The Extratextuals

Thank goodness I missed the bulk of the coverage of the Olympics Closing Ceremonies, since the bit that I caught had me gagging. NBC talks a big game of how wonderful it was to see the world brought together, as one, best friends, yadda yadda. Yet from my standpoint, the network did its best to make this about the US versus everyone else. When Usain Bolt won the 100m and 200m easily, they cast dispersion on him for dancing around in celebration and for not congratulating other athletes. Yet when the US mens 4×400m team won gold and celebrated with no congrats forthcoming to others, it was “nice to see them enjoying their victory.” When the little chipmunk that is Shawn Johnson wins, yippee. When it’s the Chinese, they must be underage. When the Korean who not only beat Paul Hamm but for a judging error four years ago, but dared to continue to believe that he beat Hamm, NBC couldn’t resist pointing out how he really didn’t do that well this year, suggesting that this was proof of Hamm’s superiority. When the US came second, third, or forth, it was because they did something wrong, hardly ever because the non-American Others were actually better. And when the Chinese won more gold, it’s because the country had a supposedly underhanded strategy to compete in sports with multiple medals and/or because the state put huge pressure on the athletes, not because those individual athletes loved what they did. Sure, there were moments when NBC celebrated foreigners, but this was too often only when an American had no legitimate shot at the gold, and too often expressed with the amazement that someone from such a supposedly backward country (because, hey, everyone but the US is backward, right?) could pull off such a coup. The norm was yet more national chauvinism.

I don’t doubt that many Olympians felt the spirit of international brotherhood, sisterhood, cuddles for everybody, and all that jazz, but NBC’s reporting frequently did its best to make this yet another venue for a story about America fighting off the rest of the world. For all the exoticized images of the Great Wall, NBC was doing their best to build one of their own around the US.

Uncategorized olympics