Long before the Opening Ceremonies on Friday,
Olympic fervor has been rising steadily, with that topic more and more the main
news coverage of the day. Don’t know if you’re aware of it or not but the Brits
are terribly nationalistic, and no better place for that to shine than in the
good clean fight of competition: Citius
(faster), Altius (higher), Fortius (stronger)! Ads of Olympic sponsors are
plastered everywhere you look. (See photos below.)
The very first visual reference I came across
regarding the Olympics, with the exception of the magazines I had flipped
through on the way over, was on the posters of the official mascots I walked
past in the airport terminal -- Wenlock, representing the Olympics, and
Mandeville, symbolizing the Paralympics.
According to the official Olympic website both
Wenlock and Mandeville were created to have interesting features that reflect elements of the Olympics, the Paralympics
and London itself. For instance Wenlock’s round head symbolizes the three
medals won in each Olympic event, while the three prongs on Mandeville’s head embody
the three parts of the Paralympic emblem. The five colours of the Olympic rings
on Wenlock’s arm bands correspond with the five colours of the Olympic rings,
while Mandeville’s tail and hands are aerodynamic to represent “Spirit In
Motion,” the Paralympic motto. Both have
a center top light reflecting a similar one found on London’s black taxis, and they
are twins in the fact that each has the face of a single eye that is actually a
video camera, “so they can record everything they see.”
The name Wenlock was inspired by Much Wenlock, a small town in
Shropshire, where in 1890, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, later to be known as
the father of the modern Olympic games, came to visit Dr. William Penny
Brookes, an advocate of physical education in schools. De Coubertin watched Dr.
Brookes' ‘Much Wenlock Games’, comprised of athletics and traditional country
sports with a procession of flag bearers, competitors and officials. In 1894,
de Coubertin’s proposal to establish the Olympic Games in a present day form
was approved and the first of the present day Olympic Games were
held in Athens two years later.
On the flip side, the
name Mandeville was inspired by the work of pioneering neurologist Professor
Sir Ludwig Guttmann at Stoke Mandeville hospital. Sir Ludwig came up with the
revolutionary idea of using sports as a key element of rehabilitation for World
War II soldiers with spinal injuries. During the 1948
Olympic Games held in London, with a vision of a “parallel Olympics” for disabled
athletes, a sporting competition was held in Stoke Mandeville for 16 paralyzed men and women - the Stoke Mandeville Games for wheelchair
athletes. Four years later, competitors from the Netherlands joined in,
sparking the beginnings of an international competition. By 1960, a Games for athletes with a
disability took place at the Rome Olympics and the modern Parallel Olympics -
or Paralympics - were born.
Here’s a British tabloid take on
the 2012 mascots:
Aliens have taken over London and the
invasion is gathering pace. First it was YouTube
clips, then appearances with the mayor. Now they're on the
shelves of every corner shop and immortalized in statues across the city. Or at
least that's how visitors to the Olympics might imagine the futuristic,
one-eyed creatures plastered on everything from key rings to double-decker
buses.
They
are of course London 2012's Olympic and Paralympic mascots -- Wenlock and
Mandeville. And with the Games just days away you'd better get used to seeing a
whole lot more of that giant eyeball. With their metallic bodies, built-in
cameras and sci-fi genetics, it's an ambitious design aimed at the digital age.
But does it work? Are these
otherworldly creatures the cutting edge of design or just plain creepy? Described as everything from “a
drunken one-night stand between a Teletubby and a Dalek,” to having “just the right balance of digital zeitgeist and cheeky
playfulness,” it
seems people still aren't quite sure what to make of London 2012's mascots.
The Olympic mascot has always been aimed at children -- and
the wallets of their parents. But it's also an embodiment of the host city's
personality and a lasting legacy of its Games.
Driving all of
this is a massive merchandise operation. Sure, Wenlock and Mandeville need to
look good -- but they also need to sell. LOCOG are hoping to make £80 million
($124 million) from merchandise sales alone. "I think
they started as a pretty ambitious pair with real potential to be used across a
new medium -- social media. But I don't think they've pulled it off completely," said Mark Sinclair, Deputy editor of London design magazine, Creative Review. "I don't think people have been able to warm to them because
they're kind of severe looking with this massive eye. Maybe that's what's
alienated people because they can't quite get a handle on what they are. They're
missing a little bit of soul."
But
maybe that's just the response from an "older, stuffier generation," Wenlock
and Mandeville’s co-designer Grant Hunter quipped. Supposedly created out of
magical droplets of steel left over from the Olympic Stadium, every element of their design is laden with symbolism. The taxi lights on their heads refer to London's black cabs
and their origins from a steel melting pot are likened to multicultural
Britain. Their distinctive giant eyes even supposedly
have built-in cameras to record their experiences. Though in a country with one
of the highest number of CCTV cameras (*more about this interesting phenomenon in a later entry*) in the world, this particular symbolism
may be a little too close to home.
*
* *
“Looks like a giant eyeball to me,” were the exact words I used when Dave, who Richard had arranged to pick me up and drive me to Grimsby from the Manchester airport, asked what I thought of his country’s Olympic representatives. Of course, that was WAY in the beginning – long before I had had the chance to understand what “those giant eyeballs” were all about or to appreciate the unique role for which they were created.
Fostering an enthusiasm for sports while reflecting the Olympic and Paralympic values was a large part of this year’s school curriculum through a friendly competition known as the Get Set Education programme. Katya and her mom told me about the many different activities that were hosted at their schools. As well, kids all over the land learned the On a Rainbow song, similar to the quintessential, annual Wasatch Patriotic program that every Satch student grows up expecting to learn and perform once they’ve arrived at 5th grade. Watch a very fun, animated rendition of On a Rainbow, where Wenlock and Mandeville are first created and come to life: (www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYLpp_BUn_o) Soon you’ll be singing along, and your kids will like it, too! (On a related school note, as this was the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year {That means she has reigned for six decades. Can you imagine the change that has taken place in that length of time -- in England? In the world?!} school children participated in a variety of activities, had tea parties and put up bunting, learned and performed patriotic songs. On a small island, where every school child wears a uniform, and there is an official religion, and a queen, one’s school experience has got to be very different from the one we’re used to. For one, everything is much more scripted. The official website honoring this distinguished occasion is pretty fun. For the inquisitive reader, learn much more at www.diamondjubilee.org. It has such a contemporary design for what is a fairly solemn subject; it really amazes me!)
Martin and Leah, with three sleepy kids in tow, arrived around 8:30 this evening. Oh, boy, was I glad to see them! You cannot begin to imagine how precious it was to me to hear a familiar voice and look into the face of a kindred spirit. (You might easily interpret this to mean that I had become homesick. However, that is not the case. It more involved an unexpected and unexplained adversarial situation that had developed in the short time I had been in Grimsby between the person with whom I had come to live and me.
Photos_
1- Olympic Google doodle
2- Olympic sponsors in your neighborhood:
@ my bank
3- on the side of a bus
4- on a truck
5- Olympic and Paralympic Happy Meal toy series
6- English page boy, Dutch doll, and Scottish bab(short a)bee
