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oyceterThis is one of the major academic works on culture and figure skating in the US (at least, that I know of), and probably one of the first published on the subject. As such, Kestnbaum includes an introduction to the history of figure skating, and although she is not a competitive figure skater, she's been a fan of the sport and can skate a bit herself.
I read this back in March of 2010, inspired by the Vancouver Olympics, so insert the usual caveats here about my memory.
I have been watching competitive figure skating since around 2005, so basically everything I've seen and everything Kestnbaum writes about do not overlap at all, from the way the scoring system changed around 2004 to the top teams and athletes. That said, I watch recreationally, so it was nice to have a brief history of the sport—I did not even know why it was called "figure" skating!—along with a write up of all the different jumps, difficulty levels, what judges look for, and etc.
Kestnbaum then moves on to a cultural critique and reading of figure skating, from complaints of how young the female skaters in particular are to feminist critiques, readings of masculinity in the sport, and compulsive heterosexuality. The final chapter is about fannishness.
Kestnbaum acknowledges the problems of increasingly younger girls and women skating, particularly after the new age rules post-Tara-Lipinski, though she also notes that the shorter, thinner, and less curvy bodies of adolescent figure skaters are more suited toward jumping than that of older women. I don't know enough about skating to say anything about this, but Kestnbaum doesn't go far enough for me; the jumps and many of the ways the sport is judged comes from a time when men were the main athletes, and while I don't know enough to say that this influences all the rules, I also think about gatekeepers and who gets to set the standards. I had a similar problem with her look at masculinity in the sport and compulsive heterosexuality in pairs and ice dance; I agree with a lot of her critique, but I frequently felt she didn't go far enough. While she does read an ambiguous sexuality of many of the male figure skaters and notes the female gaze, my vague memories right now feel like she elided a lot of LGBTQ issues.
She also talks around issues of nationality, race, and ethnicity, and I really wish she had a chapter on that, particularly after Domnina and Shabalin's appropriation of Aboriginal Australian culture. There's also the fact that figure skating is a winter sport, and neatly excludes many Central American, South American, South East Asian, and African nations; I don't think it's a coincidence that figure skating is predominantly White and East Asian. Although there have been more non-East-Asian POC in figure skating from assorted European and North American countries, the number is still tiny. I have similar problems with the way the world competitions are framed as nations battling against each other, how skaters' routines frequently culturally appropriate, the predominance of European classical music, and the usual way different nations' comparative economic positions influence how well their skaters do.
It's not a bad book, and about up to par with most of the cultural critiques centered around sex and gender that I've read (mainly in the realm of manga), but I wanted much more. Still, I found it a useful read as a jumping-off point, and it probably serves best as an introduction.
I read this back in March of 2010, inspired by the Vancouver Olympics, so insert the usual caveats here about my memory.
I have been watching competitive figure skating since around 2005, so basically everything I've seen and everything Kestnbaum writes about do not overlap at all, from the way the scoring system changed around 2004 to the top teams and athletes. That said, I watch recreationally, so it was nice to have a brief history of the sport—I did not even know why it was called "figure" skating!—along with a write up of all the different jumps, difficulty levels, what judges look for, and etc.
Kestnbaum then moves on to a cultural critique and reading of figure skating, from complaints of how young the female skaters in particular are to feminist critiques, readings of masculinity in the sport, and compulsive heterosexuality. The final chapter is about fannishness.
Kestnbaum acknowledges the problems of increasingly younger girls and women skating, particularly after the new age rules post-Tara-Lipinski, though she also notes that the shorter, thinner, and less curvy bodies of adolescent figure skaters are more suited toward jumping than that of older women. I don't know enough about skating to say anything about this, but Kestnbaum doesn't go far enough for me; the jumps and many of the ways the sport is judged comes from a time when men were the main athletes, and while I don't know enough to say that this influences all the rules, I also think about gatekeepers and who gets to set the standards. I had a similar problem with her look at masculinity in the sport and compulsive heterosexuality in pairs and ice dance; I agree with a lot of her critique, but I frequently felt she didn't go far enough. While she does read an ambiguous sexuality of many of the male figure skaters and notes the female gaze, my vague memories right now feel like she elided a lot of LGBTQ issues.
She also talks around issues of nationality, race, and ethnicity, and I really wish she had a chapter on that, particularly after Domnina and Shabalin's appropriation of Aboriginal Australian culture. There's also the fact that figure skating is a winter sport, and neatly excludes many Central American, South American, South East Asian, and African nations; I don't think it's a coincidence that figure skating is predominantly White and East Asian. Although there have been more non-East-Asian POC in figure skating from assorted European and North American countries, the number is still tiny. I have similar problems with the way the world competitions are framed as nations battling against each other, how skaters' routines frequently culturally appropriate, the predominance of European classical music, and the usual way different nations' comparative economic positions influence how well their skaters do.
It's not a bad book, and about up to par with most of the cultural critiques centered around sex and gender that I've read (mainly in the realm of manga), but I wanted much more. Still, I found it a useful read as a jumping-off point, and it probably serves best as an introduction.
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Sun, Feb. 6th, 2011 02:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Mon, Feb. 7th, 2011 05:16 am (UTC)