Her heart belongs to Mommy

(Scott's new sham partner has changed her facebook name for the second time. She must want her privacy).

I considered "Cognitive Clusterfuck" as this post title but I didn't want to make it unsafe for work. I'm only doing this post as a way of continuing a conversation in the comments below about Tessa and lying.

There's the idea in some quarters that Tessa is the driving force behind prolonging the sham past Vancouver, and I think that's a sensible assumption. But some of the comments have been ultra scathing, painting Scott as a victim, and Tessa as a woman who uses what she picks up in U of Windsor's super demanding psychology program to manipulate the fans. Which - way to insult yourselves, people. Debbi Wilkes has already demonstrated that misapplied Psychology 101 doesn't exactly get the job done in public relations. Why would Tessa be more successful, even if that's what she was attempting.

One of the issues with how Tessa and Scott lie to the public is how unreservedly and often carelessly they mix lies with truth. The problem is that a lot of people take everything they say as the truth and it all becomes difficult to process. I get that. But the funny part is even people who know Scott and Tessa's real status can instinctively and mistakenly process what Scott and Tessa say as the truth, and it requires conscious effort to work through the crap.

For example, there are people who know that Scott Jessica was a sham, who nevertheless initially had a knee jerk reaction that as a pseudo girlfriend Jessica had some sort of entitlement to consideration from Scott  - such as - isn't it kind of cold for Scott to gift Jessica a Tiffany's key that is the same key Tessa has already owned for a year?

The answer is no. It's no ruder for "Scott" to give her a "gift" that Scott's wife already owns than it would be for George Clooney to bestow - on camera, in a movie - a prop picked out by the production team upon his movie co-star. It's all for show. Off camera, in neither case is the relationship real, or even much of a relationship or even friendship at all and the purpose of the sham isn't Scott but Scott and TESSA. Jessica was employed in the interests of both of them, not just the guy next to her in the frame while she smarmed and simpered it up for the camera lens. Same as Clooney's co-star works for the director, the producer and to give life to the script created by a screenwriter.

Still, in the case of something as home grown as the Scott/Jessica sham it's natural that it takes discipline to remember this, because we're wired to believe images even if we know they're staged.

The example most relevant to this post: I know for a fact that Scott and Tessa are together. I know they made that shit up about Kate moving to Michigan when Scott and Tessa did. They wanted us to believe Kate was there making sure her daughter's partner never had the opportunity get into her pants because Mommy never left Tessa's side unless a gay guy, an older French speaking serial divorcee, or alpine athletes who get tacky on twitter were coming to call. I mean that's the takeaway we were supposed to get.

For people who know that Scott and Tessa are together there shouldn't be any take away at all, but the reality is that Tessa and her mom are close, and Tessa's incessant mommy-izing can clutter the mind with images of one of those infamous child-woman movie star types from the golden age of film, who always lived with her stage mom, honeymooned with her mom, had mom on set, and mom ran everything, including her marriage(s).* You have to kind of give your head a shake to get rid of that impression. Otherwise even those who know about Tessa and Scott can be lured into thinking Tessa only listens to Mom, Mom has the last word, Tessa would always pick mom over Scott, and Mommy runs Tessa's marriage.

It's a hard image to reconcile with the Kate who spoke so compassionately during the Vancouver Olympics on two topics - the death of the luger and the death of Joanne Rochette's mom. But everything Tessa says works to create the idea that "there are three people in this marriage - it got a bit crowded" (© the late Princess of Wales). She doesn't make a move without mom, nor listen to anyone but mom.

Of course, when Tessa sells this, she intends for us to think Scott's not in the picture. She's not pitching this "I only listen to my mommy - what she says, goes." story towards people who know Tessa is with Scott. She is aiming it towards people who have been led to believe (by Scott and Tessa) that Tessa has dated the ex-boyfriend of her training partner, an older, divorced daddy and player, and an alpine skiier who makes Jessica Dube look charismatic. When she's not dating anybody. She's with Scott.

So people who know she's with Scott have to consciously shake off the image of Scott married to a woman who doesn't listen to his opinion about important stuff and only cares what mommy has to say, who brings mommy into every aspect of her life, and that Scott is living the boner shrinker scenario of all time.

I started thinking about this stuff again while participating in the comments section in the post below - how Tessa tends to broadcast her ability to tune out (the infamous seven people on her cell phone) and broadcast her reliance on Mom's judgment. It can lead you to think that well, Mommy tells Tessa the sham is good, discussion over as far as Tessa is concerned, Scott will have to suck it up because the subject is now closed.

When the reality is, Tessa lived for years independently from her Mom; Kate was in London after Tessa and Scott shifted training to Michigan, and  Tessa was with Scott. Tessa and Scott were not at odds prior to TEB 2009 - Tessa and Scott were preparing to marry.

But I started thinking again about how Tessa hides behind her mother when the "Tessa is the REAL liar!" stuff comes up, because I know that - apart from those who say that aloud - this is a subtext believed by quite a few people. I remembered that after Scott and Tessa won gold, Kate recalled for the press the time Tessa was facing her first shin surgery. Kate told the media that she felt her daughter (whom she described as eighteen and a half at the time) had been through enough, and Kate didn't want Tessa to get the surgery. Meaning, I suppose, she didn't want Tessa to get the surgery in October, get her screaming legs back on the ice by December so as to be ready for Canadians and then compete at Worlds. It was too much. Per Kate, Tessa said: "I have to if I want to go to the Olympics." And Tessa did.

What Tessa did that season, I think, is full metal woman commitment and guts, and bought her a huge amount of slack on what her needs might be - or what she decides they are, which might not be the same thing - while she and Scott continue to compete. Because of her and the pain she was willing to skate through in 2009, she and Scott were able to win gold in 2010.

Unfortunately, she and Scott have played so much public relations politics with her shins, have repurposed them to cover a pregnancy, to cover marriage plans, that what she went through and its impact on her and those around her can be lost. In order to scam the public, she and Scott both underplayed the excruciating reality of what she went through (they did this during the worst of it - 2008-2009) when it served their purposes, then swung around and exaggerated the reality of it when it served their purposes (the second time around - 2010-2011).  I think they insulted her initial experience by using her shins to lie and manipulate the second time around - oh the pain oh the angst - but they're willing to corrupt everything. It's nothing new.

When it comes to lying and prolonging a scam, I believe the shins (the original shins - not the second round where she skated shows all summer, had a surgical tune up at some point, carried a baby and continued to skate, and went to events wearing stilletos) play into the sham's long life. Tessa wants it. Who is to deny her after what she did for Scott, for everyone who'd invested years and years in the two of them, what she put herself through to keep their dream on track and achieve it?

It's a noble idea and I think it's something they tell themselves. The problem is that someone as committed to a hoax as she is and they are should stay consistently committed to the supposed "principles" behind it, not drop them when they want to do something else. Something else like poke a stick at fans who are getting bored of the whole thing, or try to get people worked up and agitated so you can tell yourself you still need to do what you're going to do anyway. It sort of falls apart when you look at that part. I wonder, though, if they've noticed.
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*Or clutter the mind with memories of Michelle Kwan and her father Danny.