Like a lot of you, I’ve been watching the Olympics.
I’m not tuning in for the sporting events. In my opinion, if you aren’t doing commercials for Gatorade, you aren’t a real athlete. But what I do enjoy is learning new things about the other cultures and countries.
Who knew that the Jamaicans were great runners? If anything, I’d have guessed they’d be proficient in the high jump, since any form of getting high would appear to give them a natural advantage.
But my absolute favorite occurrence thus far is the revelation that China had a beautiful young girl stand up and proudly represent her country’s values by lip-synching the Chinese national anthem (and no, it’s not “We Are the World”).
The voice she appropriated belonged to what appears to be her homely half-sister, who, for the duration of the Olympics, was kept in a basement with a microphone and a glass of lychee soda.
China has taken a lot of criticism for this. But I think its desire to place skin ahead of substance clearly shows that America is still capable of winning the hearts and minds of other nations.
Which country is it that makes a good living selling its movies and images of beauty across the globe? It is us. When that little girl lip-synched, she might as well have been singing the “Star Spangled Banner.” It’s we who have made Keanu Reeves and Jessica Alba household names, while talented but fang-toothed Broadway actors starve in anonymity.
We’ve Jessica Simspon-ized the world, and since the Chinese people probably will never hear the news about the lip-synch the way we did in the West, they’ll forever believe that the attractive girl has a voice of an angel, when in truth she probably sounds like an Asian Sylvester Stallone with smokers’ cough.
Obviously, this should be our key to fighting the war on terrorism. As long as we can keep people self-conscious about their looks, America will seem like the bright, shining hope.
They’ll think, “We can’t destroy America! Where would we get our Thigh Masters and Eight-Minute Abs DVDs?”
It is our rich culture that holds the key to the world having a tighter, sexier core.
The only threat to this plan is mega-Olympian Michael Phelps. His ears are way too far from his head for him to be the new poster-boy for American success.
His eight gold medals make looking goofy synonymous with success (if Donald Trump hasn’t already done that). To make sure he doesn’t disrupt our plan, Speedo’s simply going to have to laser-weld a swimming mask to his head, so that during the next Olympics, Phelps can claim the Gold in the guise of Brad Pitt.
The Olympics have one clear message to the West: Forget spreading Christianity. We’ll have better success spreading Christina Aguilera.
Jeremy Greenberg is a writer, comedian and an Eastside resident. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Relative Discomfort: The Family Survival Guide (Andrews McMeel). Learn more at HYPERLINK “http://www.relativediscomfort.com”www.relativediscomfort.com.
