I have never actually seen or read any news coverage of this event, other than just watching it on ESPN, so I can not comment on how it is covered.
As I say, it is not professional wrestling, by which I mean there are real competitive eaters who make money doing it (the winner of the Nathan's 4th of July event gets $20K, and I wouldn't be surprised if Çhestnut and others have some kind of endorsement deals). ESPN seems clearly to me to have approached this even with the production mindset of the Ocho covering Dodgeball - they use a self-conscious exaggeration which is just south of ironic. I don't know how it is intended, but in our house for the last 10 years or so it has served an an annual send-up of the hyper-seriousness with which sports are covered (something that in my house the men are very prone to forget) and more generally as a critique of the bloated and wasteful aspects of American culture on a day that America is typically celebrated simplistically and uncritically most everywhere else. On Sun, Jul 6, 2014 at 4:12 AM, JW <[email protected]> wrote: > > The tongue for this event is at least 3/4 of the way in its > > cheek (there is a hot dog eating joke in there somewhere I suppose); its > > not professional wrestling, it has more the feel of something between > "Best > > in Show" and "Dodgeball". > > If ESPN gets this right, good for them. Pretty much everyone who puts > together a newscast, be it network or local, seems to think it's actual > news, though. Not to pick on Bob, but even his post that started this > thread read like it mattered. > > -- > -- > TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "TV or Not TV" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
