Olympics
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From the slate forum:

Subject:	Opening ceremony on TV
Date:	Aug 15 2004 7:33AM

First of all I have to say that I really loved the opening ceremony. The first hour made me stick for all the delegations that paraded. It was a magical moment and the best-by far-Olympic Games opening ceremony I've seen. It was poetic, it was anthropocentric. In art you have to be very precise, if you try to tell everything you'll probably tell nothing. If you try to win them all, you lose them all. But this performance came damn close to tell everything. The human being, the touch with your body, with beauty and health and strength. Love, sex, communication between humans. The broadness of humanity, so many different people, to communicate and exchange ideas, from African black ladies to gorgeous Danish blondes. The pursuit of knowledge and truth via reason and the endless pursuit for myth via art. It was very symbolic the presentation of a laser beam in the form of DNA. Starting from the ancient Greek philosophers, trying to explain the world via logic, with Aristotle posing the question for the origin of life, to the civilization of today with the ideas that didn't cross the minds of the Anccient Greeks,like evolution theory , discovery of DNA and genes. And, of course, the Olympic spirit, the noble competition for excellence, perfection, for something higher. It's really a ceremony for the whole world.202 participating countries. Its broadcast all over the world. It's estimated that it was available to 4 billion people and actually watched by 2 billion, including 56 million Americans. At the same time the Oscars are also available to a big part of the world, close to 2,5 billion people .And watched by a mere 300 million people, including the 50-60 million Americans. It was interesting to see how the North American viewing public would react to such an event. For many media critics such a poetic spectacle was treated just like another Oscar ceremony. Chopping it to pieces and trying to describe a big sculpture and a cube, as an 8-year old would do. That was pretty much the Slate critic. And because there was not a Billy Crystal punch-line to cite, most critics tried to make up their own. So was American prime-time television ready for such a performance? Granted, it's different to watch it on TV. The music loses, the unbelievable blue lighting loses, the amazing colors are bypassed. But even so ,is such an event suitable for the sitcom slot? Mahler's symphony no.3 or opera on national TV? Has ever before Verdi's Aida been on NBC? Most Americans seem to have missed them completely, glorifying the producers who keep feeding them with corny tunes. Want opera? Go to the Met. Apart from culture, some nude statues and why not some nude people could really offend some Americans, notable Attorney General Ashcroft. Remember, TV is not 1st amendment protected, at least as newspapers are ,it's a state licensed medium. I'll give you that, though. In other countries like Iran or China state officials could have been offended. And finally DJ Tiesto and his music during the parade. Dance music (trance or whatever) started from the United States to spead pretty much all over the world and especially to people clubbing. It's been one of the first times it's broadcast on national TV .And, of course, next time you complain your NBC sitcom or Jay Leno don't have many African Americans on, count how many blacks or yellow or Latins you spotted during the parade, cause you are not going to see many more people with such skin color any time soon(until the next ceremony in Beijing). It was really a celebration of not only the Greek but of the whole Western civilization and I wonder how much of that we 'll see in communist China in 2008.And of course what we 'll see in New York(or most probably Paris or even London)in 2012. After the ceremony I put on Letterman(not the rerun that was on).And it really looked like a High-School play!