Someone at NBC Apparently Approved This Creepy, Porny Video of Female Olympians [Video]

Have you barfed yet today? Get thee to a drain of some kind before watching this video the pervs over at NBC have put together in order to show their appreciation for Olympic bodies of the 2012 London Games. Unfortunately, to NBC, showcasing the "Bodies in Motion" of the XXX Olympiad means taking footage of conventionally attractive female athletes competing in sports that require them to be scantily clad, slowing it way down as the camera lovingly caresses their butts, breasts, and bouncing ponytails, and playing some soft core porn music over it. Apparently NBC is too busy focusing on jiggling ladies' asses to notice ladies kicking ass.

You'd think that something called "Bodies in Motion" wouldn't be code for "Rejected bumper reel from The Man Show," but I guess I'm not plugged in to the hip, with it language of the youths nowadays or on board with the notion that Olympic bodies are at their most noteworthy when they're female, (mostly) white, stereotypically feminine, and thin. At least NBC's contribution to Boner Jams 2012 doesn't include any underage gymnasts.

Not every moment in the 2 and a half minute-long fap fest (which NBC innocently describes as "Spiking a volleyball, jumping off the starting block, and everything in-between. Check out these bodies in motion during the Olympic Games.") is totally gross; footage of the runners clearing hurdles is a beautiful showcase of Olympians competing in the moment for which they've spent their lives preparing. But what's the point of slowed down shots of beponytailed runners jumping up and down and blowing kisses to the crowd? Of tennis players' asses as they just stand there waiting for a serve or beach volleyball players as they encouragingly smack each other on the rear? What's with the bizarre fixation on the female ass as it clears the high bar? And what in the name of Olympian fuck is going on between 1:36 and 1:41, when one semi-anonymous field hockey ass is shown diving and flexing very slowly?

NBC's quest to win the gold medal in the sexist pig decathlon is especially disappointing when you consider the dozens of more worthwhile stories they could be showcasing with video. For example, American women have basically been carrying the medal count for Team USA; ladies are responsible for 23 of the country's 33 gold medals, and without ladies or swimming, America would only have three golds. America's women's soccer team is set to face Japan today in a rematch of the 2011 World Cup Final, which promises to be an incredible game. Where are the women's boxing highlight reels? What about women's weight lifting? What about any sport that doesn't bare midriffs, décolletage, ass cheek bottoms? Was the network having a contest to see which video producer could patch together the most embarrassingly juvenile highlight reel?

The abject inability of some Olympic photographers to refrain from objectifying female beach volleyball players is well-documented, and of course it would be naive if I didn't expect at least a few lone horndogs to make their own slow-mo Olympian appreciation videos (Lochte fans have made plenty of appreciative gifs of the swimmer, for example). But NBC is the official US broadcaster of the Olympic games; for most Americans, the only way to watch what's going on in London. And seeing a TV network treating world-class athletes as little more than tributes to boners is incredibly dismaying.

[NBC]

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Adorable Cheetah Cubs Get Named After America's Fastest Olympians [Squee]

Aug 7, 2012 10:00 AM  

The pair of three-month-old cheetah cubs that — in all of their fuzzy, squeeful glory — have recently made their public debut at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. have finally been given names thanks to the fastest American sprinters at the 2012 Summer Olympics. The spotted duo will henceforth be known as Carmelita and Justin, as in Carmelita Jeter, who won silver in the women's 100m, clocking in at 10.78 seconds, and Justin Gatlin, who won bronze with a time of 9.79 seconds in the men's 100m.

We've done the conversions here at Jezebel HQ and have discovered — after hours of painstaking calculations — that having one baby cheetah named after you is worth approximately 1 million gold medals. Safe to say that Jeter and Gatlin are coming out of this as winners.

[Salon]

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So How Much of An Impact Will Saudi's Female Olympians Have On Gender Equality? Apparently Not a Lot [Olympics]

Saudi Arabia's decision to send women to the London Olympics for the first time this year lasted right up to the wire vis a vis ongoing talks with the International Olympic Committee, finally reaching the decision to the affirmative just two weeks ago. It was only to be expected that the first sight of Saudi Arabian female Olympians, Wojdan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shaherkani and Sarah Attar, marching behind the nation's men during the opening ceremony of the games, would spark a rabid and polarizing Twitter war. The conservative half posted under a hashtag that would translate in English to #Olympic_Whores.

One should not hesitate to describe their participation as shameful and a great sin.

Whores of the Olympics...They want to run so that they intentionally fall down and reveal (their figures).

But supporters immediately infiltrated the hashtag to voice their pride in Shaherkani and Attar, one of whom asserted that it was a step in the right direction: "Next we'll be carrying the flag and walking side by side, equal." The movement is, in fact, part of a larger, tentative movement to give women more of a voice that has been going on under the reign of King Abdullah, known as a reformer: last year plans were launched to allow women to vote in municipal council elections and join the consultative council, and some of the clerics under Abdullah who criticized these reform plans have been fired for it.

The technical aspects and seeming minutia of the women's participation in the Games is being played by ear; while a Saudi official said that the women would be wearing hijabs or Islamic headscarves at all times, the International Judo Federation informed the press on Thursday that Shaherkani would have to fight without a head-covering to observe "the principle and spirit of judo."

But experts are downplaying the historical event; while gladly admitting it does set a precedent, Isobel Coleman, a senior fellow on the Council of Foreign Relations, says "I wouldn't call it a major breakthrough. The decision to allow women to participate was fought by religious conservatives. It will not lead to any wholesale changes anytime soon."

Adds Christoph Wilcke, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, in slightly blunter terms:

It probably means very little. It is unlikely that the Saudi government or the Saudi sporting authorities of their own volition will make changes inside the country as a result of sending two women to the Olympics... "Everything in Saudi Arabia takes a long, long time. What I think this participation does is break a taboo and break a barrier, but I don't think that will lead to concrete changes led by the Saudi government.

What they do think the decision will accomplish, however, is the slow and gradual participation of more everyday Saudi Arabian women in athletics, which is good.

'Saudi Women's Olympics Debut 'Means Very Little' for Gender Equality, Experts Say' [US News]
'Olympics-Saudi women's Olympic march draws praise, blame' [Reuters]

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