Olympic start was a bit off – David Brussat

by David Brussat, contributing writer & author, Architecture Here and There

Photo: IOC press

Many around the globe had hoped to be thrilled by this year’s opening ceremonies at the XXXIII Olympiad. The beauty of Paris offered splendid opportunity, if organizers had only let Paris be Paris. But sadly, it was not to be.

The ceremony, with the famous bateaux mouches cruising down the River Seine with the Olympic teams of 205 nations aboard. It was the first Olympic ceremony not held at an Olympic stadium. And it was, I believe, the first to feature the host city as the centerpiece of the ceremony. It was an opportunity not to be lost… but lost it was.

Opening day began with a coordinated arson attack on the French TGV, or trains à grandes vitesse, stranding thousands of Olympic opening ceremony goers at stations throughout France. Its origin, presumably Islamic terror in support of Hamas, is being investigated.

The ceremony mixed the Parade of Athletes along the river in boats big and small with various artistic presentations on the Seine embankments. Some were more successful than others, but the choreography was abysmal – and the costuming was worse.

It might be an overstatement to say that the overall character was represented by a portrayal of the biblical Last Supper enacted by drag queens!

It is easy but perfectly accurate to blame much of the worst of the opening ceremony on the NBC team broadcasting the event for the American viewing public. The “Good Morning America” duo gushed and drooled throughout the festivities, and it was painful to hear their ridiculous gabbling with the endless string of tedious celebrities throughout the evening or their comments on the countries as their national teams floated by, getting soaked in the steady rain, often amounting to a downpour. They gamely danced and waved their nations’ flags, but you could tell they were not happy troupers.

The NBC duo seemed to be addicted to one of the “artistic” flourishes of the ceremony – a costumed sprite running along the roofscapes and through buildings en route, the symbolic meaning of whose costume we did not catch and was not clear. Again and again all evening the duo returned to his jaunt, and one almost wished he would trip on one of the raised ridges of the Parisian roofscape.

Cricket presenter Alan Wilkins wondered, “Is this the worst-ever opening ceremony of an Olympic Games? Absolute garbage to deliver to a global audience.”

“Garish, ghastly, and vulgar in the extreme. European culture down the plughole with the chain pulled. You don’t have to look far to see the Game is Over, with every bloody fool pandering to the lowest common denominator.” Such was the view of Professor James Stevens Curl, author of Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise and Survival of Architectural Barbarism (2018).

Oh, how we missed the usual parade of athletes from past Olympics as the nations’ teams flowed (or trickled) in semi-orderly fashion into the Olympic arenas, around the running tracks and up to their places in the stands. This ritual every four summers and every four winters always fascinates, with viewers at home anticipating their favorite nations’ teams going by. In these displays the characters of the various nations and the antics of the teams were on full display, while the inanities of the broadcast booth were given minimal outlet. May this parade be resumed at the next Summer Olympics in Los Angeles!

The embankments of and bridges over the Seine featured applied decoration, some of it quite artful and other bits hopefully quite temporary. Some of it, new and overpolished, may eventually attain the grace of weather and time.

Views of Paris and its roofscapes and streetscapes delightfully charmed the television audience. Occasionally, modernist buildings loomed in the background over the Haussmannesque architecture of the latter half of the 19th century, but they did not succeed at killing the overall sense of beauty.

All in all, the evening was a disappointment, but it is likely that had it not been Paris but some other city, it would have been as garish and commercialized as you would expect, since national cultures around the world are in a race to the bottom, and no city likely to host an Olympics is likely to escape its fate, hastened by each nation’s version of “Good Morning America!” But at least we can hope that the Angelenoes will not botch their turn at the Parade of Athletes, even if it is broadcast from the Entertainment Capital of the World.

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To read other articles by David Brussat: https://rinewstoday.com/david-brussat-contributing-writer/

My freelance writing and editing on architecture and others addresses issues of design and culture locally and globally. I am a member of the board of the New England chapter of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, which bestowed an Arthur Ross Award on me in 2002. I work from Providence, R.I., where I live with my wife Victoria, my son Billy and our cat, Gato. If you would like to employ my writing and editing to improve your work, please email me at my consultancy, [email protected], or call (401) 351-0451.