Oscar-winning 'I, Tonya' is the story of every abused kid out there

With Margot Robbie’s I, Tonya, the 90th edition of the Academy Awards put on the spot another of those American stories that only a few people outside the US care about. Every time that happens, before performing any grumpy judgement I make an effort to understand what's the movie's potential to become a relevant piece to us, the rest of the world. And I believe Tonya Harding’s story is amongst the most universally relatable ones.

Tonya Harding represents something that I’ve seen loads of people try to explain in a variety of debates: the simple notion that a troubled person might be the product of a toxic environment. I thank the Academy Awards for enabling that. (And, albeit Frances McDormand’s work in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was remarkable, I had hoped that Margot Robbie would get it at The Oscars.)

At some point in the movie’s first act, Harding’s mother, LaVona Golden (played by Oscar-winner Allison Janney), is having breakfast with her daughter when she reveals that Harding’s bruises caused by her boyfriend are noticeable. But instead of making any constructive remarks, what Golden does is to bark,

“You’re a dumb piece of sh*t who thinks she deserves to get hit.”

Harding, then, says something the audience has been thinking since the beginning of the movie, “How’d I get that idea?” Exactly! It’s crystal clear to us that LaVona Golden is the one to be blamed, but do you think she would acknowledge that? Well, her comeback is,

“Maybe he should hit you. Yeah. Maybe you’ll learn to keep your big mouth shut.”

There’s a strong parallel between the events presented in I, Tonya and the stories of every vulnerable, abused child that eventually grows into someone with a taste for trouble.

Apart from constantly abusing both verbally and physically of her daughter, LaVona Golden also discouraged Harding of having friends, making it hard for her to learn how to socialise. Later, when the movie implies that she was somewhat friends with Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver), it’s not easy to believe in her because we’ve already seen Harding having issues with other girls — something I understand to be a result of the way she’d been raised by her mother. Kerrigan, we learn afterwards, is Harding’s nemesis and the girl she supposedly tried to injure.

There’s more to add to the building of Tonya Hardin’s strong personality. She was taken out of school by her parents so that she’d be able to dedicate more time to things like ice skating. Without teachers and other authority figures around, she became a teenager and young adult that couldn’t recognise hierarchy — Harding would treat anyone the same way, being that person her coach or an Olympic referee.

As a kid, Harding lived with a half-brother she calls “creepy Chris”, whom, according to Vulture, spent several years in jail after sexually assaulting her when she was 15.

Harding’s mother not only had six husbands but also got into fights with them — in the breakfast moment transcribed above, Harding even questions LaVona Golden about it, recalling that her mother would hit her father sometimes. “That’s different,” Golden replies. So it's not surprising that Harding always ends up getting back with Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) despite being regularly hit by him.

I thought a lot about this movie because it depicts too well what might happen when a kid is risen in a chaotic environment. This is also present in movies like Fernando Meirelles’ City of God, whose tagline is something similar to the English proverb “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” But Tonya Harding’s case is even more explicit because of the presence of Nancy Kerrigan in the story. Kerrigan was also poor, but she grew up in another way, with love and respect, which made all the difference for her.

I, Tonya is constantly throwing in our faces that Tonya Harding didn’t cause Tonya Harding’s problems. And it even jokes about it when it repeatedly shows Harding stating that nothing is her fault.

Maybe we should all think more considerably about that the next time we see a poorly brought up kid becoming a badly behaved adult. Because maybe it's really not their fault.

Hi there! I am Leonardo Pereira, a Brazilian journalist (and copywriter wannabe) located in Dublin. You can find me on pereiraleonardo.com.