Good Lordy, Miss Johnny...
Look at that delicious Sparkle Prince. Just gaze on his lithe, expertly muscled form. Bask in the sheer delight the impish, fabulous figure skater (well...figure skater on sabbatical) brings. He's like a light-box in the depths of a Scandinavian winter, a beacon of felicity in the oft barren and boring (cf: Lysacek, Evan) world of men's figure skating (and the world in general).
As gals who've been avid fans of men's figure skating since the days of Boitano (ie: the decade of our maturation and edumacation: The Glorious Nineties), we're beyond happy to see the new - more scintillating - direction the sport is taking these days, led by the Pied Piper of Camp, Pomp, and Fur himself: Johnny Weir.
As gals who've been avid fans of men's figure skating since the days of Boitano (ie: the decade of our maturation and edumacation: The Glorious Nineties), we're beyond happy to see the new - more scintillating - direction the sport is taking these days, led by the Pied Piper of Camp, Pomp, and Fur himself: Johnny Weir.
It's not a sport for straight guys who aren't confident in their own masculinity, to say the least. That's part of why we love it. It's a little refuge from hard and fast gender norms, a slice of sports where this:
Can happily exist right alongside this:
And the two get along just fine. In fact, they inspire each other in pretty awesome ways.
And the two get along just fine. In fact, they inspire each other in pretty awesome ways.
Naturally, Johnny - known Russophile - has a little special place in or hearts because one of us is half-Russian and hearing him speak the mothertongue so damn fluently (we're jealous of his quick language-learning skills) sends little shivers down our backs. Oh, wait, he also speaks French? HEL-LO SAVVY LATTER-DAY RENAISSANCE MAN. What are you? A walking Rosetta Stone DVD? Be still our beating HEARTS. Another thinking gal's pinup (yes, yes, yes...we know he'd probably not be interested in us seeing as we lack a certain appendage...but on peut rêver, non Johnny?)
Mad adulation aside, seeing someone so unabashedly unique - so balls to the walls confident in their own skin - makes us happy people. Just as we say bravo to Lady Gaga for encouraging the Little Monsters of the world to be themselves, we say bravo to Johnny Weir for being all of this and not holding back an inch:
So without further ado...we take one intelligent, witty, consummate athlete with a flair for costume and theatricality and pit him against one awful flag in this week's TID. How will Johnny handle it? Will he tear it down? How will he tear it down? What will he do with the flag once he's gotten it down?
Let's find out:
Cailey: So Johnny's coming back from an ass-kicking practice with Galina, his insane Russian coach.
Liz: Soviet workout...
Cailey: ZOMG we should market that and sell DVDs! With a crazy fitness instructor screaming "IN SOVIET RUSSIA, ABS CRUNCH YOU!"
Liz: HAHAHA....yes!
Cailey: Johnny can guest star.
Liz: So, homeward bound he comes...
Cailey: It's the depths of winter in fair New Jersey where he lives...
Liz: And he's decked head to toe in lush fur.
Cailey: He exits his chauffeur-driven black SUV, stepping with confidence onto the ice that is his lifeblood...
Liz: Our Ice Princess pulls the Dior sunglasses off his pouting face...
Cailey: And GASPS. He stops in his tracks, frozen like the ground beneath his Louboutin booties.
Liz: WHY IS THERE A NAZI FLAG ON HIS HOUSE?
Cailey: What hateful fringe group denying their own sexual tendencies has targeted him? Or could it be PETA? Johnny has been known to ruffle more than a few feathers...
Liz: He can handle it. He can take anyone on. Haters to the left!
Cailey: He's momentarily speechless, but is driven to action almost immediately.
Liz: He purses his tastefully glossed lips, shifts his weight from one leg to another and gives that flag his best "bitch, please" stare.
Cailey: If the flag were cognizant, it would wither.
Liz: But alas, for it is an inanimate object that knows not how vile it truly is.
Cailey: Johnny takes powerful strides towards the flag, hips swinging.
Liz: He looks up at it. It's pretty high up on the house. He won't be able to reach it, even in his tasteful man heels.
Cailey: What's he going to do?
Liz: He grabs handfuls of his fur hat, bemoaning: "What am I going to doooo?"
Cailey: "Don't worry, sugar monster, I'm here to help you" drawls a cultured, smoky voice...
Liz: Gaaaaah! It's Lady Gaga! To the rescue!
Cailey: "Gaga!" Johnny exclaims joyfully. As kindred glittering spirits in a too-frequently beige world, their communication exists on a level not understood by common man.
Liz: How does Gaga know to leap into Johnny's arms? How does Johnny know to gracefully lift her up - as if they are performing a pas de deux - so that she may triumphantly rip down the flag?
Cailey: As mere mortals, we shall never know.
Liz: What we do know, though, is that they have TORN IT DOWN.
Cailey: "Well, honey muffin, you know what we gotta do," Gaga says, looking meaningfully at Johnny.
Liz: Oh Johnny knows! Good thing he has his sewing machine and rhinestone collection close at hand.
Cailey: They must take this symbol of hate and turn it into something...inoffensive.
Liz: As a remarkably intelligent person, Johnny knows that this image hasn't always been evil. That for thousands of years it was a sacred symbol in various Eastern religions until it was corrupted by the Nazis. He isn't trying to reclaim it, in any way, he just wants to take it from grotesque to glitteriffic!
Cailey: Gaga and he cut the flag to shreds and painstakingly reconstruct this once vile emblem into a thing...dare I say?...of beauty? Definitely no swastika now...the flag now looks almost...like...like a priceless Mondrian.
Liz: 'Tis a resplendent skating costume! Something that could come only from the hands and minds of Johnny and Gaga (our generation's Sonny and Cher? Sartre and deBeauvoir?)
Cailey: Their triumphs - moral and artistic - are clear.
Liz: But first, he has to show his new skating duds to Galina for approval.
Cailey: What will she say?!
Liz: Johnny, clad in his gloriously reclaimed ensemble, heads over to the Ice Vault in Wayne, NJ to display his new creation to Galina.
Cailey: She takes a break from yelling at a young, quivering ice skater to inspect the costume.
Liz: She is understandably wary at first - the Russians are still not exactly ready to forgive Operation Barbarossa and other offenses - but she ultimately understands Johnny's transformative vision.
Cailey: "I like!" she proclaims.
Liz: And with that final seal of approval, Johnny is ready to go work on his newest, hottttest skating routine...
Cailey: Set to "Alejandro," of course!
Liz: But he won't perform it in competition anytime soon...
Cailey: He's busy trying to become a notable designer...working hard on the Johnny Weir Collection.
Liz: At least until he commences his career as a Russky pop star, right?
Cailey: Indeed. Here's a freakin' amazing teaser of what's to come when Johnny takes the Slavic pop scene by storm...
Liz: Are you sure it's him in the video?
Cailey: Of course!
Liz: It doesn't really look like him...I mean it doesn't even look him without makeup...
Cailey: Yes it does!
Liz: OK...anyone want to pitch in with a tie-breaker since we're not in consensus on this one? Got some insider knowledge you care to share? In any case, enjoy a Russian song that may or may not be sung by Our Man in Yaroslavl, Omsk, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Magadan...
Cailey: We get it...he's ochin Russian.
Liz: Enjoy the shameless pop:
Liz: But he won't perform it in competition anytime soon...
Cailey: He's busy trying to become a notable designer...working hard on the Johnny Weir Collection.
Liz: At least until he commences his career as a Russky pop star, right?
Cailey: Indeed. Here's a freakin' amazing teaser of what's to come when Johnny takes the Slavic pop scene by storm...
Liz: Are you sure it's him in the video?
Cailey: Of course!
Liz: It doesn't really look like him...I mean it doesn't even look him without makeup...
Cailey: Yes it does!
Liz: OK...anyone want to pitch in with a tie-breaker since we're not in consensus on this one? Got some insider knowledge you care to share? In any case, enjoy a Russian song that may or may not be sung by Our Man in Yaroslavl, Omsk, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Magadan...
Cailey: We get it...he's ochin Russian.
Liz: Enjoy the shameless pop:
Cailey: Da.
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