Blogcritics The critical lens on today's culture & entertainment
Sorry, GE/NBC, but I’m part of the reason your ratings are down this time.
Frankly, I miss Tonya Harding. Well, not her personally, but a controversy/news event of that caliber. This Winter Olympics has been, in Dawn’s words, “lame.”
There was the fracas about the speed skaters. I tried to get interested in it. I side with those thinking Shane Davis is the one who came off as professional, honest, and fair about the situation. Chad was rude and he came up with excuses for his bad boy behavior but none really justify his unsportsmanlike attitude. He can go off with Bode Miller and sit on the blowhard dumbass box for all I care.
But frankly, to me that debate was about as exciting as whether it should be called Turin or Turino.
And neither compare in interest, to me anyway, to the skating judge scandals of past years.
Maybe personal issues played a factor in my not catching the Olympic fever.
Maybe it’s because my back went out the first week of the Olympics and I got laryngitis while student teaching during the second week of the games. That’s why I did not have much TV time. But when I was at home by the television I’d turn on the Olympics and try to watch it.
I wanted to like it – really I did. But inevitably I’d tune in and see Bob Costas looking the same – as well as the same set – as four years ago. And he’d have that “I am so much smarter and funnier than anyone here so why can’t I get a real job” grin which irks.
Last night I tried again. I tuned in and caught the skiing. As NBC is wont to do, as soon as you get interested in one sports event they switch over to another, in this case figure skating. Then it was back to skiing.
And I wanted to get excited, really I did. But God, was the interviewing inane. It pained me. Sample interview with,I think, Julie Mancuso, who got the gold medal.
Reporter: Hey, skier who has worked for years to get here, what’s up with the delay on the starting time?
Skier: I dont know.
Reporter: Do you know the reason for the delay in the start?
Interpretation: I don’t know- do you know?
Skier: No. Maybe its the fog.
Reporter: So what do you do when there is a delay?
Skier: I, um, wait.
Okay, maybe that was just a bad interview. I could come up with ninety-nine better questions in my sleep, but maybe it was just a fluke.
Later…
Reporter: Hey skier, you had a great first run. So what are you going to do between the first and second round?
Skier: Wait and rest.
Reporter: There you have it.
No, I don’t have it. What I have is frustration city and I turn off the TV and download some more Blogcritics pieces to my laptop and decide to go read them on my laptop, in bed. It is more relaxing and more informative – not to mention more entertaining – than watching the real thing.
I noticed trends here at Blogcritics, which I’m calling the Alt-Olympics:
1) Instead of the biathlon we had satires about Cheney.
2) Instead of ski jumping we have writers jumping up and down on the Shane vs Chad debate.
3) I watched writers shoot down any criticism made by Natalie by calling her anti-American, as Dawn did here. I watch anyone critical of Shane make the difficult step of explaining that it is just a coincidence that the person they are criticizing is black and it doesn’t mean anything racial.
4) Watched Matthew try in vain to get anyone else interested in curling.
5) We enjoyed making fun of people’s hair.
6) But best of all, we have bloggers like Sal here telling us that it IS exciting after all.
As the Olympics comes to a close, my money is on Sal making at least one more hair joke, Natalie getting criticized again for her political views despite them being separate from her sports views, and Bode Miller will get maried to his ego.
