Five Rings in the Hole

Even Brian Williams can’t turn the Olympics into a flag-waving orgy

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
2/20/06
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/Sociology/5rings.htm

There has been much wailing and gnashing of teeth over at NBC over the fact that the broadcasts of the XX Olympiad have been . . . well . . . disappointing. Seems that NBC has been getting slapped around by the competition, including Fox’s “American Idol.”

Various reasons have been given for this. Part of it is the indisputable (and to me, inexplicable) popularity of “American Idol.” I don’t know why 30 million people would want to see and watch Simon the Cow’s well-practiced sadism, but I suspect that they look at the untalented types that are used by the program to reassure themselves that they are better than some of the finalists in America’s biggest talent show. It’s good psychology on the part of the show’s producers, but it cuts deeply into a demographic that NBC, for better or for worse, had been pandering to in its previous Olympic broadcasts.

There’s also the fact that the Americans haven’t been doing all that well this year. Michelle Kwan had to leave with a groin injury, and Bode Miller learned that the judges aren’t too forgiving about missing gates, even if it did result in a better time. The Women’s hockey team, upset in a shootout with Sweden, will have to settle for a bronze if they win the consolation game, and the men’s hockey team managed an embarrassing 3-3 tie against Latvia, endangering their medal hopes. (The joke making the rounds is that the Latvian team consists of NHL players who couldn’t qualify for the Czech or Canadian teams – not that they’ve been tearing up the rink, either. Switzerland, a team of amateurs, defeated mighty Canada 2-0 yesterday, and while I want Canada to win the gold medal, I was grinning from ear to ear.) If it wasn’t for the Snowboarding, a sport America still owns, they would be in a race for 8th place with Olympic powerhouse South Korea. Even there, they had an embarrassing miscue when one of the ‘boarders, gold medal apparently in hand, added a little flourish to her routine that caused her to, um, fall down just before the finish line. (I felt sorry for the kid. The rest of her life is going to resemble a Vonnegut novel unless she redeems herself at the 2010 Olympics in BC.)

NBC has been doing a good job of covering the Olympics. Just the fact that I’ve been watching some of them is an indication of that: I had been put off in previous years by the endless, mawkish, dreary “personal story” pieces, and the mindless jingoism. NBC has toned down both of those. Indeed, the only complaint I have is that they used sour corporate newshack Brian Williams for “color commentary” and that was, in William’s eyes, carefully reciting Administration pravda on various countries in the news lately, such as Iran, Haiti, and even a truly idiotic remark about how Italians were grateful for the American liberation. Newsflash, Bri: America fought and defeated the Italians. They were an Axis power. Read some history.

But networks need corporo-fascist buffoons like Williams to proctor just about everything these days, just like the old Communist Party needed ideological checkers in the old days of the USSR, and for much the same reason. Williams was just doing his job. You don’t have to respect him for that, but just keep in mind that he’s a HIRED jackass, which means he may not be a BORN jackass.

But as noted, NBC is doing a good job of covering the Olympics, and if the US team isn’t exactly snapping up every medal in sight, they aren’t exactly disgracing themselves, either. Most people think sporting events are more interesting if the result isn’t a foregone conclusion. It’s more fun if there’s a little competition.

And that’s part of NBC’s problem. They had a deliberate policy of marketing the Olympics to the dull-witted, bellicose jingoists, the contingent Trey Parker labled the “U!S!A! Shit YEAH!” crowd. That’s not the most stable demographic to begin with, and it backfired on NBC this year.

Part of it was that the Fox network, which OWNS the dumb jingoist crowd, lured most of them over with that overblown talent-show-and-exercise-in-sado-masochism.

But most wouldn’t have been watching anyway. The “USA! Shit Yeah” bozos have been conspicuously missing from the events this year, even the events where the USA was expected to win handily. People are still waving flags and cheering the Americans on, but their enthusiasm isn’t the “over the top painted faces and booing the other athletes” rowdiness that manifested at previous Olympics, making them almost unwatchable for ordinary people.

Part of the reason is that the Italians – and Europeans in general– are tired of being called cowards and soft-on-terror by American right wingers, and have much less patience for that kind of thing. There have been reports of hyper-patriot types being booed and shouted down by Europeans who don’t share the notion that USA is number one. Hyperpatriots as a rule don’t tend to be a real brave lot (they wouldn’t need the phony bellicosity if they were) and the increased disapproval of what before had been seen as harmless and even endearing enthusiam reflects the much darker image America has in the world today. Americans in Europe, used to being asked if it was true that everyone had a plasma TV or if they knew John Wayne, now find themselves trying to explain Iraq, or Guantánamo.

With less hyperpatriotic yahoos on the TV screen, fewer hyperpatriotic yahoos are watching at home. Hopefully NBC will realize that this is not any great loss.

There are also less hyperpatriotic yahoos around. Most are on the defensive here at home, and when you are trying to explain that yes, America SHOULD be torturing terrorists but no, you believe your president when he says it ISN’T torturing anyone, that can get a little tiring. So instead of waving the flag for a sport you don’t understand, such as hockey, you watch “American Idol” and reassure yourself that no matter how badly the world mistreats America these days, Simon Cowell proves that all Brits are assholes.