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Steve McQueen
British Olympic Committee (BOC): So, Mr. McQueen, we�re looking to rival Zhang Yimou�s extravaganza at the Beijing Olympics with something that really celebrates British culture and British contributions to humanity. What have you got for us?
Steve McQueen (SM): Alright, here�s my idea: Michael Fassbender stumbles onto the field, completely nude, caked in a layer of his own feces, and tearing at his flesh with his nails and teeth, so that there�s blood everywhere.
BOC: Uh, why would he be doing that?
SM: Because he�s suffering from extreme heroin withdrawal. He thinks he has spiders crawling beneath his skin. Fucking spiders, man!
BOC: And, uh, what does that have to do with British culture or, uh, the Olympic spirit?
SM: Nothing. It has nothing at all to do with all that middle-class middlebrow bullshit and everything to do with plumbing the abyss into which a human soul is capable of plunging. I call my show De Profundis, that�s From the Depths, in reference to the homosexual Oscar Wilde who was destroyed by the forces of the British establishment.
BOC: Mhm�
SM: Oh, also, I want to change the mascots. What are those two little one-eyed things you�ve got now?
BOC: Mandeville and Wenlock?
SM: Yeah, I want to replace them with an anthropomorphic piece of shit and Michael Fassbender�s scarified penis.
BOC: Jesus Christ, why scarified?
SM: Because he�s been using it to inject heroin. It was one of his few remaining delivery sights.
BOC: Ok. [pause] Thank you, Mr. McQueen, we�ll be in touch.
Ken Loach
BOC: Mr. Loach, you are one of our greatest living directors. What do you have for us?
Ken Loach (KL): Well, I want to set up a coal mining community at the center of the stadium.
BOC: Ok�
KL: And present the story of a young miner with an amazing athletic gift! He�s the best sprinter his industrial hellscape of a town has ever seen. And his greatest dream in life is to one day rise above his humble beginnings and compete at the Olympics!
BOC: Ok, that sounds inspirational and it sounds like a good embodiment of the Olympic spirit!
KL: But then tragedy strikes! He gets black lung!
BOC: He gets black lung?
KL: He works in one of these shitty, Thatcherite mines, what did you think would happen, he wouldn�tget black lung? So he gets black lung. And it�s like fucking emphysema. So he can�t run anymore.
BOC: He can�t?
KL: Nope, his dreams are crushed. And so he just stays in the mining community, and keeps going down into the mines, until one day there�s a mining explosion and his legs are blown off. And then he lingers for a few years before finally dying in a haze of despair, numbed only by his rampant alcoholism.
BOC: And� and you want to put this in the stadium?
KL: Yeah. So the whole world can see what life in modern Britain is really like!
BOC: Ok, thank you, Mr. Loach, we�ll be in touch.
Mike Leigh
BOC: Ok, Mr. Leigh, we�ve seen your movie Happy-Go-Lucky, and we think perhaps you could present a more, uh, optimistic take on British life?
Mike Leigh (ML): Actually, I really like Loach�s idea. Why aren�t you just doing that?
BOC: You liked that?
ML: Yeah. I think it�s honest. I mean, do we want to lie to the world about what life is really like in post-imperial, post-Thatcher Britain? We�re in a state of irrevocable decline and we have the social anomie to prove it. If you won�t go with Loach�s treatment, then here�s an idea: the 2011 riots. Just set off a riot inside the stadium. Or better yet, a bunch of CCTV monitors, set up in the center of the stadium, and showing the audience how they�re being spied on as they watch the ceremony. And then you can play the Beatles� �A Day in the Life� in the background. How about that?
BOC: Thank you, Mr. Leigh, we�ll be in contact.
Roger Waters
BOC: Mr. Waters, we appreciate your interest, but actually, we�re looking for filmmakers�
Roger Waters (RW): No, no, wait, but you haven�t heard my idea. It�s brilliant. It�s spectacular. It will put Zhang Yimou to shame.
BOC: Ok, what is it?
RW: The Wall.
BOC: The Wall?
RW: Yeah, you know, The Wall, the combination album, movie, and stage show, The Wall!
BOC: Yes, Mr. Rogers, we know what The Wall is but, um, what does that have to do with the Olympics?
RW: Well, the Olympics are a global event, aren�t they? And I can�t think of a work of art from the past fifty years that better captures the global zeitgeist than The Wall. I performed it in Berlin, I performed it in Israel, and now I can perform it right here, in front of the whole fucking world! And hell, it doesn�t have to be all Wall stuff. I mean, we�ll bring out the flying pig, of course. Trust me, I know how to do big shows. And we can have a real-live children�s choir for �Another Brick in the Wall.�
BOC: Don�t you always do that?
RW: Well, uh, yeah, I mean, but this�ll be like, on an international scale!
BOC: Thank you, Mr. Waters, we�ll be in touch.
Danny Boyle
BOC (amongst themselves): �Dear God, we�re fucked.� �Well this is a right bloody mess.� �Bollocks!� �What should we do? Should we just write a billion dollar check to J. K. Rowling and Harry Potter the shit out of this thing?� �Or maybe we could hire Zhang Yimou?� �But he�s not British!� �Yeah, but he knows how to do an opening ceremony! And did you see Hero? Did you see that shit with the arrows? That was just so fucking cool.� �Well, do we have any other directors to audition?� �Just one, but I don�t have high hopes for him.� �Who is it?� �Danny Boyle.� �Ah. What�s his CV?� �Well, he did a movie about British drugs addicts. And he did a movie about zombies overrunning post-apocalyptic London. And then he did a sequel to that. Then he made a movie about Indian slum-dwellers. And then he made a movie about James Franco having to slice his arm off.� �Meh, sounds like a slightly more international Loach.� �Well, before we call up Rowling, let�s at least try him.�
Danny Boyle (DB): I have a proposal!
BOC: Alright, Mr. Boyle, let�s hear it? What�s it about? Drug addicts? Poor people? Post-imperial decline?
DB (somewhat shocked): What? No, of course not. No, what I have in mind is a celebration of Great Britain!
BOC (growing excited): We�re listening!
DB: My vision is of a little microcosm of the UK, set up in the stadium! It will be all green and village-y, and each section will represent one of the constituent nations of the UK. And we�ll have peasants playing games and tossing apples back and forth to each other, and we�ll have real live farm animals, to celebrate our agrarian roots!
BOC: Will there be sheep?
DB: You�d better believe there�ll be sheep! And we�ll have some of the greatest living Britons there as well, like Daniel Craig and Kenneth Branagh, and Branagh will read some of that Shakespeare stuff he�s always going on about.
BOC: Oh yes, we must include Shakespeare. We must remind the world that Shakespeare was British.
DB: And we�ll even have Sir Paul McCartney play some Beatles songs!
BOC: Ooh, he was great that time he did the Super Bowl!
DB: And, for my coup de grace, we�ll bring in fake clouds to hover over our little micro-Britain. You know, because it�s always so gray and rainy here!
BOC (many voices talking at once): �Brilliant!� �I love it!� �I�m sold!� �This�ll blow Beijing right out of the water!�
DB: Oh, and we�ll invite Kate Middleton, and we�ll make sure the camera pans over to her from time to time. She seems to be rather popular.
BOC: Mr. Boyle, you�re hired!
And that�s how I imagine Danny Boyle got hired to do what he did for the opening ceremony. If this blog still exists in 2014, I�ll try to do a similar post for the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, which I have no doubt will go really well, what with their presence in Putin�s authoritarian neo-Soviet Union and their geographical proximity to the Ossetia, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Daghestan.
