Everything is getting hazy. The lighting is dim. Faces appear,bathed in a surreal glow. Figures move in slow motion. Soft musicplays.
An afterlife experience? A glimpse into the great beyond?
Nah. Just another Olympic Moment -- the personality profiles ofindividual athletes that look like a Hallmark Card come to life.
The Olympics are the world's most spectacular and inspiringsporting event. Too bad it's filtered through the camera eye ofNBC-TV.
The network covers competitions involving Americans almostexclusively, force-feeds us gobs of warm-and-fuzzy features onindividual athletes, concentrates on major sports, and has anauseating weakness for corniness and cliche.
Granted, when you pay $456 million to broadcast the thing, yougo heavy on the home team and schmaltz. We don't expect much actualjournalism, and we're not disappointed.
The worst is the personality profiles that regularly interruptthe competition. Here's Bela, the gruff but gentle bear of a coach.Here's Dominique, the plucky young star who's fighting back frominjury. It's all soft music, hazy focus, slow motion. Everybody is'hungry for gold' or 'dreaming of Atlanta.' After a while, you'rereaching for the barf bag.
Knowing who these athletes are enhances our appreciation of theevents. But spare us the surreal glow and paint-by-numberssimplicity. It's like being spoon-fed pablum.
But it goes beyond that.
Given the concerns about the toll of intense gymnasticstraining on adolescents, the warm-and-fuzzy features edgeperilously close to propaganda.
For that matter, you don't get much perspective in the eventcommentary. We were told that 14-year-old Dominique was competing'with a 4-centimeter stress fracture in her tibia.' There's aquestion whether such an injury is a badge of courage or a productof self-abuse. Yet there was no ambiguity or hint of a larger issuein the commentator's voice, just admiration.
We expect NBC to focus on American athletes. But after a while,it's as if other countries are there only because the USA can'tcompete against itself. The U.S. athletes are the stars, the othersare mere bit players.
The Olympics are supposed to glorify the heights attainable bythe human body and spirit. Country is secondary to individualdemonstrations of grace, strength and courage.
Canadian TV is partial to Canadian athletes, but far lessemphatically than NBC. Canadian TV devoted a chunk of time Thursdayto the USA vs. Cuba in men's volleyball simply because it was agreat match.
How many events are shown on American TV that don't involve anAmerican competitor? For that matter, how many events do we see inprime time?
Thursday's night's USA vs. Cuba volleyball thriller was ignoredby NBC. Because the headline stuff gets shown to death, lesser --but equally dramatic -- events get overlooked.
In fairness, NBC does some things well. There was anextraordinary shot of Shannon Miller's foot nearly coming off thebalance beam during her routine. Viewers are so close to the actionthat they can count the athletes' nose hairs. There are occasionalfeatures on athletes from other countries. Studio host Bob Costasis easy to take.
And NBC-TV has no control over the Olympics' single largestirritation, the U.S. men's basketball team.
The presence of NBA players is testament to America's inabilityto lose gracefully.
We mustered the pros a couple of Olympics ago, after the restof the world caught up to our collegians. The USA's failure to winOlympic men's basketball gold in 1988 was treated as a nationalcrisis. The consensus: Better to blow 'em out with the big gunsthan to let the college guys settle for silver. And who cares ifthe games are as competitive as the Bills vs. Orchard Park High?
The result is a sorry spectacle. The gold medal is a foregoneconclusion. The only question is whether the NBA stars can stayawake until the end of the games.
At least the Olympics was special to the college guys. The NBAstars stay at a hotel, don't mingle with other athletes and -- mostsignificantly -- don't share their spirit. One gets the feelingthat their motivation isn't a gold medal, but the productendorsements the Olympic connection brings.
Not even NBC could make an Olympic Moment out of that.
