The video: NBC's coverage of the London Olympics has been questionable to say the least. Now, adding fuel to the fire is a controversial video tribute showcasing the rock-hard bodies of some of the Games' finest athletes. The catch? They all just happen to be female. The eyebrow-raising reel is replete with slow-motion shots of women bouncing, bending over, stripping out of their warm-ups, and hugging female teammates over a porny soft-rock soundtrack. (Watch a version of the video below.) The network has already pulled the video, but the question remains: Was NBC's celebration of the female form sexist, flat-out dumb, or something else entirely?
The reaction: "Was the network having a contest to see which video producer could patch together the most embarrassingly juvenile highlight reel?" asks Erin Gloria Ryan at Jezebel. What's the point of "slowed-down shots of ponytailed runners jumping up and down and blowing kisses to the crowd?" Or the asses of tennis players just standing there waiting for a serve? And notice the absence of women boxing or weight-lifting. It's an "utterly contentless video," says Alyssa Rosenberg at Think Progress. While it might meet editorial standards at Maxim, the failure to identify any of the athletes by name or country suggests NBC thinks of them as "inanimate objects rather than people," an attitude unbefitting an actual news organization. This "illustrates the root of many of the complaints about NBC's coverage of the games: They're presenting news events as if they're entertainment." Judge for yourself:
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
The secrets of lab-grown chocolateUnder The Radar Chocolate created 'in a Petri dish' could save crisis-hit industry
-
Trade war with China threatens U.S. economyFeature Trump's tariff battle with China is hitting U.S. businesses hard and raising fears of a global recession
-
Corruption: The road to crony capitalismFeature Trump's tariff pause sent the stock market soaring — was it insider trading?
