Winning the United States’ first gymnastics gold medal in the Olympics since 1996 is nice and all. But you haven’t really made it unless there’s a song parody created about your accomplishments.
NOC’s clever riff praises and pokes fun at the quintet of Jordyn Wieber, McKayla Maroney, Kyla Ross, Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas at the same time in a take on One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful.”
This one, though, is called “What Makes You Flexible.”
“Jordyn, you light up the gym like nobody else,” the chorus goes. “Aly, when you chalk your hands I get overwhelmed. Gabby, when you take the beam it ain’t hard to tell, you don’t know, you don’t know you’re flexible.”
The beginning of the song takes a not-so-thinly-veiled shot at the girls’ tiny stature.
“You’re four-foot-four, look immature and your parents are too crazy to ignore,” NOC sings. “You hit the floor, get perfect scores and you’re small enough to fit inside a drawer.”
There’s more of that later with a little bit of admiration mixed in. Maroney’s vault was lauded by Olympic coaching great Bela Karolyi as “the greatest vault I’ve ever seen.”
“McKayla’s vault and Kyla’s bars and none of you are tall enough to drive a car,” the lyrics go.
The U.S. team destroyed the Russians so thoroughly, prompting Wieber’s coach John Geddert to call it “a backyard butt-whuppin.’”
The five girls have clearly made an impression on American pop culture.