Olympic Opening Ceremonies?

I can't stand the Olympics. I'm actually rather anti-sports in general. But, I was in the living room when my roommate's boyfriend and ex-boyfriend decided to come in and watch them.

And I must say, I was a bit ashamed to be Canadian.

First, what was with all the First Nations/Metis/Inuit dancers? I'm totally for them being represented, but there were like, 200 of them, and NO ONE ELSE. And they were all wearing the stereotypical outfits with feathers and everything. I said to my roommate "I can feel all the other countries judging us right now" at the EXACT same time she turned to me and said "All the other countries will think only Natives live in Canada."

And then the random fire dancers and whales and trees and story telling and GIANT FLOATING LIGHT UP BEAR and flying man!? And the random poet guy? Ryan and I laughed at him together via MSN. He was ridiculous. "We are known as the ones who say please AND thank you!" Was that supposed to be poetic? And since when are we the only people in the world who are polite? And for that matter, since WHEN have ALL Canadians been polite?

Maybe it's just the fact I don't like the Olympics in the first place, but I was veeeeeeeery disappointed in the opening ceremonies.

And the girl who sang the national anthem is on the High School Musical 2 soundtrack, despite her having nothing to do with the movie. And she's never released an album, yet was chosen to sing the national anthem. And she only JUST turned 16. Something tells me she has connections.

LOL I totally enjoyed reading your rant <3 but maybe that's just because I'm Canadian too? ROFL

hahahaha, did you see the ceremony!? They were like "LET'S CELEBRATE CANADA WITH NATIVES, POLAR BEARS, AND BRYAN ADAMS!!!" Isn't Canada teased enough? I was hoping for a ceremony that made us seem less stereotypical.

LOL Nope I have not seen the ceremony.. I was working. Probably for the best hahaha

But it's just typical that we are forced to look like the way that we're viewed anyway. I don't think it makes a difference.. even if people saw what Canada is really like. People would still think the weird ways that they do LOL

There was literally like, 20 minutes of JUST Native dancing. They were like "And noooooow THE METIS!" and they'd all run out and dance in their costumes. Then they'd move off to the side after a bit- but remain dancing- and they'd be like "And noooooow THE FIRST NATIONS PEOPLE FROM THE PRAIRIES!" and they'd run out and dance, then it would be all "And nooooooow THE FIRST NATIONS PEOPLE FROM THE EAST!" and it just happened OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN!

Why couldn't they just be like "We're multicultural!", let them all dance at once, then move on? They had to introduce EACH Native group in Canada, and give them a few minutes to dance for everyone.

Hahaha, I thought some of it was actually pretty cool, but I suppose having it be your country hosting may change the feelings towards it.

I also enjoyed the rant though too.

I thought the biggest epic fail was the fourth pole not emerging from the ground in the arena. Everything else was nice for the most part. Albeit, I did fast forward through some less desirable portions.

I...haven't really watched it yet, but I did notice that they had white-clad backup dancers for like...an hour, and they looked really tired and unenthusiastic after about twenty minutes (as would I; it just seemed like a silly idea).

Will find video later.

Anyway, I can understand you thinking the ceremony was underwhelming, but are you really complaining that you're stereotyped as polite? You could come to America and have everyone assume you're an asshole... As for the Native stuff, I thought it was cool. Maybe it shouldn't have been the only thing, but if you look at other ceremonies, they stress their origins a lot. I actually find it more shameful that America doesn't ever do anything like that. We're under too much pressure to not show that kinda stuff.

But yeah, there were some things that made me wonder...like, why was the poet some guy they found on YouTube? I'm sure you have a poet laureate up there. And why did they use some random girl to sing your national anthem? Don't they have someone a little more famously Canadian? It just seemed kinda slow and weird at the same time. Like I said, those poor dancers looked like they wanted to die...

I watched the entire thing last night. I laughed some, I was confused some.... and I thought EPIC FAIL when the fourth column thingy wouldnt raise to be lit.

I have opinions but I'll keep em to myself. lol

You're forgetting about Gretzky. That's really like, the icing on top.

Don Douglas wrote:

I did notice that they had white-clad backup dancers for like...an hour

I was laughing so hard at this one white guy that was doing the same horrible "white guy" dance moves over and over again.

And did Gretzky get to light a pole? They kind of cut away after showing only 2 of them lighting them. Super fail if Gretzky didn't get to light his.

I really enjoyed the dancers around the tree of life or w/e that thing was. You could tell that had some serious skill and ballet expertise.

And the ice breaking part!! That was really cool, even if some kids walked on water at various points. But it was cool to see them jumping to different floating pieces and catching each other like they were all worried they would fall in, freeze, and die.

Oh, and the kid running on the field of wheat was AWESOME. Like at the beginning before he took off and started flying.

And the snowboarders and skiiers down the mountain was sweet!

And the tappers! The guy center stage was amazing! And then the other tappers put down those little circle mat things for themselves. And sparking shoes! Yay.

Also, the opera woman I couldn't understand a word she was singing.

I couldnt understand her either. I was trying to imitate her here at home. Boyd was laughing his ass off. lol

Wait...so I'm confused...


Since when did Canada get electricity?

It's a pretty new thing up here. We wanted to show it off to the world for the first time during the Olympics

I'm so glad she went along with it.

Don Douglas wrote:

I'm so glad she went along with it.

Went along with what? I saw my first light bulb just last week. It was somewhat of a myth before that...

Seriously, because they had fire there on those big polar bear totem poles with the 200 dancing nations.