I'm trying a new thing here, called One Of Those Things I Think About That No One Else Seems To.  I was watching a college basketball game today, and as they were going to commercial they showed a shot I've probably seen 1,000 times, but never questioned until today - the court-level view of the uplifted cheerleader. 

This is a nice name for it; an equally honest name would be the national televising of a young woman's vagina.

Does anyone else find it...you know...worrisome, that it's considered completely normal at public sporting events to stick a camera up a girl's skirt?  By way of comparison, go try that at the mall sometime, and see how far you get.  The shot I saw was not some far away, zoomed-in view; this was a man standing immediately beneath a girl being hoisted in the air, aiming his camera right at Ground Zero.  And what's amazing to me is that no one seems to mind. The girl whose hygiene is being broadcast to the world is on board with it, even though the cameraman could potentially jeopardize her safety, should he interfere with the guy holding her up. Although, since she doesn't mind being publicly groped by said hoister, I suppose it follows that she accepts someone watching it.

Nor, apparently, does the school mind.  It has, after all, in its role as educator, paid for the skimpy outfits and matching underwear of the involved girls, and allowed for the selection of the muscular men holding their asses throughout the games.  The more I think about it, they probably encourage the intimate camerawork, the better to display how well they've done at selecting the cheerleaders' uniforms. 

So what about the parents, then?  I'm assuming these girls have a healthy parental situation, or else they'd be dancing on a pole instead of a sideline.  Statistically, of course, there will be cheerleaders from broken homes, the same way there are probably well-adjusted strippers.  But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that watching Jill The Cheerleader on TV today were her devoted parents, Bill and Sally.  When they see their daughter on TV, with her genitals basically on national display, is the reaction shock and horror, or "call Linda, tell her to watch Jill"? 

It's another example of how desensitized we become to things we see on television.  If something's on TV, we almost never question whether it actually should be (unless it's the tit of a lip-syncher, at which point our national head explodes).  But think this through, back to the beginning...at some point, this scenario happened for the first time.  There was a game where the cheerleaders were dancing, and the cameraman was nearby, and the director told him "get closer," maybe multiple times, until the cameraman finally realized, "Holy ****, I'm literally shooting up her skirt right now."  And the director probably realized it, and maybe there was a moment in the production truck where people looked at each other with uncertainty...and clearly no one said a thing, because I've been watching cheerleaders' junk on TV for decades, and only today thought it a bit strange.

Does this mean I'm old now?  Does it make me weird that I'm wondering about these things?  Or is everyone else weird for accepting completely gratuitous crotch shots as part and parcel of watching college basketball?  Frankly, this sort of Caligulan camerawork should be an affront to anyone who enjoys the game for its strategic underpinnings.  All that camera angle is doing is playing to your most base instincts in a desperate attempt to keep you watching.  The broadcast team has clearly decided that the narrative flow of high-level athletics will not be enough to keep you invested in the program - you're an animal to them, one that must be satisfied with some of Dirty Uncle Ernie's fantasies every time there's a commercial break. 

My belief is that it's the advertisers who encourage this.  After all, the point of the commercials is to sell product, and which part of your mind is more receptive to impulses - the intellectual side that values passing, defense, and nuance, or the emotional one, who sees a cute girl dancing and wants to **** her?  There's a REASON they only show the cheerleaders right before the commercials - your intellectual side is the one that might say no.  It's just another way to get their hands in your wallet. 

These are the sort of things that eat away at me.  It seems like EVERYTHING in this country is about either sex or money, and very frequently both.  I should have the option of just enjoying a basketball game for what it is, for the unique skill sets it displays, and to appreciate the extremely hard work involved in succeeding at it...but subtlety doesn't sell, does it?