«I'm sorry, but you are not the image we want to give to our country».
Statements like this can end the life of any athlete, especially if they know they are a real talent for their sport.
They are ideas to be strongly condemned nowadays and for which a real media war would break out, but unfortunately the sports career of Tonya Harding went through the wrong era.
Tonya is the protagonist of the film of the same name, “I, Tonya” in the original language, released at the cinema in 2017. It is a “biopic”: a film genre based on the reconstruction of biography of a real life character, in this case the US figure skater.
This is not, however, a classic film focused on a single person. It is obvious that both the (almost) two hours of film revolve around her life, however they serve as a side dish to understand the character and try to understand the fact for which, instead, she is really known globally: the accident at the her rival Nancy Kerriganwhich took place on January 6, 1994.
Tonya is played by the beautiful Margot Robbie, which excellently interprets all the pain and emotions that the woman has experienced and that she experiences with, at times, a pinch of irony. She learned the choreographies studied for her by Sarah Kawahara, Nancy Kerrigan's former choreographer, with the help of CGI for the triple axel. In fact, Tonya Harding is also and above all famous for being the second woman ever to perform the triple axel, a jump making the body rotate three and a half times in the air, pointing the blade forward on the left outer edge. It is an exercise that requires a lot of physical strength, which is why it was thought to be purely masculine.
The other two key figures in this “fairy tale” are her strict mother, LaVona (Allison Janney, Best Supporting Actress), and her abusive boyfriend, Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan). Both played a vital role in the girl's life, but always had negative attitudes towards her. Exhausting workouts since I was a child, not even letting her go to the bathroom, were the order of the day for LaVona. Jeff, for her part, beat and threatened her as a matter of course.
Whether or not Nancy's accident was really Tonya's doing or not we'll probably never know, but certainly the story of her existence didn't help her to find the right balance even off the track.
Some of the songs on the soundtrack were played by the skater herself. Furthermore, among the cinematographic reconstructions, the director Craig gillespie has inserted real interviews and some images of the marriage between the two young people. Furthermore, Robbie's bodysuits are identical to those that the girl sewed for herself and then used in competitions to try to save a semblance of an image. In the final scene, we see the real footage of the triple axel execution. In short, attention to detail is obsessive and much appreciated by the spectator, since we still want to pay homage to a great champion.
Il don't trust anyone in the world for Tonya it was probably born thanks to her mother, however it was certainly accentuated by her not at all easy sports career.
For the time, it was a real one black sheep of figure skating. The athletes were asked to be ice princesses: slim, slender and with an angelic face, as well as with a model family behind them that supported them not only emotionally, but also economically. All characteristics that our protagonist lacked. Tonya did not fit the expectations so coveted by the judges since he was much more physically fit compared to the others and his existence off the track was anything but rosy. She could pull off some wonderful skating tricks, but she was never rewarded with the actual score such an exercise deserved. This, of course, was going to add fuel to the already extremely strong character that she had.
And here, as if fate hadn't already been mocking enough with her, in all the chaos of life also fits Nancy's shattered knee.
According to Jeff (movie quote): «Everyone remembers the story of the accident differently". As is often the case with this kind of event, the situation was gradually magnified, having to be passed from mouth to mouth, and by the end some could almost swear that she was practically shot to death.
Needless to say, none of Tonya's explanations were heard: her own transformation into the monster of America it was now final.
Today we covered the other side of the sports medal. Today's situation is definitely going to improve, but discrimination such will never be eradicated entirely. They simply hide elsewhere under different forms, taking the form of racism or homophobia. The story of Tonya Harding it should not be underestimated or forgotten, but it should be used as an example of everything that our world should not be.
Article Tonya From Sports born.
