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 The highlighting of America
Posted: Wednesday June 02, 1999 11:56 AM
Boring. The one word that everyone in sport fears -- and hears. Boring. That's boring. That's really boring. Soccer is boring. Running the football is boring. Pete Sampras is so boring. Nothing else matters, if the fans -- especially the young fans -- find it ... boring. Tony Gwynn was trying to explain the other day why so few African-Americans play baseball anymore. Well, he said, baseball is perceived as boring. That's all. Tony Gwynn himself is the greatest hitter of our time. Plus, he's a gentleman of the first order. He took a breath. "I'm boring," he explained. Nobody wants to see such a boring genius. But, on the other hand ... Because Mike Tyson is a total loose cannon, he is not boring. Can't box, but promoters were lined up to vie for his next fight as soon as Iron Mike got out of jail the other day. Wrestling is scripted, so it is never boring -- and setting ratings records by the day. TV networks can't get enough wrestling. Neither is Shaquille O'Neal boring. He plays the Jolly Green Giant on the court, with slam dunks that are always called "awesome." All season long, NBC showed Shaq's Lakers team to the exclusion of all others. But free throws are boring. Practicing free throws is even more boring. So, Shaq's team got whipped by the San Antonio Spurs, whose stars, Tim Duncan and David Robinson, are complete, solid, team-oriented players. Yeah, boring. Nobody wants to see them just win games. I'm convinced that a large reason for this burgeoning attitude is the highlights on TV -- which fill up the local sports reports and the network roundups on ESPN, CNN/SI and Fox. Highlights consist of holes-in-one, hockey fights, automobile-race crashes and desperation basketball shots taken from halfcourt at the buzzer that go in. In slow motion. Naturally, if you grow up watching game highlights, actual games are boring. And unfortunately, I'm afraid that this is also starting to become true in other aspects of our life. The highlighting of America. If you'll notice, the main thing we hear about the presidential candidates is simply that they are boring. Except, of course, President Clinton isn't. Like Shaq and wrestling, he's always had good highlights. That's the key. And I'm sorry, but an air war does not have good highlights. And whereas everybody said that the Academy Award-winning movie, Shakespeare in Love, proved that everybody adored the Bard, Shakespeare in Love was basically just a Shakespeare highlight film. Of course nobody's going to see William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream now. It's not as good as the Shakespeare highlights. In Shakespeare in Love you didn't have to sit through all the boring stuff. You just got the good quotes, like " Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou?" and a dandy sword fight, plus you got to see Shakespeare's girlfriend rolling around in bed naked. Stupid Shakespeare never once had Portia or Ophelia or Lady Macbeth naked. I'm telling you, as a Shakespeare highlight film, Shakespeare in Love is the worst thing that could have ever happened to the real Shakespeare. Now, his plays will forever be boring. And so that you won't have to hear this whole boring thing again, here is the highlight reel from this commentary: Mike Tyson is out of jail. Wrestling ratings. Shaq dunks. Awesome. Holes-in-one. Hockey fights. Crash. At the buzzer, from midcourt. Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou? Sword fight. Awesome. Rolling around in bed naked. Innn ... sloooowwww ... motionnnnn. These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by CNN/SI.
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