Un-bee-coming

I just caught the end of the world (international? english language?) spelling bee. As my regular readers probably have already surmised, I have a bit of conspiracy theorist in me, but I swear the end of that prime time spectacle was as fixed and just plain wrong as a Bush "town meeting." The final 2 competitors came down to two girls (way to go girls!!!), one blonde Jersey girl and one brunette Asian-Canadian. Well, they were both cruising along with relatively (for them, not for me!!!) easy words, but word length and obscurity started tipping slightly against the Canuck.

And then she was hit with a fucking German word: weltschmerz. That in itself is fine I guess (although I thought it was english language?!). But as soon as that word was announced, you could hear, where there hadn't been before in any previous rounds, a steady and fast series of clicks just off-camera. As the camera panned out a little you could see the battery of cameramen and photographers snapping away with machine-gun abandon, smelling, or perhaps even willing, that peculiarly cruel moment of not knowing; inevitably followed by the elevator-easy-volume-buzz of failure. I could see the look of defeat seep into her eyes as the barrage of clicks continued to grow. She could tell that all these strangers, only a couple feet from her, expected her to lose, maybe even wanted her to lose.

Was it American Pride taken to a cruel and totally unbelievable level? Was it a latent desire to have a "more American" looking kid win? Afterall, I think 5 out the last 7 competitions were won by Indian-Americans. Maybe not consciously, but I don't think there is any doubt that those photographers and the idiots that set-up, commercialized and whored out these brilliant and still innocent young people engaging in, at its core, a competitive learning exercise, effected the outcome. I believe both these girls are around 14 years old (8th grade?) and here they were having possibly their most vulnerable and brave moments and feelings broadcast upclose on national television to millions of perfect strangers all in the name of profit.

That just felt wrong to me, although I must admit I could not turn away once I stumbled on it at such a opportunely consumer-friendly time. I feel sort of guilty for having peeked in on this. This kind of pro-educational activity, involving bright young kids and serious competition should not be nationally televised. Let these kids win the prestigious awards and make mistakes and feel the ups and downs of competition, but not in front of such a wide and casual audience. But then maybe I'm just a rain-on-their-parade prude afterall... :-)