Tonya Harding - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

  • The book Women on Ice: Feminist Essays on the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan Spectacle (ISBN 0-415-91150-8), published in 1995, included a number of essays analyzing her public image in the context of the sport of figure skating.
  • In an episode of the television program Seinfeld called "The Understudy", when the titular character takes the stage, she has a problem with the laces on her boot and, in an act reminiscent of Harding's bootlace incident, tearfully asks that she be allowed to start over.
  • Spunk: The Tonya Harding Story was a satirical short which aired on Comedy Central during the 1994 Olympic Games.
  • Elizabeth Searle's novella, Celebrities In Disgrace, centers on the Harding-Kerrigan affair. Searle later collaborated with composer Abigail Al-Doory to create Tonya and Nancy: The Opera, a chamber opera produced in May 2006 by Tufts University. Searle later created Tonya & Nancy: The Rock Opera.
  • She was the subject of "Tonya's Twirls", a song by Loudon Wainwright III, a US folk musician. The song was recorded and issued on Social Studies (1999), with a live recording also issued on So Damn Happy (2003).
  • The "Weird Al" Yankovic song "Headline News" contains lyrics about Harding and her role in the attack on Kerrigan.
  • In addition, she and her role in the Kerrigan attack have been widely referenced in sitcom episodes, music videos, and even a primary campaign speech by Barack Obama.

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