Everyone’s favorite patriot — Stephen Colbert — has teamed up with everyone’s favorite Obama-promoting street artist — Shepard Fairey — to create a poster for the Vancouver Olympics. The result? A piece of American propaganda that urges the U.S. athletes to “Defeat the World.” As propaganda goes, it’s pretty good — and it sure beats this maple leaf.
The poster was unveiled last night on The Colbert Report after Colbert and guest David Ross (who has held curatorial positions at museums in Berkeley’s BAM and New York’s Whitney Museum, among others) discussed the degeneration of heroic, powerful art surrounding the Olympics, and looked at some modern examples that don’t cut the mustard. “Starting in the ’60s, the Olympics became corporatized,” Ross explained. “And when they became corporatized I believe they started to repress this kind of homoerotic powerful imagery of sports figures, of the great athletes… Now it’s just about some corporate logo branding.”
Check out the video after the jump.
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For those of you watching the Opening Ceremonies tonight, check out this drinking game — it sounds like a good one to us!