Pretend-Lesbian Pop Duo To Perform At Sochi Opening Ceremony

Here, via the Wall Street Journal, is a bit of unexpected news about the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics: t.A.T.u., the Russian female pop duo that once gained some international recognition for making out with each other in a music video, is set to perform at the opening ceremony.

Here's the Journal:

Details of the opening ceremony are a closely guarded secret. But two people familiar with the matter say Russia's team will enter the stadium to the music of t.a.T.u, made up of Lena Katina and Yulia Volkova. The group will perform at the warm-up show that won't be broadcast internationally, the people said. The Russian team will then file into the stadium to the sound of their 2003 hit "Not Gonna Get Us."

This is a bit of an odd choice for the Olympic organizers. As you certainly know, Russia is not exactly down with gay people these days. Now, Katina and Volkova don't appear to be actual lesbians, but their fame in the early 2000's was primarily derived from their carefully contrived image as lesbian schoolgirls. Performances like the one they gave at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards were tailor-made to give every 13-year-old boy with access to Napster a boner. Their entire act would probably qualify as illegal "gay propaganda" in today's Russia.

So what the hell? There are several possibilities here: t.A.T.u. is the only Russian pop act that ever got famous enough to warrant performing at the Olympics, or someone thought that running out a forgotten one-hit wonder with a pseudo-pornographic act would quiet down all that global criticism of institutionalized anti-gay hatred, or the event organizers just totally forgot about all that faux-lesbian stuff and are in for quite a surprise tomorrow. I suppose we should hope for the latter.

[ WSJ]