Tag Archives: objectification

Object —-> Olympic Athlete —-> Human Being

Laurie and Debbie say:

We both love the Olympics, especially the sports you never see on TV except during the Olympics. And neither of us has a TV right now, so neither of us is seeing as much Olympics as we would like. Other folks are watching and commenting, however, and here’s some of what they are seeing:

Nate Jones’ photoessay, “What if every Olympic sport was photographed like beach volleyball?” says a great deal. Here are just a couple of shots from that piece, starting with a beach volleyball shot:

Beach Volleyball - Practice Session

Here’s diving:

diving man's ass shot mid dive

And wrestling:

There are lots more at the link.

No surprise. Women’s bodies are framed for the voyeur value, for the titillation. Beach volleyball is especially susceptible to this, since girls on the beach are one of the most canonical wet dream images in history. Men’s bodies are framed first for drama, or glory, or competition.

Chloe at Feministing adds a level by pointing out the writing about the photographs, including this New York Times article which conveys the interesting point about women’s water polo: that it leads to wardrobe malfunctions and underwater pictures of women’s bodies.

Asked for her most memorable moment of underwater warfare, [Heather] Petri said she played about 10 minutes of a game topless at the 2000 Olympics, when an opponent shredded her suit as they grappled for the ball but play continued. Left with little choice, she just kept swimming until the next timeout, when she hopped out of the pool and shimmied into a spare.

We’d love to know how the question was phrased. Any bets that it wasn’t “most memorable moment” in the same context as the article (i.e., suits falling off)? No Olympic athlete in the world thinks that’s the most memorable moment if they’re thinking about the sport.

The article closes with some *ahem* insightful comments on men’s water polo, such as: “while the men’s teams do not have the same sort of family-friendly television issues, the women said, that does not mean the players do not have their fair share of dirty play.” News flash–men fight dirty (too?) but it’s not about what’s exposed on television.

As Chloe points out in her commentary:

What I do know about water polo is how hard it is. I remember how totally wiped out my [club and college water-polo player ]sister would be when she came home from practice, or how she would sleep for fourteen hours after coming home from a tournament. Between the swimming, the treading water, the grappling with opponents, and the holding oneself up above the water to the waist in order to pass the ball around, I really do think that water polo is one of the most demanding sports in the world. My sister and her teammates were so strong, and so fit, and so tough. Their bodies were so powerful: big broad shoulders from swimming, strong arms and hands that could pitch the ball – heavier than it looks – half way down the pool, legs that could, oh, I don’t know, kick the living crap out of an insolent younger sister if she ever deserved it (she usually did). I was always in awe of the things my sister and teammates could do with their bodies.

Women’s water polo is also appealing to Body Impolitic because the women are such different sizes and shapes–some look like (most) competition women swimmers and some look more like weightlifters.

Body variety is usually between sports rather than within a sport, so this is refreshing.

Chloe’s final point is extremely well-taken. This photo of swimmer Tom Daley is all over the Internet, but the Times didn’t bother to mention it when talking about how underwater cameras can take revealing pictures:

https://i0.wp.com/media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m85q2v1QW71rq6qmt.jpg?resize=358%2C241

Can you imagine the commentary on this shot if Daley was female?

Being an Olympic athlete and a woman is no different than just being a woman in one particular regard–the media will, before acknowledging anything else about you, milk your body for its voyeur potential (or lack thereof). Then they will say something about your athletic ability and how well (or poorly) they feel you “represent your country.” Finally, they may or may not attempt to capture anything about you as a human being.

Thanks to Lori Selke for the beach volleyball pointer.

Pretty and “Not Pretty, Really”

Debbie says:

Mark McKinney, who some of you may know from Kids in the Hall and I know from the incomparably wonderful Canadian TV series Slings and Arrows, made a documentary short in 2006 about “pretty people”: The Art of Seduction: Not Pretty, Really. For some reason, Sociological Images recently posted the trailer:

First, let’s say that McKinney has done a fine job of diversifying “pretty” across gender and race lines, and even somewhat along age lines. Not everyone doing a film like this would go there, and I appreciate it.

Sociological Images picks up the main message that McKinney seems to be presenting: that there are downsides to being pretty, as well as the culturally “obvious” advantages. This is a true, important, and under-explored point. Even in the brief trailer, we see not only a young woman breaking into tears as to how she is objectified, but also a couple of excellent acknowledgments that being “pretty” is a simplifying characteristic. One young woman says, “If you’re the pretty girl, you’re often not the smart girl, not the funny girl, not the nice girl.” Another talks about people’s astonishment when she won an academic prize.

What the trailer doesn’t acknowledge, and I bet the film doesn’t either, is that the pain the interviewees are talking about is universal. Being “unfortunate looking” (as one pretty woman in the film describes the opposite of being her) doesn’t open up the landscape for what you can be: the ugly girl might possibly be the smart girl or the funny girl or the nice girl, but she’s not going to be all three, and she can’t be the pretty girl. Being unfortunate looking (or ordinary looking) doesn’t mean that people expect you to win prizes. The Internet phenomenon of Susan Boyle–“Global interest in Boyle was triggered by the contrast between her powerful voice and her plain appearance on stage”–proved that in a big way.

Being fat or disfigured or acne-scarred, or whatever else keeps people from being pretty, is hardly a guard against objectification. You won’t be given gifts for your looks, you won’t be paid to sit in the window at restaurants (did you know that happened? I’ didn’t), and you won’t be an object of envy (at least on that axis). You will be the target of other people’s assumptions, stereotypes, inappropriate comments, and sometimes cruelty.

The conclusion that I very much fear McKinney doesn’t draw in the whole film is that everyone is objectified for how we look. People who are culturally identified as “pretty” often don’t understand is that the pain of objectification is real, whether it’s objectification for pretty, for unfortunate looking, or for ordinary and simultaneously that being pretty is a form of privilege and people who don’t have that privilege generally experience the same pain … without the perks.

The film’s title is extremely telling. The tearful young woman says, sadly, that the ways she’s objectified for being pretty make her feel “not pretty, really.” And what that says to me is that she still can’t imagine anything better than “feeling pretty,” and that “feeling pretty” means, to her, never being sad about what people see when they look at her.