BS: Censored ice skating

Subject: RE: BS: Censored ice skating
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 01:58 PM

oh, I can just see all skating being broadcast in re-play only...with little fuzzy gray circles over the ladies undies or the lads groins! *grin*....(yessir...lets go back to the Sonya Heine era and the teddibly demure costumes that no one could POSSIBLY execute a triple in!)

Subject: RE: BS: Censored ice skating
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 01:54 PM

There was a lot about this in the press before the games got underway. It's about the costumes and some of the poses, and I don't know if it's verboten but maybe they get judged lower if they "offend."

It has gotten kind of raunchy. Sometimes. I don't really care-- but some people do.

I'll tell you what I do care about tho-- I used to be a proofreader. One of our accounts was an outfit that sold gymnastics uniforms and dance costumes, for tots through teens. We did their catalogs. Glossy. Big bucks. Seeing the catalog pix of two year olds looking like hookers, making porny poses and faces at the camera-- yyych. I'm talking way before and way BEYOND Jon Benet Ramsay. Creepy. Just the girls, too, the little boys were proper gents. Helllooo!!!!

And there is one place we can think about this from the judges' view. Is it going to be more competitive to outdo the sexiness as well as the jumps, and how is this going to affect junior skating?

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Censored ice skating
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 01:47 PM

Does this ban on suggestive stuff apply to the blokes as well? And are they going to have a points system on suggestivity? With the difference being that the high scorers lose...

Subject: RE: BS: Censored ice skating
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 01:42 PM

Like Rollerball - Bladeball?

But I've been checking local and international news, and found nothing, and my newshound friend (who reads all pages of as many papers as possible every day) hasn't heard about censorship either. Could this be an urban legend? I mean yes the judging is unscientific, but that's not censorship. What's the exact rumor - are they supposedly airbrushing certain poses? Do the cameras pan the audience when the skaters are doing their censored thing? Or are they not showing particular skaters' routines at all if they are "suggestive" (and by whose standards, then - Please, not the Mormons!) - or what? And is this a Mormon thing?

Subject: RE: BS: Censored ice skating
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 01:04 PM

new Olympic sport...demolition Ice Skating...put 25 skaters out there, and the last one standing gets the gold.

Or, if you don't like bloody ice, have just a technical competition, where they see how many doubles, triples, quads, and combos they can throw in 5 minutes...with challenges on instant replay, like the NFL...

(I'm kidding, I'm kidding...really....well, mostly..*grin*)

Subject: RE: BS: Censored ice skating
From: gnu
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 12:09 PM

"Skating" is exercise. "Ice Skating" is entertainment. "Ice Hockey" is sport. Now, if you could combine ice skating with boxing... nah, hockey would still win.

Subject: RE: BS: Censored ice skating
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 12:05 PM

Let me say this about that... Auxiris, on déconne depuis longtemps, ici!

Subject: RE: BS: Censored ice skating
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 11:57 AM

First, do any of us really know anything about the skating world?

Second, the skaters participate if they wish, and don't if they don't. By the time they reach this level of competition, they aren't there to please their parents, and they know exactly what they are in for. They agree to the whole rigamarole.

Later in life, maybe they get to be judges.

In the skating world, as in many others, the judges ("Powers That Be") are balancing a number of priorities against their own leftover bitterness that accumulated when they were "paying" THEIR dues. You should see how it operates when people want to go to seminary! *G*

From the outside of course it looks ridiculous, unfair, whatever-- whatever our mindset on these things is, that's how we interpret what we can see from the outside. But we aren't part of the history. We don't have any idea what those dues might have been, or what they really care about in their field of interest.

Things in any system change slowly. I used to chafe at this. Then I realized that change happens at that rate because it is what human beings can handle, overall, as a system. It's part of species survival.

Last week I realized that, in our denomination, things change in a particular and amusing, infuriating way. Your whole time you belong to a church, you are complaining that things never change in whatever way you'd like them to change (while raging at what others are changing that you hold dear). You may be nice about it or you may not, but everyone who really wants change becomes quite well known for thier favorite area of wishing. And no one wants to go along. Then the person dies, and BINGO! A memorial fund is set up.... to fund, in loving and sincere regard, what the person would most have loved to see in life!

I think heaven is full of people laughing their asses off for this reason. *G*

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Censored ice skating
From: LoopySanchez
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 11:04 AM

Is boxing a sport, JJ? Unless there's a knockout, the winner is chosen by the judges. That being said, I agree with you that ice skating is not technically a "sport", but for a different reason.

My rule of thumb is that a true sport must include defense, a ball, or both. (Golf counts because the course architecture serves as a form of defense, and it uses a ball.)

In the Super Bowl we didn't see the Patriots being awarded only 5 points for a touchdown by "the judges" because they were "ranked lower" and weren't the "crowd favorite", did we? I rest my case.

Subject: RE: BS: Censored ice skating
From: Auxiris
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 10:39 AM

Yes, it's true that the judges are quite "biased", shall we say. . . however, what I'm referring to is this new thing that penalises couples and dancers for "suggestive" postures, figures, etc and apparently for costumes that are "too skimpy" as well. Who decides what's suggestive? This is insidious and serious, since it's "artistic" skating after all, right? Perhaps this sort of censorship will once again spill over into other artistic domains.

cheers,

Aux

Subject: RE: BS: Censored ice skating
From: mack/misophist
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 10:24 AM

It is unfortunate, and one of the greatest weaknesses of the Olympics, that the judges have almost let politics control their decisions. In "sports" where opinion and taste count for as much as skill, this will probably always be the case.

Subject: RE: BS: Censored ice skating
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 10:07 AM

the makring lower of skatersx who "haven't done their time" is something that prevails throughout the ice skating arena - not jus tthe olympics.

Subject: RE: BS: Censored ice skating
From: GUEST,JJ
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 04:15 AM

Allie,

My view is that any 'sport' where the result is based on the judges opinions, isn't actually a sport at all

JJ

Subject: RE: BS: Censored ice skating
From: allie kiwi
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 03:31 AM

I dont know about being censored, but the judging sure is unfair. Why on earth the Chinesse couple were marked so low just because they are ranked lower, when they skated so well on the night?

That lowers my opinion of the Olympics so much I couldn't give a damn about who gets what medals. They're virtually rigged.

I totally agree with the crowd who made their feelings known - booooooo!

Allie
in disgust

Subject: Censored ice skating
From: Auxiris
Date: 11 Feb 02 - 03:05 AM

What's this I hear about Olympic ice-skating competitions being censored?? One of the news items that greeted my ears this morning was that concerning threatened point sanctions for ice-skating couples and dancers that used "figures that are suggestive" in their presentations! Ça commence à déconner serieusement la-bas, aux Etats-Unis, dites donc! Any opinions?

cheers,

Aux