Interrogating the Presentation of Gender in Sports Advertising

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAcq_jvmXDo


This is Nike's "Just Do It" 25th Anniversary commercial that aired last year, kind of for all Nike products in general. It features both male and female athletes, and it also includes famous athletes as well as everyday athletes. After watching the commercial, I felt like the messages about gendered identities, roles, and relations were present but extremely subtle. I've seen many commercials that were extremely obvious in their use of stereotypical depictions of male and female athletes. I can see that Nike made a conscious effort to include a female athletes, both famous and not famous. Also, the commercial included a variety of sports, including running,  bullriding, dancing, BMX, soccer, wrestling, football, boxing, basketball, table tennis, dancing, and tennis. Famous athletes featured included Lebron James, Andre Ward, Gerard Pique, and Serena Williams.

Of all the sports featured in the commercial, all the athletes featured fell into the stereotypical "male" or "female" sports we discussed in class: the men were featured bullriding, participating in BMX, playing soccer, throwing a football, wrestling, and boxing. The female athletes were either running, playing table tennis, or dancing/cheerleading (Serena Williams is the exception). This implies that there was no female athlete that was good enough or famous enough to be featured for one of these male-dominated sports (even though there are many professional female soccer and basketball players).

Besides Serena Williams, the females in the commercial were marathon running, cheerleading, or dancing on the beach. Traditionally these are "accepted" forms of physical activity for females.
The main point of the commercial is that if you "just do it," you can beat a famous athlete at his or her own sport (which might be kind of a stretch). All of the famous male athletes are unnamed, with Bradley Cooper's narration simply stating: "pick on him," or "beat that guy." It's assumed that if you have Nike products you probably already know who Lebron James is when you see his face. When the narration is talking about the female amateur table tennis player, he says, "beat Serena" just in case you don't know who the famous female athlete is, but Serena Williams doesn't even play the same sport. Table tennis and tennis are different sports, but they're equated as the same in this commercial, which is weird. Also, when the female runner is being featured, the narrator tells her to run faster than a movie star (Chris Pine). This doesn't even make sense to me, because for all the male amateur athletes featured, they were set up against famous athletes doing the sport that the amateurs did. For the female athletes featured, it felt like Serena Williams was just chosen because she was the most famous female athlete they could find. Also, she's featured wearing a full pink outfit, including skirt and pink headband (as if we have to be reminded that even though she's very muscular and a great athlete, she's female).

 The stereotypical depiction of men and women in advertisements is problematic because studies have shown that "repeated exposure to selective portrayals" of gender groups can lead to viewers adopting distorted beliefs about those groups (Rubie-Davies, 2013). Although subtle, the commercial highlighted that if you're a female athlete, there are certain acceptable forms of athletics that are acceptable, including running, cheer/dance, and maybe table tennis. Also, you probably aren't good enough to face other athletes, but you might be more athletic than other "regular" people. Not seeing any females portrayed in media playing "big" male sports like bullriding, soccer, wrestling, and boxing discourages amateur athletes from participating or even thinking about participating in a traditionally male sport. Also, by not even mentioning the names of the famous male athletes reflects that if you follow sports or buy Nike products, you should be able to identify the most famous male athletes in sports, but it's acceptable if you don't know champion female athletes like Serena.


References:
Rubie-Davies, C. M., Liu, S., & Lee, K. K. (2013). Watching Each Other: Portrayals of Gender and Ethnicity in Television Advertisements. Journal Of Social Psychology, 153(2), 175-195.

Exploring the Hegemonic Gendering process

Suits is one of my favorite television shows, and I think Harvey Specter's character on the show captures the dominant US societal norms of what an "ideal man" is supposed to look like. On Suits, Harvey is a young, well-established, good-looking, high class, expensively-dressed lawyer working at a big time firm. Not only is he rich, but he also has no problem getting laid or getting a beautiful girlfriend. While the show sometimes portrays him as a hard worker, he often effortlessly wins, in not only legal cases but also relational arguments. Harvey has a respected and thriving career after graduating from Harvard, and he also possesses a lot of power over his clients and other people in his office. He also sometimes chooses to blackmail or take advantage of others if it benefits himself or people he cares about. I think Harvey's character embodies what many young men in America strive to be and achieve.

The way I learned what a real man is supposed to look and behave is mostly from forms of entertainment like tv shows and movies. On shows like Suits, the white, good looking, well-dressed man is typically the good guy that the audience roots for when they watch the show. They are portrayed as successful, in regards to career and sexual conquests. Characteristics like physical and emotional strength, a good body and face, and being witty are rewarded and portrayed as ideal in US society.



My perception of a "real" man is heavily influenced by the culture that I grew up in. My parents both capture my perception of "real" men and women. My parents both immigrated from Asia and obtained their citizenship through studying in America and getting employed. They both left their families back in Hong Kong and the Philippines and traveled alone to a new place where they couldn't speak the common language. While they both are both at an age where they could choose to retire, and while they aren't exceptionally good looking or fit or well-dressed by society's standards, I still believe that their choices and actions reflect what "real men" and "real women" are. They value my future and family over buying material things that don't matter. They have so-called "average" careers but they both work really hard, and they are in a committed marriage. I think both of these are admirable.  My version of "real" men and women does not match what is commonly portrayed in movies and tv shows that reflect societal norms.I think this is because the influence of my parents and other family members has been greater than what is shown to me through forms of entertainment.

Interrogating Inequalities in Sports Media: Examining Gender Representation in ESPN Magazine Covers

I examined ESPN Magazine's covers for the year of 2012. I chose this year because this was the year my dad and I had free subscriptions to the magazine, and I definitely did not notice or care about the gender representation on the covers whenever we received them in the mail. During the 2012 year, ESPN Magazine had 29 different covers total. I went through all of them and counted how many men and women were deemed worthy of being on the cover of the magazine. Some covers featured more than one person, with one cover featuring eight people total. After going through all the covers, this is what I found:

- A combined total of 40 men were featured on ESPN Magazine covers in 2012.
- 10 women were on the cover.

Also:

- Most men were photographed with the no-smile intense game face, and if they did not have the intense look, they were featured with another man and both were smiling.
- Three of the women featured were on the cover basically naked, for ESPN Magazine's "The Body Issue"
- All women except one were on the covers with big smiles on their faces.

Just by looking at these simple observations, it already seems like the ESPN Magazine covers reflect what we value in American society. We value male athletes much more than female athletes. The men on the covers of 2012 were mostly portrayed with intense, masculine looks on their faces. Men were featured as individuals and as well as with members of their own team or other teams (there was one cover that had eight members of a football team, and various covers featuring pairs of athletes: Jeremy Lin and James Harden, Lebron and Carmelo). Many of the females that made it onto the cover were placed in "supporting" athletic roles. Five of the women featured were cheerleaders surrounding a basketball player, and one woman was on the cover not as an athlete, but she had on a cleavage-baring shirt and her arms were wrapped around a baseball player. Not only does American society promote a higher value on male athletes, but it also places and portrays females as only worthy of being "support" to male-dominated sports and male athletes.

The time where ESPN Magazine put the most women on their covers was during their "The Body Issue" series, where they had covers with naked athletes on them. They did feature naked male athletes, but 30% of the women featured on covers during 2012 were featured during these issues. For two of these shots, the sport that the female athlete played was not even mentioned or pictured on the cover (for the other one, she was shown holding a basketball). Even when female athletes were selected to be on the covers, they were selected for their bodies, not for their great athletic ability. For a male to land a spot on the cover, he just has to be a great athlete. But for the females, it seems like they have to be aesthetically pleasing as well.

Not only is the coverage between athletes of both genders unequal, but the reasons and ways the females were portrayed on the covers of 2012 convey that women have greater value in society when they are beautiful and have great bodies, and that seems to be worth more than their athletic ability. There was one cover that stood out however: ESPN featured NASCAR racer Danika Patrick, fully clothed, with an intense game-face look on. She is the only female portrayed this way that year. I read the cover, and the main idea discussed in this issue of the magazine was "what we talk about when we talk about women in sports," and in this issue of ESPN Magazine, the "underpaid, second class" status of female athletes is discussed. The cover labels Danika as "strong, sexy, smart, fierce." An article explains the phenomenon that we talk about women in sports in an unequal way when compared to male athletes, but I find this ironic because the cover choices that ESPN had that year definitely do not reflect their efforts to be more inclusive towards female athletes. Even the magazine that discusses this issue falls into the trap of being a participant.

I believe that when male athletes are portrayed as intense-looking, with their game face on and their sporting equipment in their hands (whether it's a football, baseball bat, a basketball, etc), it conveys a serious atmosphere: these athletes look very serious and look like they take their sports very seriously, so therefore we should also take them seriously. The women however, were on the covers naked, or scandalously clothed, and always smiling and laughing. This reflects the less serious nature of how we see women in sports. The only woman not featured in this way was on the cover because this was the exact issue being discussed. This shows that society definitely acknowledges that there is some disconnect and equality in regards to gender, but we do not feel the need to change this.

ESPN The Magazine 2012 Covers. (2012, May 19). http://espn.go.com/espn/photos/gallery/_/id/9170047/image/5/espn-magazine-2012-covers-espn. magazine-2012-covers Retrieved October 9, 2014.

Reflecting on the Shame of College Sports

According to the NCAA website, the NCAA claims that they commit to a high level of integrity and respect for institutional autonomy, among other ideals (NCAA). These are pretty vague, but they are generally all positive ideals and make the NCAA seem like a great organization, especially with claimed values like “inclusive culture” and “pursuit of excellence.” However, specific examples of scandals the NCAA has been involved in reflect the dichotomy between their claims and reality.

The NCAA has been involved in so many lawsuits and scandals recently, including sanctioning universities for players who “receive improper benefits,” basketball point-shaving and gambling, exploiting the “student-athlete” label, and absorbing all the profits made from revenue athletes generate (Branch, 2011). In light of all these scandals, the NCAA portrays itself as a money-hungry organization that is good at faking high ideals.

One of the reasons this dichotomy might exist is that the NCAA has become a powerful organization that has established ways out of the limelight when litigations and scandals arise. For example, the organization is a registered charity, even though it generates enormous profits for the people involved. Also, people who have been taken advantage of or treated unjustly by the NCAA, like Joseph Agnew for example, are college athletes who clearly do not have as many resources as the NCAA. The NCAA had a rule that prevented Agnew’s scholarship from being renewed for his senior year at Rice University, resulting in Agnew having to pay an enormous sum of money if he wanted to continue getting his degree (Branch, 2011). Many former athletes did not even agree with Agnew because they identified so strongly with the NCAA. NCAA is like Goliath.

Having college athletes become “professional” by paying them may improve some conditions athletes have to deal with (like being taken advantage of by their universities), but I’m not fond of the idea because of the NCAA’s proposed label of “student-athlete.” Making athletes “professionals” kind of devalues the idea of going to college for an education, or an alternate way to live life after one’s sports career is over. By paying athletes in college, we would be promoting the sport ethic by supporting the option of sports as one’s full identity, and we would be worsening the problems athletes deal with post-career. Last week we discussed problems athletes face after retiring, like lack of financial literacy and work competence. These problems would be further reinforced because students would be paid professionals beginning their freshman year if the NCAA paid its athletes.

BRANCH, T. (October 2011). The shame of college sports. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/10/the-shame-of-college-sports/308643/

NCAA core values. Retrieved from http://www.ncaa.org/about/ncaa-core-purpose-and-values