I’m no World Cup cynic, though admittedly I was a bit turned off football as a teenager growing up in Liverpool. Every once in a while a brainless dolt covered in a Manchester United kit and his own drool would threaten me or my friends. High on Fifa fumes that cloud the C’mon-Referee-That’s-Bullshit area of the brain, these threats occasionally manifested in a flash of violence. “Wow, football must be incredible to inspire such passion,” I thought, nursing a black eye. Turns out the game was just a bunch of men falling over in a massive field.
Were the opening ceremony of the World Cup to reflect this, then there’d be little to criticise. Instead its utter ridiculousness deserves a thrashing. It was as hallucinogenically confronting as the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, only it celebrates 1/26th the number of sports. All this for one sport? You may as well have people dressed as tortoises on stilts to celebrate the opening of a restaurant that only sells toast.
Watching the footage, I’d hazard the ceremony’s theme was Everything That Died To Make This Happen, considering all the anthropomorphised flowers, grass, some weird jellyfish children and the Lord of the Rings-style Ents. Sadly, these weren’t angry Ents tearing the place down: these were docile, domesticated Ents, their free will driven from them, condemned to dance on the graves of their friends for our entertainment.
The ceremony continued in its determination to ape the nativity scene from Love Actually, when some football Power Rangers entered the pitch-cum-portal to Michel Gondry’s mind palace. Presumably just when they’re about to lose a match they combine to form a giant dinosaur made out of goal posts and linesmen.
Then Jennifer Lopez, Claudia Leitte, and Pitbull in the pants of a giant pensioner emerged from a massive mahogany football sphincter to sing the smash hit “Wummwuffwummwum”. Actually who knows what the words were? Clearer sounds have come from a marshmallow trumpet underwater. Jennifer Lopez at least tried to prove she was making her own sounds by deviating from the backing track of whales having seizures, with the occasional “raise your hands!”
I wonder if anyone experiences a brief pang of self-awareness at these spectacles? I mean, would a crossword fanatic ever think “Yeah, this makes sense” if they were to gaze down at a gargantuan stadium filled with pouncing acrobats in word costumes. Perhaps there could be a giant animatronic newspaper unfurling to reveal Rihanna and Kanye West yelling at the crowd “things are about to get cryptic people!” before launching into the cruciverbalist anthem When I’m Down You’re Across Me?
Of course that would never happen. That would be ridiculous.
Best non-opening ceremony of the week: If you fancy an alternative to the World Cup, then try Shark girl, currently available on iView. Honest, eye-opening, and full of heart, this encounter with a 14-year-old conservationist will make you wonder whether the planet has become full of Benjamin Buttons, with adults behaving like children and common sense coming from the far wiser youngsters.
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