aftershocks
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Well, Big Spender is quite common among young US skaters as well, so I don't think that's limited to the Russians. Most of the kids/coaches pick it for the melody and not the words anyway.
Right, uh huh.



There's nothing wrong with Eteri's vision or her successful results eh, despite the fact some of her methods and practices may go too far. Aside from Eteri's underlying scorched-earth 'all or nothing, my way or the highway approach,' there is obviously something rotten at the core of figure skating's acceptance of exploiting and over-rewarding young female teenagers for overly mature program themes. Still, the exploitation and taking advantage of young people in figure skating is nothing new. It happens all the time in our culture, not just in figure skating. Eteri didn't invent the situation, she's only taking advantage of everything at her disposal to advance her products and to succeed in the sport, beyond her wildest dreams. Probably she doesn't see anything wrong with her methods since she's reaping results and rewards. She likely has never stopped to analyze the exploitative aspects of her methodology that closely.
While I took some enjoyment from watching Alina's exhibition by focusing on the theme and the modern dancerly aspects of her performance, it did not escape my notice that the program is rather mature and does contain sexual overtones. Those who don't see the sexualized aspects of the program are probably immune to cultural bombardment of overly sexualized imagery involving females of all ages. There's nothing wrong with females using their feminine wiles to charm and to entertain an audience (although it should be expected that many people might take issue with the subject's youth in connection with the costume and some of the choreographic moves). In our patriarchal culture there are problematic issues involving misogyny and sexual exploitation of minors that complicate female empowerment. So on the one hand, perhaps Alina is old enough to perform in this way and to exert her female power, without it necessarily having to be seen as a sexualized display. But the culture we live in can and does subvert and exploit such feminized performance art. And in that sense, the performance can be seen as coming close to crossing the line, particularly due to Alina's youthful innocence combined with the costuming and mature themes.
Young teenage females are preyed upon and exploited to an egregious degree in our culture, especially via underground pornography and mercenary kidnapping. As a result, there is a great deal of sensitivity surrounding very young females over-portraying mature themes, or over-displaying aspects of their sexuality when they are still so young and innocent. But sure, seeing such imagery of young teenagers performing in mature ways, as models or dancers or actors or figure skaters, is rather commonplace these days. The intention to titillate the audience with Alina's performance may not have been uppermost in Eteri's mind when she choreographed the program. However, I don't think there's any doubt that Eteri intentionally tries to camouflage the immaturity of her young charges, by any means necessary. We should probably separate the sexual exploitation aspect of the problem (which was not created by Eteri) from issues involving the alledged harshness of her teaching methods. Both conundrums and how they intertwine and impact the sport of figure skating are worthy of discussion, IMO.
As I said earlier: the sport of figure skating needs to check itself and the Lolita-style overtones of it's fixation with rushing young female teenagers into adult roles and premature over-expectations. Clearly, there's an overlap with global cultural acceptance of female exploitation, involving females of all ages.
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