John Oliver offers a salty recap of the Rio Olympics opening
The Summer Olympics officially kicked off in Rio de Janeiro last Friday, and on Sunday's Last Week Tonight, John Oliver opened with an occasionally NSFW recap of the kickoff to this "global display of the world's greatest athletes, and also, dressage." The lead-up to the Games exposed big problems in Brazil, but "the ceremony itself was as spectacular as you'd expect," Oliver said, though the highlight, the parade of athletes from every nation, was marred by NBC Today show anchors pointing out "everything that's wrong with their countries." He showed a few downer comments, then quipped, "It is a good thing that those anchors don't behave like that during the Macy's Day Parade!" You may never look at Charlie Brown the same again.
Oliver then took a little detour into Brazil's political turmoil, lecturing suspended President Dilma Rousseff on her Cinderella analogy and listing some fun (if slightly creepy) facts about her stand-in, Michel Temor, a poet with a much-younger wife who has an unusual tattoo. ("Does any of this have anything to do with the Olympics? No," he conceded. "But did I just find out about it and need to tell somebody? Yes, absolutely.")
Despite all of Brazil's problems, though, "the Olympic Games promise to be genuinely inspiring," especially with the first all-refugee team, starring swimmer Yusra Mardini, Oliver said. He ended on the "one moment in the opening ceremony this week where the inspirational rhetoric when a touch too far," however, the IOC chairman's paean to equality. No, no, no, Oliver said. "The whole reason we do this is to find out who is better than anyone else, so that we can make them stand higher than the other people who are not as good as them. Because the point of the Games is not to celebrate equality, it is to celebrate individuals' excellence." Excellent point. Watch below, but remember to wear headphones. Peter Weber
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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