So NBC totally screwed up coverage of the Olympic Opening Ceremony.
For starters, the US was literally the only country not to show it live. We watched it 12 hours after it had already occurred. NBC did this so that it wouldn't air in the morning, when they felt fewer people would watch, but in the prime time evening spot.
I've gotten some emails from friends, and from work, about various parts of the opening ceremony. NBC's coverage cut out a lot of material. That last element, where the Chinese medal winner ran around the bird's nest and then lit the flame was cut short. NBC was really the only network in the world to interrupt coverage to show commercials. The little girl who sang the ballad about China was cut short. The English and Chinese opera duo was cut short ( I was so jazzed that the English women sang in Chinese!).
One criticism found online is that so very few women were featured in the opening ceremony. China has made great strides in gender equality. They still have a long way to go. Well I read some posts on blogs by Chinese people in China and abroad. One of the things NBC cut was a female Chinese badminton player reading the oath of the competing athletes, obviously cut.
I really found many of the comments made by the NBC "journalists" to be politically motivated and unfair at times. They were melodramatic. One man was supposedly an expert on China, and obviously spoke Chinese. Yet the comments were stereotypical and I felt so angry, clearly an undergrad who only spend six months in China had a more balanced view of the nation.
The parade of nations was ordered by how many strokes it took to write the name in Chinese characters. I remember asking Tanner what was going on. It was obvious that some nations had much longer Chinese names then others. Justine sent me a link to an article. NBC altered the order of the parade of nations!!! They did this so the United States would come in at 11:30 pm in America, so that viewers wouldn't tune to another channel as soon as the US came in. In NBC footage you can actually see the US in the infield of the stadium, before you see them walk in together. How ridiculous.
So I just wanted to post that. I knew when I was watching it that things were off, but I'm really disappointed now that I know the scope of it.
1 comment:
Wow...I had no idea..I watched the opening ceremony in Slovakia (in Slovak) so I saw everything in its entirety..and it was very lengthy...all those things you said were cut out were in the version I watched and those were some of the best parts...especially when they showed all the past Chinese medal winners in the torch relay and there were a lot of women...I thought that was great and quite progressive...and that guy running in the air to light the torch at the end was awesome! Anyway..that does suck. You should write an angry letter to NBC and get people to sign it or something...I'll sign it, heh.
I have to say, I was kinda pissed about "Chinese Taipei" though..but you know.
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