M/C Reviews: ‘Outing’ TV in the Olympic City

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Bit 1		All right, I'll admit it. I am one of those people who, despite being 'over' the Olympics before they even began, have found myself watching more of the coverage than I had anticipated. Of course we have all been repeatedly urged by SOCOG to buy tickets for this "once in a lifetime" "opportunity", being duly warned that to miss it would be something we'd regret for the rest of our lives. Despite - or perhaps because of - these appeals to discourses of 'being there,' I have become interested in Sydney viewers' consumption of the free-to-air television coverage, in particular the way that the Olympics broadcast has brought viewers out into public spaces. One of the products of this consumption has been to engender a different order of experience from that normally enjoyed before the television, which I will suggest is evident in the particular engagements with television during the period, as well as the (frequently social) contexts in which the broadcast is viewed.
Bit 2		The Games are made for television. Indeed, it could be argued that they are even more a televisual event than a live one. Ruth Ritchie, one of Fairfax's television commentators, said as much in her column last Saturday: I had really good seats for the opening ceremony and I was at the pool last Saturday night. Sorry. I was close enough to smell that lone horseman as he thundered into the stadium. I could nearly touch Betty Cuthbert and Raelene Boyle and I was right there when Nikki Webster flew through the air like Tinkerbell in a sundress. I Aussie-Aussie-Aussie, oi-oi-oi-ed through the breaking of five world records, Ian Thorpe's 400m gold and the best race anyone has ever seen, the 100m freestyle relay. I tell you this, not to make you spew with envy, but to confess to missing out on some of the most thrilling television of all time, by actually being there (Ritchie). Though Ritchie's 'confession' inverts the scale on which such matters are generally ordered - whereby 'being there' is considered preferable to watching it on TV - this should not be taken to indicate that the prestige of presence is waning. As a rhetorical ploy, it allows her to trade on this prestige (of having 'been there') while simultaneously turning the discussion to television. The question is not whether watching the Olympics on television is as good as being there, though it is interesting to note that large screens are used even within the stadium to give spectators a (televised) feel for what is going on, with close-up shots of athletes' faces and edited, narrated footage of past finals and the like. Rather, what is interesting is the way that the coverage of these Olympics has fostered new types of televisual engagement, turning spectators into participants.
Bit 3		The penetration of the Olympics television coverage has been quite extraordinary. There have been televisions on in venues where they have never been seen before (other than perhaps for that one day of the year, the Melbourne Cup), certainly spaces where the television has never been on for two weeks straight. A friend has told of being drawn to watch finals at the shopping centre and of diners turning their chairs to better see, during a meal at a moderately upmarket restaurant. And this is not to mention the 'City Live' sites, where huge screens have been erected especially for the Games, for people to go and watch the competition and catch the various free entertainment and performances that are also on at these sites. To walk into a public space and not find a set blaring out the current standings has become the exception.
Bit 4		While much of the Channel Seven coverage has focussed heavily on Australian competitors, capitalising on the patriotic potential of winning moments, it is not these aspects which concern me here. I am more interested in how the reception of the Olympic broadcast challenges a number of widespread assumptions about television - its individualistic focus, the alleged passivity and presumed anti-social nature of watching television. John Docker addresses these assumptions, finding both continuities and discontinuities between television and Mikhail Bakhtin's account of carnival. He writes, It's undoubtedly true that in the twentieth century a great deal of popular culture has left the public street and marketplace, where it enjoyed itself for centuries, well into the nineteenth century, and proceeded indoors, into the cinema and then the living room featuring the TV set. Such change can (however) be exaggerated… (Docker, 275) Docker argues that television is in fact quite a participatory medium, with many popular shows gaining a degree of interaction which differs from a medium such as film. During the two week sporting blitz of the Olympics, this participation and interaction are rendered larger than ever, as viewers crowd around televisions in closed off streets, parks and other public spaces, enjoying the emotional highs and lows in a more communal fashion than would otherwise be the case, and (speaking for myself) engaging with the action onscreen to a greater extent than in everyday televisual interactions.
Bit 5		Of course not everyone is interested. But the coverage has been seductive - even for non-sports fans - always providing something more. It has a certain endless quality to it: as soon as one event is over, there's another and another to get involved in. The awareness that the events are happening close by seems to make viewing more compulsive, almost irrespective of event, because audiences know it is happening locally and (at least supposed to be) happening now. Though certain races have been heavily promoted as the times to tune in - the 'must sees' so far including the men's 1500m swimming final, for the much vaunted contest between Kieren Perkins and Grant Hackett, and Cathy Freeman's 400m run - the willingness to get involved has been evident across most sports, as I discovered when another friend offered me her ticket to the athletics last Saturday: I totally underestimated just how excited a crowd could get about the hammer-throw.
Bit 6		There has definitely been a sense of occasion amongst the crowds in the city the last week and a half, though this also seems to have been edged with a degree of uncertainty regarding just what the occasion means and how it should be celebrated. In this context, the big screens at the 'City Live' sites - the communal television hubs of Sydney at the moment - have provided a focal point for a social, Games 'experience'. Just as I thought I was beginning to tire of the swimming last week, I got caught up in the action at Belmore Park, where a thousand or more people were seated before such a screen gearing up to watch finals. It was extraordinary not so much because of the outcomes of the events, but for the bizarre fact that so many total strangers were watching television together in a park. During the swimming it felt like a mini United Nations (or at least the First World contingent thereof): as competitors were progressively introduced, various sections of the crowd would erupt, with cheers, whistles, flag-waving and applause. First the Dutch, then the Americans, Japanese, and some Swedes over the far side. Of course, being a home crowd there was a huge roar whenever an Australian came anywhere near a camera. But there was also a depth to the crowd that thankfully exceeded the inevitable chorus of "Aussie Aussie Aussie…"; a spatial sense of different national supporters, tangible evidence that this really was an international meet, at which not everyone was barracking for the same team. But this makes it all sound very serious, when it wasn't. Support wasn't just reserved for winners, everyone got a clap. And mostly, people were there to have a good time, to show support but also to generally carry on and get carried away, enjoying the freedom to spontaneously yahoo at the tele, wave their hands, clap and be involved.
Bit 7		The enthusiasm was infectious. As I watched various matches and races later in the week at home, I found myself verbally willing teams and competitors on, exclaiming out loud at skilful hockey manoeuvres and dirty water-polo tactics alike. Though I frequently talk to the television, it generally pertains to gaping holes in news broadcasts, or sending up the stupid questions some journalists ask. Though I'll never become a sports lover, the burst of Olympic fever has meant that I no longer feel quite so stupid or self-conscious getting sucked in during intense sporting moments. Indeed, I was somewhat dismayed at how remote the action all seemed by comparison on my one trip to the stadium: it was not just that my seat was way up in the 'nosebleeds,' but that there was less of a feel of involvement amongst that crowd than the one in my local Italian pizzeria where I'd left off eating my pizza at the waiter's behest to watch Australia win gold in the men's relay, along with the rest of the patrons.
Bit 8		Summarising the objections of those who could not see the point in his project comparing twentieth-century popular culture with carnival in early modern Europe, Docker writes, Carnival, my interlocutors would observe, took place in the streets, squares, marketplaces of a past era, it was made by the people themselves for themselves, whereas television, I surely didn't need reminding, was made for people by large media companies, and was received by people in their private homes, a feature of twentieth-century society, where they could be spectators only, with no possibility of participating, and where they were obviously cut off from their fellow viewers. They could not be part of the sensuous body of carnival, of a collective festive experience…(273-4) Perhaps someone had better tell that to the revellers intent on enjoying the rest of the week's competition.

Bit 9		References Ritchie, Ruth. "Memories on a loop for life," The Sydney Morning Herald. 23 September 2000. Docker, John. Postmodernism and Popular Culture: A Cultural History. Cambridge, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge UP, 1994.

Bit 10		Citation reference for this article MLA style: Melanie Swalwell. "‘Outing’ TV in the Olympic City" M/C Reviews 18 Oct. 2000. [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/reviews/features/olympic/swalwell.html>. Chicago style: Melanie Swalwell, "‘Outing’ TV in the Olympic City," M/C Reviews 18 Oct. 2000, <http://www.api-network.com/mc/reviews/features/olympic/swalwell.html> ([your date of access]). APA style: Melanie Swalwell. (2000) ‘Outing’ TV in the Olympic City. M/C Reviews 18 Oct. 2000. <http://www.api-network.com/mc/reviews/features/olympic/swalwell.html> ([your date of access]).

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	‘Outing’ TV in the Olympic City Melanie Swalwell
		18 Oct. 2000