I am choosing the video “Andra Day’s “Rise Up” (footage from 2012 London Olympics). This video showed me how proud I should be to be an American. It doesn’t matter what race, gender, or sexuality. We cheer each other on until the end. We accept defeat, and strive to be our best and support one another. We do this because we know those other countries are trying just as hard as we are to bring pride towards their countries.
Those Olympians are told that they’d never become champions, yet they became legends. This comes to show that just like in Andra Day’s song “rise up” if one has the ability to “rise up” above their obstacles, then anything they wish to achieve is possible. The songs starts out by saying, “You’re broken down and tired of living life on a merry-go-round and you can’t find the fighter but I see it in you so we gonna walk it out and move mountains we gonna walk it out and move mountains” I feel as though Andra is trying to portray how nothing is moving forward in life and everything seems repetitive and nothing is being achieved but Andra sees the light. In the beginning of the video it starts by showing Team USA’s Olympic training warehouse. Then it shows each team is trying their hardest to train to become the best they can in what they do in each sport.
As a dancer myself I was especially drawn to the women’s gymnastics team as their routines and movements are somewhat related to my own. I can still remember McKayla Maroney’s “perfect” vault in the 2012 London Olympics all around team final. In the video they show her performance on the vault while Andra is singing her vocals and she definitely rose up and defeated it. You can hear the announcer say “The fab 5 is going gold.” Probably one of the greatest feelings in the world for McKayla, the team, and the USA as a whole.
In the bridge of the song Andra sings, “All we need, all we need is hope And for that we have each other And for that we have each other We will rise We will rise We’ll rise, ohh ohhh We’ll rise.” This shows as a team and country that we need each other and hope to make it out in the world. Without each other and hope it’s very hard to succeed and we won’t rise. We lift each other up with our positive comments and positive feedback. Through this we succeed.
Another aspect of this video includes Serena Williams winning gold in singles tennis. You can hear her say, “Wow, I have a gold medal in singles.” This might be one of the greatest accomplishments in the Olympics and she couldn’t have done that without her team, fans, family, and herself supporting her. You will never see someone smile as big as she did in that exact moment because of the training and hard work that she put herself through.
In the video you can see each and every team holding american flags, waving and cheering each other on. The USA team doesn’t stop believing in themselves because they know they won’t let them stop until it’s over.
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