Sound the trumpets! Let the doves fly! Light the flame! The Winter Olympics are here once again, and we once more get the opportunity to watch network TV absolutely butcher this spectacle. This year it is NBC’s turn to utterly fail to capture the excitement of this unique sporting event.
Can’t wait to watch the luge? Stoked about the hockey tournament? Too bad. You’ll have to slog through hour upon hour of “up close and personal” spots where we explore the profound stories of upper-middle class, so-called amateur American athletes as they struggle with the tragedy of bunions or some other such nonsense. Every once in a while they will sprinkle in a few minutes of an actual event, packed with commercial breaks, that took place several hours or days ago.
Meanwhile, using a propaganda machine that would make Karl Rove proud, they will try to convince you that figure skating and all the other events that involve judges awarding points are actually sports, and that you should give a damn about them. After two weeks of constant bombardment you will be bludgeoned into numbly believing that an event that includes “style points” is a sport. If Super Bowl XL hinged on style points both teams would have lost, and the University of Texas would have been named champions of the NFL. An athletic event that centers on judges to pick a winner is no more a sport than an episode of American Idol. I am proudly one of the eight people in this country that doesn’t watch American Idol, and I’ll be damned if I watch any of these alleged sports.
To me, a sport is some manner of physical activity with clearly defined rules and OBJECTIVE goals. In other words, given a specific set of rules for doing so, you or your team has to do something MEASURABLY better than all the other participants (i.e., more goals, a faster time, a longer distance, a higher velocity, etc). Funky costumes, flamboyant flourishes, and musical accompaniment are fine if they are legal and help you perform better. However, there will be no judge standing by to take away your medal if Zoolander doesn’t like your outfit or if your record-breaking time wasn’t pretty enough.
Mercifully, those of us close to our endlessly tolerant Canuck border buddies can watch the Olympics on Canadian television. Amazingly enough, Canada seems to understand the concept that the Olympics are a SPORTING event, and a broadcast should be focused on SPORTS. What a concept. It almost makes me wish I had cable so I could watch it. Go Norway!!
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2 comments:
O.K. - this is off topic - during the opening ceremonies, the Italians choose to play "YMCA" and Donna Summer's "I Will Survive" - does this strike you as odd?
It's scary what losing an empire and a world war will do to a nation. Only a self image that has been utterly ground to dust can bask in the discarded faux-glory of another nation. Strange indeed.
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