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Grand Torino? |
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Contributed by Tyrone Mercer
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Saturday, 11 February 2006 (read 1235 times) |
I'm not usually one to watch Olympic opening ceremonies. In the
summer I'm not that interested in the Olympics period, and in the
winter I care only about the sports that involve danger, high drama,
and speed. And no, I'm not talking about the drag show that passes for
men's figure skating. This time, however, I found nothing,
literally nothing else on the tube and so I tuned in. I can only
say that the opening ceremonies for the twentieth Winter Olympiad were
odd.
The images were confused and not so much surreal as highly abstract. It
started with a bunch of red. Apparently it was all supposed to
indicate Passion, but it came across as something Dante would have come
up with had he wanted to recycle the bits he didn't use in the
Inferno. "Hellish" is the word I'm looking for here, but "very
disturbing" will work too.
Now a guy in a red leotard smacking an anvil that looked like the head
of a Texas Longhorn, or at least a satanic Texas Longhorn that spits
fire when smacked on the head is distressing. When that stage has
a pit covered by fabric and with dancers underneath poking their legs
up and waggling them around then you get downright creepy. I
suppose the red covered legs were to be fire. That I don't
know. What I do know was that I was waiting for the Pope to show
up and perform an exorcism.
In addition to doing the creepy fire thing, the dancers were then
employed in the formation of a beating heart. Well if by beating
you mean some sort of arrhythmia that would get your doctor looking at
you with dollar signs in his eyes. Not that it would matter for
long though because as this sequence was coming to a close, a skater,
like a bullet from a gun, skated through the dancers making up the
heart causing them to scatter. Must've been a hollow point.
Then it got worse.
There was some drivel about the area near Torino being Italy's diary
region. I had to surmise this because this was one of the few
points were NBC commentator Bob Costas actually kept his pie hole
closed. The major clues were the fiberglass cows being towed
around and skaters in Holstein themed clothing. I guess the
message here was "Torino, Gateway of Italy!" Being all alpine n' stuff,
this bit also had a line of guys with alpine horns like the one in the
Riccola commercials. That was kind of interesting, and straight forward
until some other actors pulled up little flags representing the
different countries bordering the Alps. What's so silly about
that? Well the flag poles were attached to the guys with the
horns. That was comical in itself, but naturally all the guys
were different heights and arranged randomly on the stage. This
sequence also featured some dancers dressed as pine trees. I
guess they don't know in Torino that fir is murder.
A heart not being hard enough, we got to see some precision drill
maneuvering as some dancers formed a ski jumper (don't ask me to
explain) and then came the parade of nations. If there truly is
justice in the world, then whoever decided that the athletes would
march in to dance tunes from the 70's and 80's really needs to give his
salary back. Especially when he went on to decree that the
Americans would march in to Aretha Franklin's "Freedom."
So the athletes are all seated and now here comes, of all people, Yoko
Ono!!! She reads a peace poem and then afterwards there's a performance
of Imagine. What Italian pop star do you suppose was tapped to perform
the song? None other than founding member of Genesis, Peter
Gabriel! (see accompanying Irreverent Newz article). I guess Phil
Collins was busy.
Now keep in mind this is a peace song right? and we just had Yoko
imploring the world to think about peace right? and while you could
make the case that all the current conflict in the world is being
caused by purely economic and political conditions, the language of the
'toons is religious. I had to wonder what the Iranians, the
Israelis, the Danes, the Americans, etc etc etc all thought about the
line imagine there's no Heaven? Fortunately I never got to find
out because that lyric was conveniently excised. Time
considerations I'm sure.
At this point, I'm beginning to think that all the entertainment bits
are going to be utter crap. Then the acrobats hit the
stage. That was one of the best parts. They were clambering
up and down a vertical structure, attached by wires, and they did spins
and flips etc, and then they formed a dove. Of course, I knew
they were going to form a dove, because Costas told me they were going
to form a dove. Thanks Bob. All I could think about through
the whole performance was...when are they going to form the dove?
I looked at my watch, the ceremonies were about half way through.
Unfortunately the silliness continued. Torino is the seat of
Italian industrial design, including automotive designs. Style
beauty and hot cars are its stock in trade. O.K., they're a
little north of Ferrari's operations, but that's fine because nothing
says Italy like Ferrari no matter where you are. And nothing says
Winter Olympics like having last year's unsuccessful Ferrari Formula 1
car doing donuts on the stage, because when I want to show off the
power, speed, and grace of a car that's the way I do it: burning
rubber in a circle.
Well the car's done, there's been some speechifying, blah blah blah and
then it's cue Pavarotti. He sang a song called Nessun Dorma, from
Puccini's opera Turandot. Interestingly Turandot refers to a girl
from a region in Central Asia that makes up a part of Iran. You
remember Iran. Nuclear weapons, destroying Israel, commissioning
Holocaust cartoons? Good choice for games of peace.
Although to be fair I suppose the only reason it was chosen was because
the last line is "I will win." Did I mention that the Pav, as we
call him down at the Met, was dressed in full Opera Man garb? The
only thing missing was the red lining to his cape. Everything
else was there, the tux, the cape, the lil hankie. The morbidly
obese tenor that could collapse at any moment.
So Luciano's done and now it's time to light the flame. The
only torch bearer I recognized was Alberto "The Bomb" Tomba, Italy's
premier alpine skier, Although the little blond at the end certainly
made me think Viva Italia. So she lights off the pyrotechnics and
Hooray there's a big freaking light at the end of the stadium.
Which reminds me: the stadium. The Olympic games were
kicked off in the Stadio Olympica, formerly the Stadio Comunale di
Torino, built by Mussolini in 1933. Nothing says "Faster, Higher,
Stronger" like fascism. After all how else do you escape from the
prison camp? Oddly the Olympics owe a lot to fascists.
According to Wikipedia, the five ring symbol didn't gain widespread
popularity until the Nazis promoted it. Peace games indeed.
So finally here comes the end of the show, more fireworks and away we
go to ogle pretty girls on ice. I suppose I've been too hard on
the planners of this extravaganza, but I can't help feeling that maybe
there was a better way. Maybe something featuring tying up all
the choreographers with duct tape and attaching their shoes to the
floor with super glue. Oh and in the case of Yoko Ono, finding a
closet with a good lock.
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Monkey Pile 
