Olympic Pie Throwing
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Our gotcha culture aims its guns at the Olympiads
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There is a saying in media: if it bleeds, it leads. In other words, consumers of news are most interested in gore: injury resulting from intentional violence or even accidental happenstance.
Recognizing this appeal to the human desire for the indelicate, talk show hosts in the 1980s started to conduct shows that were little more than updates to the Roman Colosseum where Gladiators slugged it out. Thankfully, these were verbal and not physical maulings of guests who were dimwitted enough to partake in such. These forums put American culture in over-drive when it came to seeking out and mass-broadcasting the haplessness of people. “Gotcha” was the new way to sell newspapers or whatever weapon system the coarse material was being launched from. And the paparazzi picked up on such and applied it to public figures and to a level of extreme culminating in the death of Princess Diana.
Today’s Olympiads must now display skill in avoiding rhetorical pies, along with the sport they trained in
But as with most wrongfully motivated actions, limits don’t exist or are quickly eviscerated for the inappropriate goal.
This appears to be the case after Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen broke the world record in the 400-meter individual medley last Saturday. After, a BBC commentator immediately noted her sudden improvement in form and raised the specter of doping. On Monday, World Swimming Coaches Association Executive Director John Leonard characterized her performance as “unbelievable,” “suspicious” and “disturbing.”
Voices of reason have since explained that such accusations are the result of Chinese athletes’ history of doping. Additionally, such accusations have been asserted to have been motivated by a sense of nationalism on the accusers’ part, resulting in a resentment of China which is becoming a superpower in many ways including Olympic sports.
Still, in the good old days, even when nationalism was strong and countries were suspected of doping, few others would raise the allegation of illicit substance abuse; they would wait for testing to the extent such existed. But now, where winning is achieved at all costs and, in this Age of Kardashian where discretion is a relic from pre-1960, the modus operandi is to immediately lurch to an accusation of illicit drug use for competitive advantage. Even if proven untrue, as in this case, the person accused suffers a permanent diminishment of their accomplishment, at least in the eyes of the public.
The good news is that most athletes who participate in the Olympics will not materially care about such accusations, especially as there is rigorous drug-testing in place. But the bad news is that the focus on great athletic accomplishment is diluted and energy needlessly expended on groundless innuendo, which benefits no one.
Perhaps there should be a new Olympic event in which the athletes try to avoid actual pies being thrown at them, as they are doing such now with the rhetorical ones.
-I.M. Windee
