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News, information and stories about the Olympic Games.

Tuesday 18 January 2005

Tyranny of The Minority

A few complaints, by a handful of prudish US viewers, that the Athens Olympics opening ceremony featured lewd nudity has caused a minor eruption in Athens.



Gianna Angelopoulos, the Olympic Games chief, has warned American regulators (the FCC) to keep their noses out of others' affairs.



The complaints centre on the opening ceremony parade of actors, portraying naked statues. These included Satyr and the nude Kouros male statues, both symbols of ancient Greece.



The problem is that NBC broadcast these; and a minority of people who cover chair legs, lest they arouse unclean thoughts, have complained.



Around 3.5BN people watched the opening ceremony, it would be an absurdity for the FCC to impose the views of a cultural minority.



As Angelopoulos said:



"As Americans surely are aware, there is great hostility in the world today to cultural domination in which a single value system created elsewhere diminishes and degrades local cultures....In this context, it is astonishingly unwise for an agency of the U.S. government to engage in an investigation that could label a presentation of the Greek origins of civilization as unfit for television viewing."



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