Excellence #6: Be Hot Johnny Weir

He's the most soulful male skater I've ever seen--as Slate put it, "the Maria Callas of ice skating." Is it silly to still be brooding about his unfairly low Olympic figure skating scores? Yes, but what can I say--the corruption inherent in anonymous judging, the gaping disconnect between the crowd (two standing ovations) and the judges (sixth place?! Lower than three guys who fell during their routines?!) ...it sticks in my craw. How can he beat the bronze medalist on technical scores (newscast idiots, please stop saying he lost because his routine was less demanding) and yet somehow lose on style and artistry? Scoring Johnny Weir low on style is like scoring Dolly Parton low on cleavage.

But I have a theory. It's not just because he's flamboyant and obviously, though not officially, gay that the judges robbed him. It's because he's sexy--Christ, I mean, look at his exhibition skate--and the (mostly male) judges didn't like the electric tingle he sent through their normally dormant crotches. Plushenko they can handle; his mullet and his sometimes obnoxious personality neutralize whatever mojo he might otherwise possess. Lysacek, with his grace and restraint, pleases their eyes--he's a geometric equation gliding across the ice (and he's exactly as boring as that sounds)--without sending the slightest intoxicating shimmer through their nads.

But Johnny Weir? He's out there in a black corset, ornamenting his brilliant skating with hip-flicks and a sultry gaze, his neck arched in ecstasy--and for them it's just too much. The judges, disturbed, cross their legs, uncross them, and cross them again. They can't concentrate. And they punish him, to prove they're not charmed by him. I'm not gay, they say. If I were gay, I'd give him the bronze, or the silver, or--but no, I'm not. I'm not.
So Johnny skates and I think, my god, the world would be a better place if everyone had this much confidence and pleasure in their bodies. But the judges rob him and slink back into obscurity with their anxious, fragile sense of manhood still (just barely) intact. Rhetorical question: who's more comfortable in their own masculinity, them or Johnny Weir?

For your viewing pleasure:
His Olympic short program **Edited to add: Here it is on Russian TV, since NBC in their infinite stupidity are making it hard to watch**
His Olympic free skate