"Bodies in Motion" was an online video produced by NBC in which women competing in various Olympic sports were featured in softcore, fetishist slow-motion highlights, while porn-tastic jazz music played on the soundtrack.
It looked like something a testosterone-filled teenager with a DVR would have spliced together for YouTube; instead, it was the official rights holder of the Olympics in the U.S. that produced it.
As of Friday night, the video has been removed from NBCOlympics.com, according to the Huffington Post. The original URL for the clip now leads to a page that reads, "The page was not found or there was an error. You will be redirected in a few seconds to the homepage. Sorry for the inconvenience."
Seems like NBC heard the backlash loud and clear.
Erin Gloria Ryan of Jezebel led the charge, calling the clip "creepy":
You'd think that something called "Bodies in Motion" wouldn't be code for "Rejected bumper reel from The Man Show," but I guess I'm not plugged in to the hip, with it language of the youths nowadays or on board with the notion that Olympic bodies are at their most noteworthy when they're female, (mostly) white, stereotypically feminine, and thin. At least NBC's contribution to Boner Jams 2012 doesn't include any underage gymnasts.
Alyssa Rosenberg was equally baffled:
The cluelessness of it even extends to the written description for the video: "Check out these bodies in motion during the Olympic Games," as if the women it's portraying, none of whom are identified by name, or country, which might have been a petty distraction from ogling, are inanimate objects rather than people. This utterly contentless video, which communicates nothing about the events these women are participating in or what it takes to perform them, might meet the editorial standards at Maxim, though the video quality isn't even particularly impressive. There is no way it should pass the editorial standards for a news organization.
