Deacon wrote:So you're bringing in debate as an event in the summer olympics?

It's more than that. There'd have to be teams of athletes, and of course those athletes would have to be all-around types since the game could be literally anything from contest to contest. There's no referee, so the players would also have to be really quick-witted to make up rules on the fly. This goes on for n time, until the orator has enough evidence to convince the other team that they should concede. It'd be a combination of field sports, debate, and a dash of some kind of coaching staff going insane trying to build an ideal team for a sport with so many variables.

Dressage is a freaking Olympic event. We can figure out Calvinball.

Edit: Is the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games important now? Did I miss something? All I know is that NBC sounds confused and blissfully ignorant every time they broadcast an Opening Ceremony, but that's great unintentional comedy.

BtEO wrote:I'll trust our commentary that said the majority of performers were volunteers

I never said that wasn't true. I only said that the actual show was written and main characters cast and posited that it's possible they selected who they wanted as filler from a pool of volunteers rather than use anyone and everyone who just happened to show up by random chance. I'll give you that NBC's coverage was rubbish, but I'm not really sure how that's relevant.

I never said that it was an exercise in any particular racial pride

You just fucking said EXACTLY that. You shoved a couple of extra words inbetween "black" and "pride" but otherwise...

Words are important. There's a difference between racial pride and being proud of how diverse you can look.

Those concerned with organising the show used whoever volunteered regardless of race.

Maybe that's true, that it was an inordinately large number of minorities were the ones who had both the inclination and the time to volunteer instead of their white neighbors, and the producers did not make any choices about who would represent the nation to the world. I don't know.

You sound like to kind of person who'd have gotten angry when Idris Elba was cast as Heimdall.

I had to look that up to know what you were talking about. Comparing the manner in which a nation chooses to portray itself to the world during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics to a comic book character seems like kind of a reach.

'This is Britain, it has people in it, this is a summary in music and dance and theatre of their history and achievements.' Not: 'This is Britain, in the days before the industrial revolution it had a population of nearly 100% white people, etc…'

Is it impossible that it was instead, "This is Britain, look how progressive we are"?

It also repeatedly emphasises that the majority of the 7500 cast were volunteers (from all over the world apparently.)

Not just the London slums, as you seemed to suggest before?

Deacon wrote:

BtEO wrote:I'll trust our commentary that said the majority of performers were volunteers

I never said that wasn't true. I only said that the actual show was written and main characters cast and posited that it's possible they selected who they wanted as filler from a pool of volunteers rather than use anyone and everyone who just happened to show up by random chance. I'll give you that NBC's coverage was rubbish, but I'm not really sure how that's relevant.

It was only relevant to your use of them as a source for why I should not believe the majority of the performers were volunteers. For reference, again, from the media guide:

The fictional family are all volunteer performers. Our heroes for the night are Frankie and June. Frankie is played by 19-year-old Henrique Costa and June is played by 18-year-old Jasmine Breinburg…

No doubt they were picked carefully for specific talents, but still from the pool of volunteers. Hence why NBCs unnecessary exaggeration of the process and your use of that to bolster your point caught my attention.

Deacon wrote:

BtEO wrote:The great majority of the performers in the ceremony were volunteers^[2], who ever turned up and was capable, would it have been better if they'd turned away black, asian, mixed-race, etc… folk because they felt it would upset the balance vs. whites.

What? Do you really believe that?

Obviously I misread you.

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Deacon wrote:

BtEO wrote:

Deacon wrote:I never said that it was an exercise in any particular racial pride

You just fucking said EXACTLY that. You shoved a couple of extra words inbetween "black" and "pride" but otherwise...

Words are important. There's a difference between racial pride and being proud of who diverse you can look.

BtEO wrote:it was not about black pride, asian pride, mixed-race pride, or even pure-bred-white-Anglo-Saxon pride

I see your distinction, but I meant the above to read that I saw no intention during my viewing to have any specific racial or overarching multicultural pride (the commas were OR not XOR.) Which makes your reply to that off-point then.
Apparently you meant to impart the same meaning when you wrote

Deacon wrote:Just for reference England is predominately black and should go to great pains to represent itself as such and to declare to the world its intense pride in that fact.

Again, apparently I misread, but perhaps 'non-white', or 'multicultural' would have served better than 'black' if you didn't want me to think you were calling out a specific racial pride, and maybe I'll try and be less specific too.

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Deacon wrote:

BtEO wrote:Those concerned with organising the show used whoever volunteered regardless of race.

Maybe that's true, that it was an inordinately large number of minorities were the ones who had both the inclination and the time to volunteer instead of their white neighbors, and the producers did not make any choices about who would represent the nation to the world. I don't know.

You don't know, but immediately speculated that it was desire to appear more multicultural than we are, possibly motivated by white guilt.

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Deacon wrote:

BtEO wrote:You sound like to kind of person who'd have gotten angry when Idris Elba was cast as Heimdall.

I had to look that up to know what you were talking about. Comparing the manner in which a nation chooses to portray itself to the world during the opening ceremonies of the Olympics to a comic book character seems like kind of a reach.

I wasn't sure you'd get the reference, but knew I could trust you to look it up.

I merely pulled it up as an example of casting done without any attention paid to race — that such a thing could exist and not be a political statement. And that people can overplay the significance, perhaps angry wasn't the right word for you, but some people did genuinely feel appalled.

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Deacon wrote:

BtEO wrote:'This is Britain, it has people in it, this is a summary in music and dance and theatre of their history and achievements.' Not: 'This is Britain, in the days before the industrial revolution it had a population of nearly 100% white people, etc…'

It's impossible that it was instead, "This is Britain, look how color blind we are"?

That first interpretation is, pretty much, colour blind. I would feel that it is the correct approach, as opposed to requiring approximations of the overall ethnic balance of the country, or indeed requiring that the apparent ethnic balance be grossly misrepresented.

If the organisers of this event really did set out to explicitly highlight non-white ethnicities so as to make the country appear less white I'm with you in thinking that's wrong. But I simply didn't interpret what I saw that way.

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Deacon wrote:

BtEO wrote:It also repeatedly emphasises that the majority of the 7500 cast were volunteers (from all over the world apparently.)

Not just the London slums?

Yeah, that surprised me too. Though I still expect the bulk to have been more local to London, and East London. "Slums" is your choice of word though, not mine.

BtEO wrote:It was only relevant to your use of them as a source for why I should not believe the majority of the performers were volunteers.

But that was never a point of contention. Instead, it was whether they picked and chose which volunteers they wanted to be the face of Britain or whether they used anyone and everyone who turned up and made do.

No doubt they were picked carefully for specific talents, but still from the pool of volunteers.

Right. That's what casting calls are. And they were cast to fill roles already written and laid out. It's not like, "Well, I guess these two black kids here are what we have to work with. What can we come up with to accommodate this random chance?"

Again, apparently I misread, but perhaps 'non-white', or 'multicultural' would have served better than 'black' if you didn't want me to think you were calling out a specific racial pride

I see where you got that, but black just happened to be the particular minority on prominent display in this case.

You don't know, but immediately speculated that it was desire to appear more multicultural than we are, possibly motivated by white guilt.

Perhaps the skepticism I intended to convey in the post in response to not only your assertion of what happened but the subtle racism involved in implying (unintentionally I'm sure) that it's mostly the minorities of London who are the layabouts with time to hang around the Olympics to get on TV. Technically you're correct--one can never know what lies in the hearts of others; even we ourselves don't always fully know our own hearts. But you can put 2 and 2 together, and I'm wired to do so, which is probably a key part of our differing on this matter. It's always easier to judge a group of people than the individuals therein.

I merely pulled it up as an example of casting done without any attention paid to race — that such a thing could exist and not be a political statement.

There's a massive difference between "no attention paid to race" and not being a political statement. I'm not sure there was anything particularly political going on in the opening ceremonies, though some might make that argument. I can't imagine you'd think no one working on the "Thor" movie noticed Idris Elba was black. Casting takes into account all of that, especially big-budget casting of this nature, where the audience reaction to one person or another is taken into account. There are entire theses written on this kind of thing.

That first interpretation is, pretty much, colour blind.

There's a difference between "I barely even noticed" and "See? See how little I notice? Eh?" The latter seems to be much more prevalent in the UK, at least in the media, but seems to be somewhat confirmed anecdotally from my time there and conversations with British people.

If the organisers of this event really did set out to explicitly highlight non-white ethnicities so as to make the country appear less white I'm with you in thinking that's wrong. But I simply didn't interpret what I saw that way.

I'm not sure it was quite as overt and self-aware as all that, at least not through all levels of the entire production, but yes, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if that was exactly the case even if not couched in those words in their own minds. Something more like, "We should highlight the wonderful diversity of London!"

I think we've reached broad agreement, in as much we can see where we're each coming from. One minor point though.

Deacon wrote:

BtEO wrote:No doubt they were picked carefully for specific talents, but still from the pool of volunteers.

Right. That's what casting calls are. And they were cast to fill roles already written and laid out. It's not like, "Well, I guess these two black kids here are what we have to work with. What can we come up with to accommodate this random chance?"

I was meaning more in that maybe they wrote a role for 'young girl getting ready for night on town' as opposed to 'young mixed-race girl getting ready for night on town.' Choosing her (or indeed whichever roles were filled first) might then have informed other choices, such as her parents and siblings — but then there's always adoption could explain that away.

Yeah, I see what you mean, but if hers was happenstance, his was hardcore. In the end it was like a very long Superbowl halftime show gone way over budget.

The Cid wrote:Dressage is a freaking Olympic event. We can figure out Calvinball.

I just want Calvinball at the Olympics now. Forget this racial crap with the Opening Ceremony, and get on with Calvinball.

North Korea.

South Korea.

It's all the same, really.

JTTOT

Deacon wrote:one can never know what lies in the hearts of others

The Shadow wrote:I do. It's kind of my thing.

Ha! Someone picked up on that. Nicely done, sir.

I don't know which was worse: that Team GB can't beat a team in regulation in the knock-out phase or the uniforms the football teams were made to wear. I mean they lost to Korea. This is like losing to Greece. Oh, wait. That did happen.

Rave: Madness is still a band. I had no idea that this was the case until I read that there's a possibility that they will appear during the closing ceremony at the Olympics. This made me smile for two reasons: because a band I like is still together after many years, and because apparently they're relevant enough to be mentioned as a potential closing ceremony cameo. Then again, their music is in the background of seemingly every third television commercial made or so.

Yeah, Madness have never really gone away I don't think. Or if they have, it's been something of a half-hearted split. They seem to be forever milling along in the background. They've probably got quite a lot of Later appearances with Jools Holland which is always good for making sure people don't forget you completely.

Rorschach wrote:Yeah, Madness have never really gone away I don't think.

After looking it up, they haven't. Maybe I had them confused with The Specials, where the only thing remaining from the original band is the name The Specials. (And actually, I think they're technically The New Specials, so they don't even have that. They're pretty much a Specials tribute band.)

Rorschach wrote:They seem to be forever milling along in the background.

That's how they're used on this side of the pond. Their music is in a lot of commercials ("One Step Beyond" especially), and "Our House" gets consistent radio play for a song that's been around as long as it has. I imagine that they're one of those bands that most people have heard without knowing their name. Pretty much the same thing we do to Joe Jackson over here.

So, in my customarily late fashion, I've started watching the first series of The Big Bang Theory.
I'm not sure if it's because I'm a jock, but it's alright. Y'know? But just that. Just alright. A couple of snickers here and there but not as good as I was expecting it to be and certainly not as enjoyable as the last couple of boxed sets we've bought.
Does it get better with subsequence seasons?