Two weeks ago, just before the start of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Nike began airing its major Olympic ad campaign. Typically, these spots are beautifully produced paeans to ambition, effort, and excellence—Olympic ideals on sale for a popular audience. They have titles like “Unlimited You” and “Find Your Greatness.” But this one is different. Set to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and narrated gruffly by Willem Dafoe, in full comic-villain mode, it opens with a shot of a sweaty little girl with fierce blue eyes, before cutting to LeBron James, who is wearing the same angry gaze. “Am I a bad person?” Dafoe says, his voice a low taunt. He recites a litany of qualities he possesses: obsessiveness, deceptiveness, selfishness. “I have no empathy! I don’t respect you!” he cries, as the French basketball phenom Victor Wembanyama cackles after a block. (The soliloquy seems to owe something to Daniel Plainview.) His voice picks up pace and intensity. “I’m delusional! I’m maniacal!” There are shots of Serena Williams, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Sha’Carri Richardson. There’s Kobe Bryant, and more Kobe Bryant, his face a snarl. “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine,” Dafoe rants. The piece ends with a firework burst of triumphs—goals, roars, knockouts, taunting shrugs. “Does that make me a bad person?” Dafoe sneers as the words “WINNING ISN’T FOR EVERYONE” flash on the screen.
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