When Image Trumps Reality

"Things are seldom as they seem, Skim milk masquerades as cream." -- William S. Gilbert

The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics featured a lovely little girl with a beautiful voice performing... er, it was actually TWO little girls, chosen in a competition to find the prettiest perfect little vocalist for the event. The seven year old with the beautiful voice wasn't 'cute enough' apparently, so a nine year old who was 'cuter' lip-synched her song.

Cory Franklin Has These Observations on the phenomenom of manipulating reality. Leni Riefenstahl's 1938 film Olympia did much the same for the1936 Berlin Olympics, creating a showcase for the Nazi regiem.

While we are apalled at certain revelations of manipulation, such as the opening ceremony vocalist, Franklin points out that people often prefer the image over reality. When Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, was speaking at Harvard students flocked to see him. Following Roddenberry on the program was Werner Von Braun, one of the creators of NASA. As Von Braun began to speak he noticed the students leaving in droves. Thinking this might have been a protest of his earlier involvement in the Nazi regiem, he asked about it later. He was told that the students were only interested in hearing Roddenberry. Ironically, the networks had already started curtailing their coverage of the actual space launches pretty much after the early Apollo flights.

My father worked for NASA and I couldn't get enough of coverage of our exploits in space, but it seems that in this day appreciating reality is akin to appreciating opera. You have to do some work on your own -- such as reading the libretto and learning about the music. A little understanding of Sixteenth-Century Italy doesn't hurt either. Heather Mac Donald Observes This Disturbing Trend to 'rewrite' classic works, dumbing them down in performance to create 'relevant' content for modern audiences. The result is often not unlike what you would achieve if you gave the project to middle-school boys [unsupervised, of course].

There is a lot of talk now about 'hope' and 'change,' especially as we approach another National election. What's missing are the frank discussions of how to solve problems. Matters such as how economies work and how to fuel them need to become the centerpiece of this discussion.