Saturday, February 11, 2006
What Happened to Italy?
Last night we caught the last couple of hours of the opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics in Torino* Italy. The pageantry and spectacle were all what you'd expect, but one main thing kept nagging me the whole way through:
I thought the Olympics were in the USA in 2002.
From the moment we turned on the TV in the middle of the parade of nations, there was an inappropriately huge amount of American music going on. Even Bob Costas remarked that poor Slovakia had to march in to the tune of "YMCA" by the Village People. Then Yoko Ono came out and read some loopy poem about peace in English. Then Peter Gabriel got up and sang "Imagine." Then the president of the local Olympic organizing committee came out and greeted the Italians in Italian, and then broke into broken English to make his speech.
Now, I know that English and French are the two official languages of the Olympics, so I had no problem with the announcers saying things in those two languages plus Italian. But when the Italian leader of the games speaks to the Italians in the audience in English only, that seems really weird. I half-expected the Preident of Italy to declare the Games open in English. Can you imagine if Mitt Romney had gotten up and delivered an address at the opening ceremonies in Salt Lake in Russian? Could you imagine if they had featured a performance by some washed-up Frenchie pop star?
Has Italy fallen so far from its former place as the center of world culture that it can't even come up with an Italian song to pipe over the loudspeakers when the athletes are coming in? C'mon, Italy! Show me Italy! This might be a worldwide celebration, but my hosts didn't give me everything they've got. Where's Laura Pausini when you need her?
It wasn't till the closing number with Pavarotti singing Puccini that I finally felt that they were doing something that could not have been done in Salt Lake. (OK, maybe they couldn't have done the Ferrari.) That was a beautiful Italian moment. I just fear it might be the only one of the Olympics.
* Since when did we start calling Turin "Torino"? Does this mean we're going to start calling Rome "Roma," Lisbon "Lisboa," Mexico City "La Ciudad de Mexico" and Moscow whatever the heck they call it in Russia? I mean, I'm all in favor of standardization of place names, but I didn't get the memo that we were going to start doing it now.
I thought the Olympics were in the USA in 2002.
From the moment we turned on the TV in the middle of the parade of nations, there was an inappropriately huge amount of American music going on. Even Bob Costas remarked that poor Slovakia had to march in to the tune of "YMCA" by the Village People. Then Yoko Ono came out and read some loopy poem about peace in English. Then Peter Gabriel got up and sang "Imagine." Then the president of the local Olympic organizing committee came out and greeted the Italians in Italian, and then broke into broken English to make his speech.
Now, I know that English and French are the two official languages of the Olympics, so I had no problem with the announcers saying things in those two languages plus Italian. But when the Italian leader of the games speaks to the Italians in the audience in English only, that seems really weird. I half-expected the Preident of Italy to declare the Games open in English. Can you imagine if Mitt Romney had gotten up and delivered an address at the opening ceremonies in Salt Lake in Russian? Could you imagine if they had featured a performance by some washed-up Frenchie pop star?
Has Italy fallen so far from its former place as the center of world culture that it can't even come up with an Italian song to pipe over the loudspeakers when the athletes are coming in? C'mon, Italy! Show me Italy! This might be a worldwide celebration, but my hosts didn't give me everything they've got. Where's Laura Pausini when you need her?
It wasn't till the closing number with Pavarotti singing Puccini that I finally felt that they were doing something that could not have been done in Salt Lake. (OK, maybe they couldn't have done the Ferrari.) That was a beautiful Italian moment. I just fear it might be the only one of the Olympics.
* Since when did we start calling Turin "Torino"? Does this mean we're going to start calling Rome "Roma," Lisbon "Lisboa," Mexico City "La Ciudad de Mexico" and Moscow whatever the heck they call it in Russia? I mean, I'm all in favor of standardization of place names, but I didn't get the memo that we were going to start doing it now.
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