Coverage of the World Cup left out few African stereotypes

[102bb]

Four years ago, Canadian viewers of the Soccer World Cup were treated to colour commentary on how the Togolese might struggle with 26 Celsius heat of Northern Germany. Although sports commentary frequently has such inanities, coverage of this World Cup, in South Africa, has had more insidious issues particularly regarding the portrayal of African

Comments

[flumes]

There are a lot of things I think the WC did nicely and a lot they did wrong.

I think a lot that came up after Ghana won against the US was racism and that pissed me off. A lot of what this article stated is true especially the first part but I wrote a little about this before: Africa is majorly seen as an unhappy country with unhappy and poor people. I think that, for at least once, it was good for my country to be shown as happy and unified~

Idk if that's making much sense.

[102bb]

The fact that Africa was shown as a unified country is horribly offensive and dismissive of the different and unique cultures and countries present in the continent.

[flumes]

Ha damn I wasn't thinking

embarrassing

I definitely know what you mean and agree but at the same time I haven't completely thought out all my feelings on this

[fishphile]

I wish I was surprised but I'm not. There were some terrible comments during the World Cup and Africa was constantly viewed as ONE BIG PLACE. It was "African World Cup". And each country was doing it for Africa. It was really bad when Ghana was the only African nation left. It was all about 'doing it for Africa'! Not, you know, 'doing it for Ghana!'

There were a few other things said about other nations with majority poc but this post is to talk about the treatment of Africa during the World Cup.

[flumes]

Jw what the other things were said?

[comaeffigy]

FIFA are evil.
I didn't see enough matches to make any comment on anything other that the treatment of all African countries as one entity, which was disgusting. I'm glad I didn't see any 'safari' imagery although in a previous post I know other places used this within aligned advertising.
I was a bit disappointed that matches featuring some of the less prominent teams to a British audience the commentators did not seem familiar with all the players’ names. I always presumed this was part of their job, why wouldn't they prepare during the match? It seems really disrespectful in my eyes, but I don't know how wide spread this was.

[hellooo]

I was disappointed to see so many liked Facebook statuses saying 'At least we're still a first world country/have running water/democracy!' after the Ghana v. US game. Also, imperialism jokes. Hipster racism, yay.

The Africa-as-one-country trope was really annoying especially in a competition where the teams are all national. Roger Milla celebrated a Cameroonian goal. Maybe I'm stretching it a bit, but it's as if everyone thought it would be impossible for two African teams to face off against each other in the final. It was also really condescending to hear teams from Africa described like ragtag groups of children who had just been plucked off the street a few minutes ago playing with a homemade ball, which kind of feeds into the 'deservedness' and 'discipline' sections

[maenads_dance]

I remember that too.