That's it. Them. There's nobody else.
These are the two people who begged us to associate Tessa with the character of Carmen. Scott even belittled those who were slow to get on board.
These are the two people who went to the media so journalists like Ryan Pyette would produce pieces titled Syrupy Sweet Image is Gone.*
Carmen was ready for its debut and Team Virtue Moir proactively instructed the media and the fans that Tessa embodied this character.
Of course they did. They couldn't just let her skate it and have everyone see that she embodied the character. And actually, everybody saw Tessa's performance was spectacular, but that wasn't enough. They needed to be informed that they had doubted Tessa, and then be corrected.
So now the season is many months old and Tessa Virtue hits the media to complain that people associate her with this character and it hurts.*
They just make shit up. They don't hesitate. If it's convenient to make it up, they do it and sell it.
So let's review: At season's start, they told us the ways we could associate Tessa with Carmen, because they were afraid we wouldn't. Or, more likely, it served their purposes to pretend we wouldn't.
And now they're coming around bitching that we associate Tessa with Carmen, which nobody does. We associate Tessa with powerful ice dancing as both performer and technician and we associate Tessa with delivering a spectacular Carmen on the ice.
That doesn't suit them. That's not the role they've assigned us, and it's all about that for them.
This was a set up, start to finish. It doesn't matter that the fans aren't doing and haven't done what Scott and Tessa claim. Fans don't have a voice. Scott and Tessa can run any kind of line in the media and it goes unchallenged.
It's ironic how often they accuse fans of not understanding the difference between performance and real life, isn't it, when Scott and Tessa themselves lack all respect for the difference between reality and deceit? And in fact, they are constantly looking for ways to get fans to believe that fans are mixed up about reality and fantasy, because that way fans are more likely to believe the falsehoods Scott and Tessa peddle every day. Their media strategy is appropriated from Gaslight.
It's one thing to lie about your own circumstances. It's another level of mendacity to lie to people about themselves.
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*A real reporter would have asked Tessa exactly which of Carmen's attributes some people are confusing with Tessa's. Do they think Tessa works in a cigar factory and spends her smoke breaks rolling cigars on her bare thigh? Is Tessa offended that people might confuse her with a woman who is unapologetically honest, upfront, fearless and powerful?
Words from Denyce Graves, who's sung the role often: "I'm a great admirer of this woman," Graves says. "I have drawn a lot of strength from who she is. I wish I could be more like her. She doesn't care. She really lives honestly, and that's attractive, I think."
Well, apparently not to Tessa.
Don't worry Tessa, people would never accuse you of that.
P.S. Some of the fans online who have read this article are asking, in all sincerity, where it is that Tessa has been accused of being like Carmen. They believe Tessa. They don't think she'd say something like that if it wasn't true.
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*I don't think it's escaped anyone that the title Syrupy Sweet Image is belittling. Are Tessa and Scott mocking the Mahler program, the UoC program, the other programs they've done? Are they saying it was just sugary glop, beneath their abilities as artists, but they were compelled to do those programs in order to pander to their simple-minded fans? What does Scott mean when he says it would be easy to just "look at each other and sigh"?
Is he trashing his former programs, claiming they were an act put on per fan demand?
Why is it so natural to them to be insulting?
