So we were allowed to watch a bit of the opening of the Olympics at work and eat pizza and ice cream and that was awesome as hell as well as colossally embarrassing
but
those of you who watched will know that they did a small tribute of people who had passed on with a song and dance routine…
I read this back when Mod posted it on the night, and it made me think about the subject and how the decision to keep the idea of mortality hidden away is often made for us.
The whole concept was pushed up my nose yet again this morning when I found out that NBC cut the 6-minute segment of the opening ceremony that projected photographs chosen by the families of the victims of the 7/7 London bombings. They cut the whole segment and replaced it with an odd, uneccessary Ryan Seacrest interview, right in the middle of the ceremony.
Predictably, now that people are asking them kindly what the fuck, NBC have come back and stated that they had no idea that the photos of the victims had anything to do with the terrorist attacks (it wasn’t explicitly announced as such) and just happened to cut the segment for reasons of… coherence, apparently;
“Our program is tailored for the U.S. television audience,” said NBC Sports spokesman Greg Hughes. “It’s a credit to (ceremony director) Danny Boyle that it required so little editing.”
I honestly don’t know who this statement insults more, but I think the inference that U.S audiences wouldn’t understand a segment mourning and honouring dead loved ones is incredibly condescending and just… plain awful, really.
According to Rubit, NBC gets some of the lowest ratings of the broadcast networks. I REALLY CAN’T IMAGINE WHY.
I’m not even going to say anything.
(via waffleguppies)