Well we discussed it. . . .

I was rather disappointed in my students lack of depth. (They are 11th and 12th grade)
Only 1 student who is a little more mature looked at the whole picture on how a culture is being portrayed to the entire world in a stereotypical fashion.

So of course that brought us to stereotypes. I was astounded to find out that most of the students thought stereotypes were just part of the scheme of things, natural and don't hurt anything and everyone knows they are stereotypes so you don't believe them

Luckily I have one girl who is a USAF kid and just got back stateside from Turkey. She said it was hard in Turkey because they had all the American girls stereotyped from what they saw on TV (sexually promiscuous, shallow, and rich)

We talked some about the Russian culture and whether they think they have cultural sensitivity training like the US does from Pre-K up. This was opinion not researched.

The overall agreement was the Skaters did it in ignorance and for artistic flair and show (one girl's example was wearing the red loincloth - red shows up and is more dramatic than say purple)
They did agree that more research should have been done on the part of the skaters.

Thanks again for bringing this to my attention - it was a great discussion anyway and a good example of culture merging with creative expression and that is what this class is all about.