I’ll Take Yodelers Any Day
Sunday, February 26th, 2006The Olympics ended tonight. I watched the closing ceremony. Similar to the opening ceremony, its various elements represented a rather quintessential Italian exhibition of culture: i.e., some parts were original, unique, unexpected, and fascinating; much of it was weird, kitschy, cheesy, and random. I’m sure that was as unintentional as the ridiculous silver coats they wore. Incidentally, did anyone else catch the loony bird who ran up and started yammering about Torino while the head of the Italian Olympic organization was making his speech? Classic.
One thing that I felt the need to comment about, though, was the general decline in class and decorum that’s happened over the years… Now, make no mistake, I am certainly not a slave to tradition; that said, I feel like part of the point of something like the Olympic Games is the dignity, which is distinct from the pageantry. For example, in the past, winners wore suits to their medal ceremonies; now, they generally show up in snowpants. Some modifications to the outfits make sense, like how female figure skaters are finally permitted to wear pants; other allowances just seem rather pointless, like athletes who insisted on attaching plush tiger ears to their helmets, or competing while wearing a plastic tiara. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but aside from it looking sort of stupid, don’t those ears create wind-resistance? And what if you made a misstep and that tiara stabbed you in the scalp? But I digress.
The performances at tonight’s ceremonies included a variety of lesser talents, including Avril Lavigne and her new "grown-up" look (high heeled black boots). Andrea Bocelli was okay, although I had to wonder if he would have had such a peaceful, approving expression on his face had he been able to see the absurdity going on around him. But strangest of all was the presence of Ricky Martin…whereas Lavigne was representing Canada (the site of the next Winter Games in 2010), and Bocelli is from Italy, Ricky Martin appeared out of nowhere. I wondered, "where did they dig HIM up?" as my mother expressed a similar sentiment. He burst onto the scene with bloated, casually dressed gusto, as well as a cadre of dancers whose costumes can only be described as circa-2000 crack ho. My parents and I all pondered the decline of Olympic grandeur… Agreed, it needn’t be all pomp and circumstance, but did the pendulum really have to swing quite so far in the opposite direction?
I didn’t really watch much of the last few Olympic games, and so for all I know they featured equally trashy entertainment. I understand that the IOC and/or the Italian committee must have carefully weighed every bizarre decision that they made, in an attempt to ensure that the Winter Games would remain hip and relevant. But in Italian or English, half-dressed skanks gyrating on the medals platform doesn’t merely lose something in the translation: it loses, period.
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P.S. I was pretty disappointed by Irina Slutskaya’s results- she was my favorite, despite (or perhaps because of) the unfortunate name…
P.P.S. Does anyone else find freestyle aerial ski jumping COMPLETELY insane?!?!?
