Summer 2024 Games Begin - Opening Ceremony

Things I didn't know I needed:  a chorus of beheaded Marie Antoinettes singing along with French metal band, Gojira, reminding the world that France knows a little something about liberté, égalité, fraternité - and that France hasn't forgotten that liberté sometimes comes with a bad end for tyrants. 

The Paris Summer Games Opening Ceremony has officially (and finally) raised the bar for what is possible for a 4-hour long broadcast that has, now seen every two years thanks to Summer and Winter Games, become a bit of a slog.  

Rather than the usual attempt to do interpretive dance numbers that serves both an arena and a television audience and fails both, followed by hours of anonymous athletes walking in a big circle - Paris put the athletes on a variety of boats and shipped them down the Seine to the Eiffel Tower, making it more of a floating parade.  A sort of narrative was created with pre-recorded videos of what I think can best be described as "Assassin's Creed torch bearer parkouring their way across the city".  And then songs and dance along the river.  In the brief moment they included children, there was less a sense of wonder and, instead, a crocodile attack and a tour of the catacombs.

Vive la France!

Maybe forced by Paris' non-traditional format and lack of rehearsals (no, really, they did this just the once), NBC also greatly improved their coverage almost by default.  Rather than equipping a morning show anchor with a page of script for every minute of the show (making the Olympics the Katie Couric 4-hour-monologue-marathon far too many years) they brought in NFL star Peyton Manning and singer/ talk-show-host Kelly Clarkson to sit with Olympics staple Mike Tirico.  Scattered along the route, they had a few other commentators like Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb, and even Snoop Dogg (if you're having Clarkson at the main desk, might as well put Snoop on the street).  Superstar sports reporter Maria Taylor was embedded on the boat carrying the US athletes down the Seine.

Manning's primetime football color coverage skills were more or less useless the minute Lady Gaga appeared, and would remain so throughout.  He tried to pepper in some of the conversations he'd had by phone with several star athletes, but Maria was standing there with LeBron, so...  Anyway, Kelly Clarkson did weirdly great, bringing a sort of every-woman energy and not pretending like she was some deep expert on anything she was seeing.  Mike Tirico is a pro - and always welcome on my Olympics TV.

The show started kinda soft with "oh, yeah, here's Lady Gaga doing a sort of burlesque bit", moved on to a song and dance bit around the under-construction Notre Dame, and with the appearance of Ms. Antoinette (above image) kicked the doors off and said "you don't get it, we're not locked in here with all of you, you're locked in here with us."  And then France went very, very France on the world, mixing metal and opera, throwing gender norms out the window, showing young love as the promise of a menage-a-trois, a boundaries pushing fashion show, etc... et al.  

I am now a fan of French singer Aya Nakamura, who just seems like a good idea all around.  

We got Carmen sung from the bow of a boat, circus people, mime roller skaters, breakdance, a robo-horse, French rap, a knight in armor, Celine Dion! appearing for the first time in years as she's been dealing with health issues (and sounding perfect), a floating Olympic torch, and a 100 year old former Olympian.  I know I'm leaving a dozen things out.  

But not to be outdone, when the US team showed up on the river, via tape, USA reminded the American audience why we fight with Beyonce in red, white and blue.

God bless America

It was great seeing not just US athletes, but the parade of athletes from *everywhere*, especially the refugees and Ukraine.  

All in all, it was insane and great and LA is so screwed having to top this show.

Yeah, your relatives are going to tell you today that they're *offended* by what they saw.  And, well, tough nuts.  France is not here to make you comfortable, especially Paris.  This is what they wanted to show the world in 2024, and that doesn't mean making folks who just got back from their CostCo run feel like the entire world is just like a Panera, but with camembert as a cheese choice.

The opening ceremony was, queer, gender-fluid, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan, and celebrated what it means to live in a society that celebrates all of the people who are there and who contribute - and not just as worker-bees, but as artists, makers, musicians, clowns, dancers and more.  While not forgetting France's rich history of contributions in science, politics and philosophy.

All in all, it wasn't a sanitized-for-your-convenience show, but maybe that's what made it work.

Plus, Kelly Clarkson is now hot, and I did not have that on my bingo card for 2024.