Just when you thought the abortion controversy was trying to steal the media spotlight another women’s issue comes into play via sports media. Lindsey Vonn made the cover of Sports Illustrated but — that has one female blogger throwing a hissy fit. Nicole LaVoi claims that the SI cover is just another example of women being “sexualized” in the media.
LaVoi describes herself as “a critical thinker, scholar, and researcher in girls & women in sport, youth sport, and coach & sport parent education.” She must not get out much if she thinks the image of Vonn on the cover of Sports Illustrated is sexy. LaVoi states that Vonn represents the “norm of feminine attractiveness” and for that reason is the “the likely poster girl of the US Olympic Team.” Here’s what she said about the cover:
Not to be left out, Sports Illustrated is featuring Vonn on their February 8,2010 cover (pictured here). For those of you who follow SI Covers, know that female athletes are RARELY featured on the cover.
Over the last 60 years researchers have shown that about 4% of all SI covers have portrayed women.
When females are featured on the cover of SI, they are more likely than not to be in sexualized poses and not in action–and the most recent Vonn cover is no exception.
She went on to defend her theory with the following update:
I have to disagree that this pose in “in action”. In sport media research, we would code that as a passive shot. She is not actually ON the slope skiing, with her helmet on. She IS in a posed tuck position in an attempt to simulate what actually skiing would look like. Yes she is “in uniform” but not her complete uniform and she appears to be on the slope. Picture this as a way to frame what I’m trying to get at: Picture a male ski racer in a similar pose on the cover of SI, smiling at the camera. Would we see that? How would you react to that picture, verses the picture of Vonn? As one blog commenter seemed to hint at, this pose is “ok” because she is hot and sexy, so she is nice to look at. How would “we” feel if the female skier did not meet normative standards of feminine attractiveness (i.e., she was “ugly”) and was in the same pose?
I’m certainly not a critical thinker, scholar, or a researcher, but I figure that Lindsey Vonn is on the cover of Sports Illustrated because she can win six medals at the Winter Olympics. She’s in a “passive shot” because Sports Illustrated probably doesn’t have the rights to any photos of her in action and they didn’t want to pay for one. My superior intellect leads me to speculate that she’s not wearing a helmet so America can put a name to her face. But then again, I could just be overlooking the SEXUALIZED nature of this picture. Can you imagine Sports Illustrated having a male olympian with such an overtly sexualized “passive shot” image and context? That would be appalling. Unless this Apolo Ohno cover from 2002 counts.
For the sake of comparison, I gathered a few Sports Illustrated covers from the past couple of years to compare to Vonn’s. I can only imagine how Dr. LaVoi would compare them to the most recent sexualized cover.
Tags: 2010 Olympics, cover, lindsey vonn, olympics, skiing, Sports Illustrated, winter olympics
