender.
It’s about anger.
This woman was dropped. She came out of retirement after giving birth, she was in first place, and she was dropped. Given how much they trained, given how familiar such a routine must be, I am sure I’m right to think they knew that moment was a weak spot. I am sure that look was “I frickin told you so you sonuvabitch” (in Italian). And she’s still wrong for being angry. She’s not just wrong, she’s mocked repeatedly on TV.
It would have been nice if she had stood up after her fall, smiled beatifically, bowed and skated off. That would have been very nice indeed. I even think it would have been better, and that it’s a good goal to have.
But anger is okay too.
maybe this is obvious, but i’d say that the fact she’s not allowed to be angry without being mocked is indeed sexism. that women are not “supposed” to get angry, be bitchy, give looks that could kill. of course, they do it all the time, but we’ve developed this whole language around it with which to label it “deviant.” because, like you said, if she had smiled and bowed and been gracious, no one would have mentioned a thing.
I agree, a man wouldn’t be mocked. On the other hand, a man wouldn’t garner approval. The thing about disapproving of anger is not gender-related. I guess every time a woman is responded to by a sexist culture, it’s gonna be sexist. That doesn’t mean a man would garner approval for anger in that situation.
The artificial smile is rewarded over the deeply-felt grimace. That’s part of it.
Another part of it is that in a relationship in which one partner is passive and the other is vocal, outsiders punish the vocal one, the one who expresses anger. That’s the part I connected to. I was married to a passive-aggressive man, so I was often angry. I got perceived as a bitch whereas his covert aggression wasn’t perceived at all by outsiders. It’s a set-up.
Dudes – John McEnroe? Bobby Knight? Mike Tyson?
Men who lose their cool also get mocked. And if you don’t believe me I’ll throw a tennis racket at you, yell while throwing a chair, and bite your ear off.
As social animals we are always socializing to a “norm.” That’s, well, normal. And the bigger point for normalizing in this to me isn’t gender or anger – it’s performance. Didn’t you know that the show always goes on?
Sue, I have no idea who Bobby Knight is, but McEnroe and Tyson aren’t mocked for anger, they’re mocked for temper tantrums, which are a behavior not a feeling.
And I don’t know if you saw the show, but it did go on. Twice in fact. “The glare” happened after the performance Sunday was over. Then, even though they weren’t speaking to each other at the time, they went on and performed Monday. So it wasn’t behavior that was being mocked, simply the reaction.
The thing about disapproving of anger is not gender-related.
this is where i’d have to disagree. i think there are a lot of interesting (and interesting in the “well isn’t that sexist!” kind of way) things going on around women and anger. anger is usually, if not always, seen as “unbecoming” in a woman, and it’s never as repudiated in a man. sure, there are some bobby knight jokes and john mcenroe had a reputation, but can you imagine a woman behaving the way those men did? ohmigod, people would’ve needed fainting couches and smelling salts.
oh, and i just watched the video – it wasn’t even that icy of a stare! i mean, you could tell she was angry, but given the nature of the commentary, i was expecting the Look of Death! she just looked pissed off and disappointed, and in that situation, who wouldn’t be?
The “icy stare” to-do was that it lasted so long. I mean, most people don’t wait more than 5-10 seconds before they take their bow and skate off, so I can see being startled by 30 seconds.
Sure anger is a viable human emotion but she acted like an ass. Did the male partner of the woman who lost her grip and fell and cost them a chance at a medal, stand and glare at his partner on the ice for 1/2 a minute and then proceed to give her the cold shoulder thorugh the marks and the next day? Yes she was hurt but it was still her fault or rather her failing. But he didn’t blame her — at least not publically –and they had to leave the competition.
There were several falls and drops that night and none of the other skaters behaved that way. There are always falls. There are missed jumps, lifts, steps and timing. Ice dancing isn’t as dangerous as pairs skating where a trip to the hospital afterwards is not uncommon, but falls happen.
Her reaction was unbecoming of any Olympic athlete (especially one in front of her home country) and embarassingly poor sportsmanship. You don’t show up your partner on the ice, just like you don’t show up a teamate on the field unless you want condemnation from other teammates and the guys in the booth. Watch a baseball game where one player shows up a teammate who made a mistake (could be something as small as shifting his shoulders in disgust for a second) and see how he’s censored.
Are you seriously saying that she acted appropriately? I disagree. Her partner felt as bad as she did about the fall. She glared and ignored him during the scoring and was reported to not be speaking to him, for two days. That is no way to behave in any partnership. They are clearly too old to be skating conpetitively. He can barely skate anyway. All he does is skate backwards and twirl her around. She should have behaved with elegance, as skating is about beauty and grace and she is sadly lacking any. They should not have been scored so high for their short program anyway. The judges were clearly padding the Italian scores. She then continued to mistreat her partner right up to the opening of their next routine, despite the fact that she was making him nervous and miserable and that he would have to lift her chunky little ass while trembling from nervousness for fear of arousing the spite of the wrathful one. Then, like all abusers she switched her role after their clean skate and wanted to make nice with him. He broke down in sobs off the ice. What if she had knocked him down and he had glared threateningly at her??? Totally unacceptable, because men are dangerous and can not express anger that way. She should have been disqualified for unsportsman like conduct. What if it had been you that knocked her down, wouldn’t you feel awful? Would it make it better for your next performance to be treated like a repulsive oaf , unworthy of being spoken to. Diva is too kind a word for her. She is an evil bitch.