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Critics Make Sport of Olympic Mascots

'Fuwa' are in the firing line ahead of Beijing Games

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Jul 23, 2008 3:30 AM CDT

(Newser) – The troubled run-up to the Beijing Games hasn't spared the cartoon mascots, the Wall Street Journal reports. China's critics have already created mock characters for the five—like "GenGen Genocide"—and superstitious Chinese fear a link between the "witch dolls" and the disasters the country has suffered this year. The already hyper-commercialized "Fuwa," or good-luck dolls, are a fish, panda, Tibetan antelope, swallow and the Olympic flame.

The Fuwa join a long line of lampooned Olympic mascots. "Whatzit," the blob-shaped blue mascot of the 1996 Atlanta Games, was derided for looking like either a blue slug or a sperm in sneakers, and disappeared by the closing ceremony. Sydney's 2000 kookaburra, anteater and platypus mascots ended up being overshadowed by "Fatso, the Fat-Arsed Wombat," created to protest the games' rampant commercialism.

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Surveys have found 40% of Chinese dislike or are indifferent to the Olympic mascots, a high proportion in a country where consensus is prized. (Getty Images)

The five Olympic mascots have been coming in for ridicule ahead of the Games. Some Chinese call them "witch dolls," associating them with the troubles to plague China this year. (Getty Images)

Athena and Phevos were the mascots for the 2004 Athens Games. (Getty Images)

School students carry toy Olympic mascots, known as Fuwa, at a campaign launch in Beijing Thursday Aug. 16, 2007. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)

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Satirical animation highlights China's use of the Olympics to burnish its own image despite its controversial Darfur policy. (dream4darfur)

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Critics Make Sport of Olympic Mascots