So I'm reading through Chapter 5 of our textbook the other day, and I come across the section on page 115 that discusses how female sports stars are often defined through their physical appearance rather than their athletic accomplishments. The book provides some recent examples of tennis stars Venus Williams and Anna Kournikova (the former I see as debatable in terms of how much her appearance is talked about instead of her accomplishments, the latter, however, is a clear-cut case of body-worship). Anyway, I was literally sitting on my couch trying to think of any current examples of this notion when a GoDaddy.com commercial came on TV showing female Nascar star Danica Patrick in a sexualized commercial promising more eye-candy if people log on to the website and download the video (or something like that).
For those of you who aren't familiar with Danica Patrick, she's a reasonably-successful Nascar driver (the only woman right now) who has gained notoriety both for her participation in a male-dominated sport as well as her sex-appeal. She is one of the "GoDaddy" girls, a trope of females that use their sexuality in advertising for the website business.
This really struck me as an example of a female star being known more for her physical attributes than her professional, athletic ones, but I am wondering if the class could weigh in ona few things. To my knowledge, none of the male Nascar stars are seen as sex symbols, and granted, it is difficult to comment on somebody's physical appearance as they are driving a car, UNLESS they are "showing off the goods" in outside arenas (like Danica, perhaps). But I'm wondering, given what the chapter had to say about this, if the class views Danica's sexualized image as another example of a female sports star being reduced to (or in her case, reducing herself) to the level of sexualized novelty, or do you think her actions are empowering because she is using her females attributes as a kind of "girl power" statement in a sport with no other females?
6 comments:
I personally believe that any female athlete that makes it to the top of her sport is not there strictly on thier athletic talent. If you think about it, there are not alot of women at the top of the sports world that aren't more attractive than their competitors. Danica Patrick is a very good example, because she has been semi-successful, but because she is considered a sex symbol, I believe is the only reason she is the only woman in racing. Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams, Amanda Beard(the swimmer) are only so popular because of their sex appeal.
I thought that class today was really interesting when we were talking about women being defined by their appearance and men being defined by their achievements. I never realized that men will mainly describe women first by what they look like such as having blonde hair, and that women will mainly first described men by their accomplishments such as being a doctor. I had never seen Danica Patrick or actually ever heard of her until I read this blog. I think that it is great that she is pursuing a career in something that she loves to do, and that she does so even though it is a male dominated field. Kudos to her for also being a confident women with her appearance. Many women wish for confidence everyday.
I do think that it is taking away from a person’s success when their sexuality becomes the focus and not their talent (in this case driving a race car). I don’t really see it as being empowering because the other females did not attain such a feat as being the only female driver in a male dominated sport, rather their achievement is being sexually attractive women. To me it’s kind of saying that she values being accepted more for her success at being attractive than for her skill as a driver.
I disagree with Danica using her sexuality for more attention, success, or whatever. However, I do know that men in NASCAR do the same thing, just more hidden. I know someone who works in the NASCAR business, and recently, I heard a story of this person's co-worker. This co-worker was in the NASCAR business, simply because she was obessed with the drivers. I guess she goes to a website (I have no idea what it is!), and you can actually look at all these different photos of drivers' butts! Now, I've never been to this website, so I don't know if they are posed, or just a random picture that a fan took and posted online. But, that would make a difference. However, I can't imagine the NASCAR men drivers posing in "butt shots!" haha!
Anyway, I do think that women often use their sexuality to get ahead or get respect in the world today. Why do women often tend to do this? What is the root of it all?
I don't understand why Danica Patrick needs to do commercials like this or use her sex appeal to get more popular. If you're good at something work harder, get better, and be respected for that. Don't surcome to using sex appeal in a way to become more popular unless that's truly what you want to be known for.
As for what we talked about in class about women being talked about by their looks and men by their careers, I find that both interesting and true. I often find myself saying things like that. Oh he's the pre-med major or she's the one with the cute hair that we saw downtown. Although I don't mean anything by it, it is crazy that we do this. It's personally something I want to work on.
I think it's way awesome that she is given somewhat of a spot light and recognized for what she does, however does it have to be sexual? It's like women have no other route to take and that's the only way they will get attention. Sad.
I am continually interested in the use of sex/sexuality to sell things or get viewers. You see it all the time in the movies, where directors will add in more sexuality just to get the higher rating and thus more money, or commercials that are more about the body in the ad than the thing they are selling. Is this merely encouraging this sexualized perspective in our culture or should advertisers (and sports stars) take advantage of it, because it works?
Post a Comment