Watch List – July 22-28: Olympics. Gymnastics. That Girl.

That Girl (Peacock)

Boy oh boy do I relate to Ann Marie (yes, that is her last name). But I do not like the men in her life, especially her boyfriend Don Hollandaise (his actual last name is Hollinger, but I don’t like him so he gets a mean nickname).

He’s a terrible boyfriend and Mickey and I have taken to yelling “Dump the Don” the instant Ann gets any kind of close to showing unhappiness with Don.

But inevitably, before the end of each 30-minute episode, Ann is back with dumb old Donald and no matter who was at fault, SHE is apologizing to him. It’s infuriating and I can totally see how and why I was raised the way I was.

This was a progressive show for its time. The main character is a single girl, following a career dream in the big city. She has a boyfriend, but doesn’t have interest in marriage at the moment.

Her dad is always popping up unnanounced and complaining about Don being at Ann’s apartment. When she calls him “daddy” it honestly sounds quite creepy.

Ann is always being sexualized, by both the characters onscreen and the directors and writers. There is one director that definitely has a fetish for her crawling around on the ground with her ass in the air.

And then there’s the firemen/policemen/doctors/agents/coworkers/strangers that hit on her in situations where Ann’s just trying to live her life. When she doesn’t say yes to them, she does it in a way that sees her apologizing and still having to leave them feeling like there is some kind of hope.

You know so their egos don’t get bruised.

This show does a lot of protecting the male ego.

I think next week I might focus on one episode and really break it down. We shall see.

P-Valley (Starz or Amazon Prime)

I am a little sad that attendance has been low on my ‘P-Valley’ Sunday discussions. We’ve had amazing guests every week – last week we even had an extra from the show. Plus, we’re talking about some really important topics.

I sound a bit sad here but I am quite happy that we’re doing it still. Sundays have been my favorite day of the week lately.

Other

Paris 2024 Olympic Opening Ceremonies

As an art piece, I think the opening ceremonies were astounding.

As an opening ceremony, I think they were just eh. Not great, Bob, as they say.

And I have a single question that is at the root of that “eh” reaction.

That question is: Who were the opening ceremonies for? Seriously. Think about it.

Were they for the athletes? Doubtful – they were stuck on boats of varying sizes hopefully not getting seasick on the Seine while the performances went on around them. That would be like expecting someone on a float in a parade to get something out of the sidelines. It’s just not happening, yo.

Okay, then the next question is.. were the ceremonies for the folks in Paris who got to watch them? This doesn’t seem right either, because a lot of the performances took place right on the riverbank – which must have looked like ants from across the way.

Which leads me to understand that these opening ceremonies were for the TV viewers and that makes me sad. I love it when TV lets us peek in on something that is already happening – as a spectator. I don’t like when the TV (where millions of ad dollars are being exchanged) dictates the event we, the TV viewers, are simply lucky enough to view.

This makes me feel like an old. I feel like it’s just another money grab for people who already have so much money and that makes me sad.

I took some notes yesterday and I thought those notes would include the number of the boats, but Peacock didn’t show them consistently enough for me to catch them all. I looked it up, though. There were 85.

I would have loved to been a fly on the wall in the meetings where they decided which teams went on which boats. Why did some small nations have a single tiny boat and others found themselves shoved between two much larger nations? It’s just a fascinating thing to do – like the seating chart at a wedding between families who don’t really love each other.

Of course, Gojira and Marie Antionette were the best parts. Followed up by Celine and the hot air balloon torch.

I was kind of in awe of the balloon torch, so I read up some more on it today. It is the first Olympic cauldron to stay lit without the use of fossil fuels.

Also, it only floats in the air from dusk until 2am. During the day, folks can get free tickets to get up close and personal with it. That’s actually kind of cool.

Here are some random other thoughts I had while watching:

I hated that there were Minions in my olympics.

Gradients were hot in the parade of nations fashions this year.

Where does Snoop get his Paris ouid?

There were a couple of countries that looked like they just got off a shift at Blockbuster.

I wanted to see more of that runway show.

The fire rock moving down the river was cool.

Mechanical River Horse is pretty neat, too.

NADIA COMANECE!!!!!!!

Okay, now onto the competition. Yeehaw.

2024 Paris Olympics Gymnastics

I woke up at 5am on Sunday to watch the Women’s Gymnastics qualifiers and I’m so glad I did.

Not only did I get to see athletes I already love kicking ass and taking names (looking at you Rebecca Andrade and Suni Lee), but I got to watch a bunch of folks compete that wouldn’t normally get TV time.

Here are some lesser-known gymnasts I loved discovering on Sunday:

Luisa Blanco – Colombia

With parents who immigrated from Colombia before she was born, Luisa was a gymnast for Alabama and pretty much crushed it. She has a mad amount of personality. On her final night of college competition, she scored a perfect 10 (the college comps still use that old-school scoring system).

She clinched the final spot in the all-around final, so maybe we’ll see her Sunday too!

Hillary Heron – Panama

Another electric performer, Hillary Heron fell in love with gymnastics while watching the 2008 Olympics. She was born in Panama and is the 2023 South American Champion. She was also the only other person in the qualifying round to attempt one of the vaults named after Simone Biles. And she pulled it off… with a 13.650.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to advance her to the individual apparatus competition on Friday, so this is the last time we’ll see her this Olympics, but I’m keeping an eye on her.

Lynzee Brown – Haiti

She was Haiti’s very first artistic gymnast at the Olympics, ever. For her first time out, she did pretty damn awesome. She served as the flag bearer for Haiti during the flotilla of nations this year.

During the qualifying round, she scored the highest all-around score of her career.