Well, it's begun, [View all]

[MadHound]

Americans are grumbling and growling about the opening ceremony of the London Olympics. From outrage over the NHS bit to genuine perplexity about several segments, one American after another is panning the opening ceremony.

The thing is, it was actually a lovely ceremony, if you saw it all, and if you understood the proper historical and cultural references.

Sadly, most Americans didn't see it all. Once again, NBC's coverage was atrocious. Not only did they cut out the tribute to the victims of 7/7, but they exhibited a most annoying habit of cutting to commercial during the vital transition portions of the show, completely interrupting the continuity and flow of the presentation. Combine this with various commentators continuously cutting in and blathering on and on about nothing(do we really need to hear about Meredith Viera's taste in music) and what we have isn't a bad opening ceremony, just atrocious coverage by the Americans.

Also, a lot of Americans had heightened expectations. After all, this was England after all, our ancestoral homeland. We know these people, we speak the same language, like the same music, they're just like us. Except they're not. Sure, America and Great Britain has a lot of cultural touchpoints in common, language, literature, music, etc. But there are distinct and large differences between us nevertheless. That's where the rub is, Americans expecting to fully and completely "get" a cultural extravaganza put on by a people whose cultural, while similar to ours, is in many ways quite different. And since we didn't get all these cultural references, which flew in the face of our preconceptions, many Americans reacted with anger, bafflement and dislike.

The fact of the matter is that even if you aren't versed in British culture, if you approached the opening ceremony with the same openmindedness, with the same lack of preconceptions that you approached, say, the opening ceremonies of Beijing, then you were in for a wonderful British cultural show.

But sadly, far too many Americans and American critics thought that the opening ceremonies would be as understandable as the opening ceremony in Atlanta, only with a British accent.

Their loss. By being disappointed over what wasn't in the show, they missed the wonder and beauty that was an integral part of the show. Truly, a shame.