It was an image rich in spectacle — cheering youths, fists raised in triumph or index fingers extended in the we're-number-one fashion, a flag draped around a celebrant in the foreground, and behind them the White House bathed in light.
Then I looked around at the exuberantly swaying women - and their somewhat cowed menfolk - cheering the outlandish spectacle of gender-bending impersonation and lipo-sucked lip-synchery and I thought no, it's more than that... heterosexuality itself is not very straight.
Some noted that even as his efforts to avoid capture escalated into spectacle, cheered on by virtual friends on the Internet, he stayed in contact with his mother.
Argentina will be pleased to have qualified from group F at the earliest opportunity, and cheered by the spectacle of Lionel Messi's superbly taken winning goal, his second in succession in this tournament.
No one should be cheered at the spectacle of lawmakers depriving themselves of authority because they're afraid that "politicians" can't be trusted to act wisely.
"The only reason lynchings stopped in the American South was that the spectacle of the crowds cheering these murders was becoming problematic," Stevenson told me.
And watching the film surrounded by women (shrieking, clapping, cheering and laughing), the woman-worshipping spectacle on display felt like the safest safe space of all time.
"The huge Chicago Stadium, with three boxing matches going on simultaneously under those hot white lights, with screaming, cheering, booing crowds, was the most awesome spectacle I'd ever participated in," he wrote.
Although the professor, wearing his trademark fedora, denied he is "a circus performer", most of the crowd seemed more interested in seeing a unique spectacle than getting an anatomy lesson, cheering as the organs were hefted onto the tabletop.
The spectacle of the world watching and cheering the rescue unnerved the Koch Boys and their comrades.
It was a huge spectacle with families and tourist alike cheering and dancing in comradery.
