I am shaped entirely by pop culture. I believe every baseball game should parallel each one shown in A League of Their Own. I want every figure skating pair to fall in love like in The Cutting Edge. I want Cool Runnings to screen behind every bobsledding competition. And therefore, these are the things I want to see during the Winter Olympics (which begin tomorrow). If they do not, I consider us all to have lost.
- I want to see a figure skating couple fall in love on the ice like in The Cutting Edge. I do not want to see an existing couple. I do not want to see two people who get along. I do not want to see two best friends. I want to see a recreation of the gold winning move in The Cutting Edge that ends when we realize they’ve been in love the whole time, and they’re arguing has been an elaborate front. I don’t care what country they represent. I don’t care whether or not they’re even good. I want to see a soap opera play out on the ice, and I want someone (anyone) to yell, “toe pick.”
- I want to see everybody stand up and say “quack” while flapping their arms like during the last-ish scene in The Mighty Ducks. I don’t care if ducks or birds are unrelated to the country or the team name. I just want to see this.
- Cool Runnings. I want to watch this film. And then I want it to happen in real life, but without the bobsled breaking.
- I would like Tonya Harding to have a tribute paid to her. I am obsessed with I, Tonya and with the related 30 for 30 and if somebody doesn’t skate to “Gloria” while channeling the majesty of 1994, then the Olympics will be a complete disgrace as far as I’m concerned.
- I would like a panel in which people like me compare every competition with a movie we think it relates to best. And then those people would also win medals because it takes a lot of work to know this much about pop culture, and it’s about time for it to be recognized on the world stage.
- I would like to see an amalgamation of every movie about skiing that exists. I have seen none of these, but I assume some people have, and it’s unfair not to include them, so here you go.
- I would like the snowboarding finals to feature a mystery athlete; an athlete so good that no one can believe it. The announcers would say, “Where did she come from?” and everybody would watch in awe. Then, after completing her gold medal run, she’d take off her helmet and it would be me. I have surprised everybody. I am an athlete. I am the athlete.
- Until I skate a perfect long program and become the first person in the world to do this without ever having practiced. Which is when Leonardo DiCaprio would finally notice me, and we would play ourselves in a movie about our lives.
Happy Winter Olympics to us all!
