Enough will be written about the Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony itself — about how the flying W Class tram symbolised Melbourne, and how the drag queen and the underage boy with a duck symbolised something else about Melbourne entirely — possibly something connected with the Chippendale with a koala’s head.
No, what interests me is the TV commentary on Channel 9 and what that reveals about the people involved… About their love of money in particular.
Bucket Time (Briefly)
Thankfully the most Purple of Prose was limited to the introductory voice-over, before the ceremony proper started. Carpe diem was the theme:
“The moment must be seized now or it will be lost forever,” we were told. The Commonwealth Games are “a sporting birthright, a reminder of who we are… We love winning, and even more than that we love winning at home. Starting tonight in Melbourne, this is the chance of a lifetime.”
The Australian women’s swimming team is “a generation to be savoured and revered”. And then we were introduced to “the faces we’ve seen but don’t really know”, before seeing token pictures of entrants in other sports.
After that, the script descended into Commentary By Numbers — a recitation of data that’s meant to inspire us: 71 countries, 4000 athletes, 13 days, 52,546 hamburgers, 8,302 shoelaces.
Memo to Channel 9: Numbers do not inspire people, emotions do.
Thankfully we heard the phrase “quintessential Australian icon” only once.
Ray Martin’s Dollar Fetish
Channel 9 wheeled out veterans Ray Martin and Liz Hayes as their commentary team.
Now male-female pairs are common enough. They represent Everyman and Everywoman, and perform different roles. One will take care of the left-brain stuff like facts, figures, announcements of what’s coming up next, the other will be right-brain and talk about colour and emotion.
But last night Ray and Liz took it to extremes — and in doing so, revealed Ray Martin’s true motivator: money.
The first thing Ray had to say about the Games was that “they’ve spent half a billion dollars” tarting up Melbourne. Then immediately after Liz startled us with her emotional revelation (“All my bumps are goosed up!”) Ray was straight back to the filthy lucre, telling us that up next “we’ll be able to see where they spent the money.”
But Ray did reveal his caring and connected side. While describing the chain of symbolic fish running up the Yarra River, he told us that Australia was represented by an eel, “and that’s pretty much what the indigenous people used to eat of out the river at this time of the year”.
Another blow struck for Aboriginal Reconciliation.
Walking on Water
The power of Her Majesty’s Disco Stick inspired Australian Football League (AFL) legend Ron Barrassi to walk on water — looking for all the world like Charlton Heston.
But if Ron then Ascended the Blue Neon Disco Stairs like an American TV evangelist, only to be met by retired long-distance runner Herb Elliott — does that mean Herb Elliott is St Peter?
We couldn’t see for sure, because Ray’s hair had started to interfere with our digital TV reception.
