Post by kostgard on Jan 10, 2018 15:20:42 GMT -4
Here is the NYT profile
And yeah, she comes off like a total a-hole, but the author is still very sympathetic to her and describes hugging her and basically telling her to hang in there before they parted ways.
She talks about how she left Oregon because everyone here are "buttheads" then was all, "Oh, I disappointed them. Well, exuuuuuse me!" Like, she had a lot of support here. Then people learned she was involved in covering up the crime. Also, when she left for some reason I thought she was in, like, Colorado. But she's just across the river in Battle Ground, WA. I'm sure there's still some butthead bleed-over to basically just the other side of the river, Tonya.
The whole piece shows she's still the same person from the 30 for 30 doc. Tells a bunch of lies and half-truths and ends up contradicting herself. Still does not take responsibility for her actions. One thing the NYT didn't check her on (which annoyed me) was she was all, "I don't know why people thought I was in on it with Jeff! We were divorced!" Okay, but even if you were divorced, you were still constantly hanging around him, and there are plenty of photographs and video footage of you with him during this fiasco (and in the 30 for 30 doc there was the local reporter who interviewed her who said Jeff came to the interview, sat just off camera and basically coached Tonya through it). She didn't really cut ties with him until it became clear he was going to jail. It's not like they were divorced and she had cut off communication with him and this attack was some weird effort on his part to win her back.
The piece did (amusingly) call her on other stuff. Like she talked about going hunting with her husband, that she uses a bow and arrow instead of a gun to make it a more level playing field between her and the animal, and the reporter is all, "Well, since you're a felon, you're not supposed to have a gun, anyway." Then the reporter compared her to Monica Lewinsky just as another woman from about the same time period that people are now looking at and thinking, "Hey, we were probably really unfair to her." Tonya didn't like that comparison at all, and was all, "I'm not like her! She betrayed America!" The reporter snarkily pointed out, "Well, but she's not a felon. So..." Also, "betrayed America"?
From the piece, it sounds like she has a decent amount of support in her community. The bar they go to concocted a drink for her (called "the triple axel"), she goes to the local skating rink and hugs little girls. She has a family and it seems everything is cool there. But she says people still do things like make obscene gestures at stop lights and that her truck was vandalized, but honestly, I don't know how much of that has to do with her being Tonya Harding. Also "My truck was vandalized" seems to happen to her a lot and with her track record, I just don't know how true it is. It could be, but, really, how many people still care that much about her or even recognize her while she's driving around anymore?
The reporter ends the piece by saying that a lot of her behavior is typical of abuse victims. Okay, that's fine and understandable. But let's not start her redemption tour when she won't even acknowledge the role she played in her own life. We can feel sorry for her, but let's not start the new age of Tonya.
And again, while Tonya got a bad start in life, so much of this was brought upon herself due to the chip on her shoulder and her sense of entitlement. People love an underdog, and she could have cashed in on that. But if you decide to go through life with your middle fingers in the air, you need to be prepared to be cool with people not liking that. It would have been admirable that she insisted on doing things her way and dressing the way she wanted instead of conforming to the norms, but she needed to stick to those principles instead of whining and crying when people said they didn't like it. It all basically went like this:
Tonya: I'm not going to conform to your "ice princess" ideal. I'm gonna wear my blue eye shadow and my long, talon nails and my acid green costumes and skate to ZZ Top and I don't care if you don't like it. I gotta be me and "me" is an awesome skater.
Figure Skating: Okay, but we still don't like any of it.
Tonya: YOU GUYS ARE SO MEAN AND YOU'RE PICKING ON ME!
Her response there should have been, "Great. Now watch me land this triple axel, bitches." But it wasn't. It was to whine about them picking on her. And that's why I'm pretty sure she was more involved in the attack that she said. I'm sure she looked at Nancy, felt she had everything just handed to her because she was the perfect ice princess while she got kicked around even though she deserved it more, so she was totally cool with Nancy getting taken down a peg or two (I don't think the attack was Tonya's idea. I just think she was cool with it because that snob Nancy probably "deserved" it for having everything handed to her while Tonya was denied everything she deserved).
ETA: I saw someone suggest that Tonya's lies may be a defense mechanism to protect herself from herself, and there may be something to that theory. Despite the terrible circumstances she came from, Tonya had a very real talent and a very real chance to rise above all of that and lead a very different life if she played her cards right. But she didn't. She blew it. Maybe Tonya lies because she just can't admit to herself that she's the one who blew her chances to have a very different life, and she just can't deal with that fact. And if she ever admitted it to herself she would fall apart. So she goes through life blaming everyone but herself.
And yeah, she comes off like a total a-hole, but the author is still very sympathetic to her and describes hugging her and basically telling her to hang in there before they parted ways.
She talks about how she left Oregon because everyone here are "buttheads" then was all, "Oh, I disappointed them. Well, exuuuuuse me!" Like, she had a lot of support here. Then people learned she was involved in covering up the crime. Also, when she left for some reason I thought she was in, like, Colorado. But she's just across the river in Battle Ground, WA. I'm sure there's still some butthead bleed-over to basically just the other side of the river, Tonya.
The whole piece shows she's still the same person from the 30 for 30 doc. Tells a bunch of lies and half-truths and ends up contradicting herself. Still does not take responsibility for her actions. One thing the NYT didn't check her on (which annoyed me) was she was all, "I don't know why people thought I was in on it with Jeff! We were divorced!" Okay, but even if you were divorced, you were still constantly hanging around him, and there are plenty of photographs and video footage of you with him during this fiasco (and in the 30 for 30 doc there was the local reporter who interviewed her who said Jeff came to the interview, sat just off camera and basically coached Tonya through it). She didn't really cut ties with him until it became clear he was going to jail. It's not like they were divorced and she had cut off communication with him and this attack was some weird effort on his part to win her back.
The piece did (amusingly) call her on other stuff. Like she talked about going hunting with her husband, that she uses a bow and arrow instead of a gun to make it a more level playing field between her and the animal, and the reporter is all, "Well, since you're a felon, you're not supposed to have a gun, anyway." Then the reporter compared her to Monica Lewinsky just as another woman from about the same time period that people are now looking at and thinking, "Hey, we were probably really unfair to her." Tonya didn't like that comparison at all, and was all, "I'm not like her! She betrayed America!" The reporter snarkily pointed out, "Well, but she's not a felon. So..." Also, "betrayed America"?
From the piece, it sounds like she has a decent amount of support in her community. The bar they go to concocted a drink for her (called "the triple axel"), she goes to the local skating rink and hugs little girls. She has a family and it seems everything is cool there. But she says people still do things like make obscene gestures at stop lights and that her truck was vandalized, but honestly, I don't know how much of that has to do with her being Tonya Harding. Also "My truck was vandalized" seems to happen to her a lot and with her track record, I just don't know how true it is. It could be, but, really, how many people still care that much about her or even recognize her while she's driving around anymore?
The reporter ends the piece by saying that a lot of her behavior is typical of abuse victims. Okay, that's fine and understandable. But let's not start her redemption tour when she won't even acknowledge the role she played in her own life. We can feel sorry for her, but let's not start the new age of Tonya.
And again, while Tonya got a bad start in life, so much of this was brought upon herself due to the chip on her shoulder and her sense of entitlement. People love an underdog, and she could have cashed in on that. But if you decide to go through life with your middle fingers in the air, you need to be prepared to be cool with people not liking that. It would have been admirable that she insisted on doing things her way and dressing the way she wanted instead of conforming to the norms, but she needed to stick to those principles instead of whining and crying when people said they didn't like it. It all basically went like this:
Tonya: I'm not going to conform to your "ice princess" ideal. I'm gonna wear my blue eye shadow and my long, talon nails and my acid green costumes and skate to ZZ Top and I don't care if you don't like it. I gotta be me and "me" is an awesome skater.
Figure Skating: Okay, but we still don't like any of it.
Tonya: YOU GUYS ARE SO MEAN AND YOU'RE PICKING ON ME!
Her response there should have been, "Great. Now watch me land this triple axel, bitches." But it wasn't. It was to whine about them picking on her. And that's why I'm pretty sure she was more involved in the attack that she said. I'm sure she looked at Nancy, felt she had everything just handed to her because she was the perfect ice princess while she got kicked around even though she deserved it more, so she was totally cool with Nancy getting taken down a peg or two (I don't think the attack was Tonya's idea. I just think she was cool with it because that snob Nancy probably "deserved" it for having everything handed to her while Tonya was denied everything she deserved).
ETA: I saw someone suggest that Tonya's lies may be a defense mechanism to protect herself from herself, and there may be something to that theory. Despite the terrible circumstances she came from, Tonya had a very real talent and a very real chance to rise above all of that and lead a very different life if she played her cards right. But she didn't. She blew it. Maybe Tonya lies because she just can't admit to herself that she's the one who blew her chances to have a very different life, and she just can't deal with that fact. And if she ever admitted it to herself she would fall apart. So she goes through life blaming everyone but herself.
