I finally figured out the word I was looking for when I watched NBC olympics coverage sign out with Natlie Coughlin's backstroke medal ceremony - RUDE. It was as if she was the only one who did anything worth watching. Yeah, she's actually cute. But there were 3, count 'em THREE, medal winners. We only saw two. The bronze medalist, Margaret Hoelzer, is actually an American too. So she got about 1 freaking stanza of coverage - combining the far shot with the closeup. Then back to Natalie. It was only at the very end, after the music was done and they huddled for the group photo that I even got a glimpse of Kirsty Coventry, and then only for as long as it took the photographer to cut her out of the picture. To me, that is unbelievable rudeness.
This coverage is probably shown the world over, and is captured on the internet as well. Does it show unity and team spirit? Does it show all the pride or damn-I-almost-made-gold expressions on all the medalists faces? No. It shows that America only cares about gold, and only cares about ourselves and to hell with the rest of the world that exists only to mess up our closeups. I'm so appalled that there could be "coverage" of an event that deliberately excludes one of the 3 winners and only offers a token nod to the other that I almost can't find words.
Almost, but not quite. Remember in Monster's Inc. when the Scully and the little one-eyed green dude make the magazine cover and the little dude is covered by the barcode? That was poor Hoelzer, who worked her whole life, just as hard as Kirsty and Natalie to make that medals stand at the olympics. Kirsty was the part of the photo that got cropped. And these medalists have family and friends and countrymen who supported them and cheered them on and want to see their brief moment of glory.
Although it's probably telling that the olympic motto isn't even on your olympics coverage homepage, but buried in a tiny sidebar link. Please, NBC, behave with dignity, kindness, and a spirit of "One World, One Dream". I'll lay off about you showing more divers showering than diving if you do me the courtesy of showing me all the medalists when you shoot a medal ceremony. Since you don't seem to have a good grasp of this, despite a 4 year prep period, this means all 3 for most of the ceremony, brief close ups of all 3 (maybe 2X closeups of fan favorites), then closing with all three in view. To do less is a disservice to both the American and the olympic spirit.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Could not agree more: it makes me actually livid: that so much coverage is completely denied to us so we get hours of BS and then at the end, like you say, not even a shot of all three winners. I am disgusted: it's worse with every single Olympics. And people wonder why sometimes the world looks at us with a bit of hostility. Gee, wake up. It's not that Canada isn't proud of its Olympians too but it's NOTHING like this! Thanks for a chance to vent my friend!
Yay! A Comment!
I also had a "I so totally agree!" moment with an optometrist today, but on politics rather than olympics.
And feel free to vent more about olympics coverage. Or say what goes well. But really, I'd rather watch the people doing routines in the background without closeups than people sitting around getting tense or chalking up for 10 minutes. If there's nothing going on and someone's floor routine music fires up, show the dang floor routine!
Meowm wondered about coverage like that too. But she also thinks that maybe other countries have there tv people there and they may be showing only their athletes as well.....maybe......
Post a Comment