Remember when Jeremy Abbott made that unfortunate comment on LGBT rights in Russia, the US media took him to task. When Gracie Gold made a joke that was considered racist, she had to publicly apologize.
When Meryl and Charlie said this regarding the LGBT issues in Russia:
“I don’t think we can speak because we haven’t really talked about between the two of us very much,’’ White said.“I don’t think the Olympics is really the right place for an athlete to make a political statement,” Davis said.Asked if this was not a political issue but a human rights issue, White said, “Unfortunately, it’s semantics. To Russia, it is a political statement. And they are the host country. I think that is probably all we will say on the subject.”
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| LGBT getting beat up and killed is just Russia making a political statement, it's semantics! |
And here I thought we just established they are so close to one another off the ice and yet they don't talk about it at all when it's on every news channel during the fall? Hold up. Aren't they supposed to be scholar athletes??? Don't think make a point of that in their PR? A human rights issue in a foreign country that's hosting the Olympics, the home country of their coaches, is not something they'd want to discuss? She's an anthropology major, and political science major Charlie wasn't interested either?
link: classroom champions
It was pretty amazing that there was no follow up by any media outlet about their comments...
Maybe because they have this goody two shoes image their PR team worked so hard (heh) to uphold, people gave them a pass? Yet in the past when other skaters talk trash or questioned the judges, they get chastised by the media and discussed and dissected by the internet. However when it's from Meryl and Charlie no one seems to care. Or as mentioned above, any discussions against them are quickly being labeled as vile demon talk by their fans.
Yet petulant tantrums are not what Davis and White want to be known for, even if they have every right to feel aggrieved because instead of chasing a hat-trick of world titles in London, Ontario next week, they will be aiming for a second.
"I don't know we could have pulled off Plushenko's attitude," Davis told Reuters in a telephone interview before dissolving into laughter. "It seems to work for him."
source reuters
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| We don't throw tantrums like Plushenko would |
Charlie also says this:
His 26-year-old partner added: "A great number of people came up to us and complimented us on our skate at the worlds and told us they thought that we deserved to win.That was so passive aggressive... like *we* would never wuzrob ourselves, but we just feel compelled to point out that all these *other people* told us we were robbed.
Very sportsmanlike.
& lets not forget their insulting comments on russia's dominance in ice dance. such a sharp contrast to tessa's "There was a lot of talk about this being 'enemy territory,'" Virtue said. "We don't feel that in the least. We're so connected to Russia, probably in part because of Marina's influence on our career."
ReplyDeleteI was really disappointed in their comments, and given their academic backgrounds, I don't think either of them should be as easily excused as someone who isn't familiar with social issues. These two are well-trained in PR and this was an issue athletes ought to have known would come up. They could easily have declined to comment, but they *chose* to say something, and that fact was overlooked by many people coming to their defence on FSU. Their comments were very irresponsible and somewhat offensive to those directly affected by this issue. It is easy for Meryl or Charlie to say these things given their hetrosexual privilege. As someone in the "Sochi will Test Gay Rights" thread pointed out, LGBTQ athletes have no choice but to confront the issue on some level--it is not merely a matter of semantics to them, and some LGBTQ athletes might feel moved to make a political statement at the Olympics. Meryl and Charlie should have just spoken for themselves but that is not what they did.
ReplyDeleteThey have an entitled air about them, as though the public is hanging on every precious little tidbit that comes out of their mouth. There are no repercussions to anything they say, nor to their skating errors.
ReplyDeleteThey come from privileged backgrounds and they are being treated like the privileged royalty of ice dance.
So why should they behave any differently?