{"id":59044,"date":"2018-01-16T12:58:28","date_gmt":"2018-01-16T17:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=59044"},"modified":"2018-01-24T05:48:58","modified_gmt":"2018-01-24T10:48:58","slug":"us-tonya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/news-op-ed\/us-tonya\/","title":{"rendered":"Us, Tonya"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s an odd little tidbit: Nancy Kerrigan is one of my heroes.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is an unusual statement for a variety of reasons. First of all, I care precious little for sports in general. I don\u2019t watch the Olympics. If I were to rank all the sports that I don\u2019t care about, figure skating would probably be among those that interest me the very least. And yet, the story of Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding has always been too compelling for me to ignore.<\/span><\/p>\n

A recap for those of you who may have missed it by not being alive or old enough to remember it: Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding were both members of the U.S. Figure Skating team. Following a practice session on January 6, 1994, Kerrigan was walking through a corridor at the Cobo Arena in Detroit when she was clubbed on the knee with a police baton by an assailant later identified as Shane Stant. It subsequently came out that the attack had been planned by Tonya\u2019s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, and a co-conspirator named Shawn Eckardt, ostensibly to eliminate Kerrigan as a rival to Harding. While the injury forced Kerrigan to withdraw from the U.S. Championships, her teammates awarded her a coveted spot on the Olympic team. <\/span><\/p>\n

A mere seven weeks after the attack, Kerrigan took the silver in ladies\u2019 single skating at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. It\u2019s an inspiring tale of dedication and perseverance. But there\u2019s also an aspect of karma in that Harding came in eighth, and even that was not without controversy. Harding had been forced to abort her routine because of problems with her laces. She was permitted a \u201cdo over\u201d after tearfully pleading with the judges. The spectacle of this comeuppance gratified a public for whom Tonya Harding had become a national enemy.<\/span><\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, Harding has always denied involvement in planning the attack on Kerrigan, though she did plead guilty to hindering the investigation. She received three years probation, a $160,000 fine and 500 hours of community service. While the attack did not end Kerrigan\u2019s skating career, it did end Harding\u2019s; she was banned from competing in amateur and Olympic competitions for life. Her post-Kerrigan career trajectory has ranged from unremarkable (house painter, welder, sales clerk, landscaper, et al.) to capitalizing on her notoriety (Fox\u2019s <\/span>Celebrity Boxing<\/span><\/i>, TruTV\u2019s <\/span>World\u2019s Dumbest<\/span><\/i>\u2026, etc.).<\/span><\/p>\n

Which brings us to <\/span>I, Tonya<\/span><\/i>, a big-budget biopic telling Harding\u2019s side of the story. The movie stars Margot Robbie, who may actually be able to make Tonya sympathetic. (Robbie was lauded as Harley Quinn in the otherwise-reviled <\/span>Suicide Squad<\/span><\/i>.) Honestly, I was a little offended when I first saw that they were making a Tonya Harding movie. She\u2019s the bad guy in this story! I wouldn\u2019t want to see a movie sympathetic to, say, Pol Pot, so why would I want to see Tonya Harding lionized?<\/span><\/p>\n

As I did my research to write this piece, prepared to lambaste Harding and convict her all over again, my perspective changed. I learned more about Harding\u2019s background, from being brought up in a physically- and emotionally-abusive household before moving on to a physically- and emotionally-abusive marriage. This doesn\u2019t excuse Harding\u2019s actions, but it actually does make her a more sympathetic person than she is normally portrayed. <\/span><\/p>\n

I also learned how Harding\u2019s involvement in the attack has never been proven. Even if she was guilty of obstruction after the fact, that\u2019s certainly a lesser crime than the one that is popularly attributed to her. And as far as that crime goes, she has paid her debt to society and then some. The lifetime ban from skating was no doubt more of a punishment than the community service and the fine. And the humiliation she has endured as a despised and derided national joke? Maybe Tonya Harding has suffered enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

You may be surprised that I haven\u2019t mentioned <\/span>teshuvah<\/span><\/i> (repentance), which is such an important principle in Judaism. This is because I have no idea whether Harding has done <\/span>teshuvah<\/span><\/i>. Nancy Kerrigan finally revealed on <\/span>Nightline<\/span><\/i> \u2013 after much prodding from the host \u2013 that Harding never apologized to her. Kerrigan was then quick to add that it doesn\u2019t matter. The first step towards <\/span>teshuvah<\/span><\/i>, when one has wronged another person, is to apologize. If Harding hasn\u2019t, that\u2019s between her and Kerrigan. If Nancy doesn\u2019t care whether Tonya apologizes, it\u2019s not my place to feel otherwise. <\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not prepared to celebrate Tonya Harding; she\u2019s still the bad guy in the Tonya-vs.-Nancy story. (If she cures leukemia or brokers Middle East peace, I\u2019m willing to revisit the idea of Tonya as a hero.) I have, however, re-thought my previous position and I\u2019m willing to concede that, even if she\u2019s portrayed by Harley Quinn, Tonya isn\u2019t a supervillain. Yes, she made some bad decisions 24 years ago. She did the crime but she also did the time (metaphorically), plus she suffered lifelong consequences that may have exceeded what\u2019s commensurate with the act for which she was convicted. I, for one, am willing to let it go. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing to \u201clet it go\u201d when it comes to an abstract national enemy, it\u2019s quite another when it\u2019s someone who has wronged us personally, albeit probably in ways less spectacular than the way in which Tonya wronged Nancy. In such a case, do we have the strength to let it go? And if we feel we\u2019re owed an apology, do we have the ability, like Nancy Kerrigan to decide that it really doesn\u2019t matter? (Having been a proponent of \u201cTeam Kerrigan\u201d for more than two decades, I\u2019m prepared to follow Nancy\u2019s lead on this one.) <\/span><\/p>\n

I have no plans to see <\/span>I, Tonya<\/span><\/i> but just knowing it\u2019s out there has provided some interesting food for thought. Every one of us has wronged someone or been wronged by someone. Maybe this reevaluation of Tonya Harding can provide the impetus for some of us to finally let it go.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s an odd little tidbit: Nancy Kerrigan is one of my heroes. This is an unusual statement for a variety of reasons. First of all, I care precious little for sports in general. I don\u2019t watch the Olympics. If I were to rank all the sports that I don\u2019t care about, figure skating would probably<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":59045,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-op-ed"],"yoast_head":"\nUs, Tonya - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I have no plans to see I, Tonya but just knowing it\u2019s out there has provided some interesting food for thought. Every one of us has wronged someone or been wronged by someone. 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