Last night, the tv show “Make it or Break it” premiered on ABC Family. If you saw it last night . . . my condolences.
It isn’t as though I had very high hopes about this tv show. Gymnastics is always misrepresented in some way. Stick It actually was not too horrible. They did actual real elite gymnastics. But there is a point where “suspension of disbelief” just doesn’t cover it. As a writer, I know how hard it is to get these things right, but at a certain point the epic fail-ness becomes unforgivable.
Gymnastics problems:
1. “found in a playground”–What, is she Nadia or something? Seriously. And no one, NO ONE goes from training at the YMCA to going to nationals in a few days.
2.Tucked Tsukahara. Seriously? Seriously?! A tucked Tsuk? And you expect that vault to get you to nationals? You won’t even test elite if that’s all you can do. You’ll be stuck back in level 9 or 10, at best.
3. Moving the beatboard in front of the vault. Seriously?! Does the “mean girl” want to kill Emily? Because crashing into the vault has proven fatal in the past, and at the least she would be very badly injured. She would have broken her legs at the least. She would not have jumped up and done another vault. Trust me.
4. Cliches. Bolemia, bitchiness . . .
5. Money. Not only do gymnasts NOT make money doing gymnastics–maybe a little, but certainly not a fortune–but their families are usually in huge debt to pay for their daughters’ gymnastics. It is not cheap. Only two or three gymnasts have ever made real money off of gymnastics, and that was after success at the Olympics.
6. Leotard. Hey, Emily, 1976 called. It wants its leotard back.
7. Those girls do not look like gymnasts. Period. End of story. None of them could pass as gymnasts. Nastia is a skinny bitch as far as gymnasts go, and she could break Emily over her knees. Being thin won’t cut it in gymnastics, you need actual muscles.
8. Team nationals. Er, what?? Everything but worlds and the Olympics are purely individual events.
The story
1. Ooooh, soap opera! Deliciously bad.
2. OMG, DJ TANNER! I kind of flipped to see her on this show.
3. Mary Sue much? A cookie-cutter heroine with every problem in the book. Emily feels out of place, no father, has to work hard, etc.
4. I just don’t care . . .
So, I’ll keep watching, for the lulz. But it’s not a great show and its so far from being a good representation of gymnastics that its sickening. Like I said, though . . . . LULZ.
