#interesting view

My guess is that Tessa and Scott chose ’ Good Kisser ’ exactly because of the connotations. They are at a point in their career where they have to market themselves properly in order to draw in the crowds and get invited to shows. And they know very well, that their main selling point is their chemistry. 

With Funny Face they tried to get away from the romantic image they created with Mahler but that didn’t really work out. Nowadays the fans are a lot more tolerant towards Funny Face than they used to be when it originally debuted. Back then the online fandom decried the downfall of VM, that they lost what made them special and speculated that they might have lost their motivation. Alas most ice dance fans ( and commentators - sadly ) only care about the superficial elements of ice dance and don’t bother much with the aspects that are actually important. It didn’t matter that Funny Face was brilliantly choreographed, that it showed VM’s superior skating skills, their rage and musicality. Everything that mattered back the was the lack of romance. 

I think this disappointed Tessa a lot. Funny Face was her baby and theitr attempt to do something new. When PJ Kwong called FF a romantic program Tessa almost looked offended.

And even Tarasova couldn’t look past the choice of music and said DW should have been world champions instead, completely ignoring the many mistakes DW made in their free dance.

Marina Zoueva said in an interview that the judges approached them and demanded a more traditional free dance that everybody understands. And that’s why they picked Carmen because, as Marina said, what’s more traditional than Carmen ? 

The entire free dance always looked like a counter reaction to me. It was like they were saying, : ” You want chemistry ? We give you over the top chemistry ! “ 

Unfortunately it was too much for the judges and they never scored Carmen the way they should have ( and even some fans back then felt uncomfortable with Carmen, Tessa even went so far to say that she’s hurt by the reactions she got because apparently people said that Tessa is as aggressive and basically as slutty as Carmen. Even Tracy Wilson, who loved Carmen, acknowledged that Carmen isn’t everybody’s favorite and that not everybody likes the lifts ).

After the disappointing 2012/2013 season they went back to the traditional style everybody demanded from them but that wasn”t good enough either and Seasons was treated like a poor man’s Mahler, until the Olympics at least, that’s when everybody changed their mind and loved it. But it was too late then and now we”re stuck with a terrible dance team being hailed as Olympic champions.

Sorry for this long rambling, I completely lost my point >.< It’s just that I’ve been their fan for so long and in my head everything that has happened in the past lead to this point.

VM had terrible PR and basically did everything wrong in the past. In their book they talk about how they were told to hold hands and be seen together by the judges to give the appearance of unity and connection, that judges feel it’s inlmportant to show it off ice as well. 

Despite knowing this VM chose to present themselves as a train wreck on their show and instead of using social media to present themselves as a team Scott preferred to parade around his girlfriends. All while Charlie and Meryl, who previously had admitted to not being very close, started to present themselves as bffs. They knew how to play the media game a lot better than VM did.

I think in the last months VM have come to terms with all of it and changed their media presence a bit. Scott’s girlfriend stays more in the backround in comparison to Jessica and Cassandra, VM don’t pretend to be sick of each other and they skate programs that will get the fans excited. 

They seem to have realized that this is the best way to secure their future as show skaters and media personalities. 

I’m not saying they only chose ’ Good Kisser ’ to make money, they obviously like skating with each other, but marketing and promotion plays a big part in their profession and they certainly consider this when picking songs.

And I don’t think they’ll have problems to simulate giving head on ice, they’ve already done it in Carmen and Stay xD

Sorry for this long post, I wouldn’t blame you if you stopped reading halfway through ^.^

Well as someone who has become a fan so much later in their careers I definitely appreciate your insight as a long time fan.

I’ve read as much as I can about their programs and why they chose them. I think that it’s hard to base anything that’s said about Tessa and Scott’s feelings during there programs as fact because in actuality no one really knows how they felt unless they expressed it. 

However I do remember reading stuff about FF and I believe you are correct there were certain fans who were not a fan of the program. I'll admit it's not a favourite of mine but I do love that its something Tessa wanted to do - I love the personal story about it. Similarly to Carmen - I think the general consensus was that it was a ground breaking program, with amazing daring lifts and very different then the tradition of Carmen and while people outside of the judging could appreciate it, it's pretty common knowledge that the judges like tradition. And T&S like to push that boundary of Tradition, where as D/W play the traditional card right to the bank and they're rewarded for it, heavily.

I don’t agree that VM ‘chose to present themselves as train wrecks’ during their show. It’s not actually in their hands what the final cut looks like, that’s pretty obvious. Crews arrived and shot them for a few months out of the year and then everything after that was out of their hands. The producers at W purposely shot the narrative for the show in a way that looks like Tessa is the one pinning over Scott, while Scott’s out having the time of his life with his girlfriend. The first indication of this came in the first episode of the series when the camera is watching a girl with dark black hair make her way to Scott’s house - we’re supposed to believe it’s Tessa (unless you already knew he was dating Cassandra then you’ve been able to see what was going on) and it turns out to be SURPRISE Scott’s got a girlfriend who isn’t Tessa but has long black hair and is petite like Tess is.

In this regard - none of this is VM”s fault or of bad PR, it’s W network simultaneously trying to proving that Tessa and Scott are in love with each other but can’t be together. It’s not surprising and they would’ve been fools to not use that narrative seeing as TS are asked, more then any other question, if they’re dating. Even despite a few people in this fandom who believe that T&S ‘show boat’ their relationships - no where on either of their social media accounts would a random person be able to deduce that they are each dating other people.

What should’ve happened in this scenario is that Tessa and Scott should’ve fought for more creative control over the show seeing as they are the ‘stars’ of it and could’ve easily lobbied for it. Does that mean they did it for the money? That’s up to your personal perception of who you think VM are. I don’t believe they did - I think they were approached because they are the ONLY and the YOUNGEST Canadian Ice Dancers to win Gold on home soil, it’s an obvious win for W, a Canadian network and they were actively and publicly fighting to bring home another Gold.

Similar to Scott’s girlfriend’s - they’ve all been very very different girls. Kaitlyn knows what it means to be a Canadian Olympian in the public eye, Cassandra obviously does not. For certain people Cassandra’s intentions were always suspect. I personally have no opinion on her, when I discovered VM, Scott and Cassandra were already on the outs and she only appears, briefly, in the show.