Culture Project - ESPN The Magazine's "The Body Issue"

On October 9, 2009, ESPN The Magazine released the first-ever “The Body Issue” where over 30 athletes posed nude or close to nude. According to a video that investigates the making of the issue from the editors’ point of view, the purpose of “The Body Issue” is to show off physique, for the body is the main instrument with which the athletes perform in their respective sports. Athletes are shown on the field and off the field, and a variety of persons are depicted. Also acknowledged in the video is that ten senior staff members deliberately arranged the photo spread to provide what in their opinion was the best balance of gender, race, level of undress, and ethnicity to avoid criticism from viewers for featuring certain subjects or types of subjects over others. Furthermore, six subjects, three males and three females, were selected to appear on different covers for the issue. While Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs, would disagree that an extensive photo spread of nude or semi-nude athletes alone is a celebration of physique as related to athleticism, I am not fully convinced that “The Body Issue” exists solely as a contributor to raunch culture. Though some aspects do appear to echo the consumerism of sexuality and objectification that Levy so deplores, I do believe that certain elements of how the photos were designed and where they were featured make it reasonable that ESPN did accomplish the stated goal of celebrating athlete’s bodies without insinuating that the purpose of the issue's existence is to objectify the sexuality of the participants.

Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs, would most likely treat this magazine issue similar to her cited incidences of Olympians Amanda Beard and Amy Acuff posing in Playboy, FHM, Maxim, and other raunchy works. To Levy, the effect of a female athlete posing nude or next to nude is to draw attention away from their athletic prowess and toward their bodies and only their bodies (20). Levy criticizes the supposition projected by the athletes’ decisions to pose that to be both “sexy” and “athletic” that the female body must be taken out of context of the sport. To her, “if you really believe you were both sexy and athletic, wouldn’t it be enough to play your sport with your flawless body and your face gripped with passion in front of the eyes of the world?” (44). In effect, the creation of something such as “The Body Issue” may merely be a contributor to raunch culture. Though she may acknowledge that ESPN The Magazine intended something different, the omnipresence of sexuality and currency of “hotness” to her may make it inevitable that consumers view the issue as a display of sexy bodies as opposed to a display of sexy, athletic bodies.

However, there are three aspects of ESPN The Magazine’s “The Body Issue” that complicate Levy’s criticism, aspects that make me slightly more (but not completely) accepting of ESPN The Magazine’s mission statement. First, there is the sheer fact that it is ESPN The Magazine. Not Playboy, not Maxim, and not FHM. Though the athletes are still nude or semi-nude, the medium does not have the same association with raunch and sex that these other works have. As an aside, a lot of people probably hear ESPN and immediately think of Sports Illustrated, since they are competitors. A lot of comparisons can be made between ESPN The Magazine’s “The Body Issue” and Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Edition, but given that Sports Illustrated generally features models (as opposed to strictly athletes) and has a long history of development (it’s been published annually since 1964), I am choosing to discard it from this analysis. Instead, my points here relate strictly to the association between the athlete and the portrayal of the athlete’s body.

This leads to my second point. Unlike the image of Amanda Beard referenced by Ariel Levy in Female Chauvinist Pigs, the photos featured in “The Body Issue,” nudity aside, arguably aren’t suggestive relative to what is routinely feature in magazines like Playboy. More specifically, none of the images of posing female athletes appear to be accompanied by a “coy, naughty-girl pout,” or other means of suggestiveness characteristic of images found in magazines like Playboy. Instead, most of the athletes pose with stoic facial expressions or smiles.

Finally, there is the key observation that many of the nude or semi-nude athletes are men, which in my opinion draws the emphasis away from an exclusive fixation on female sexuality. This is notable because raunch culture seems to predominately feature objectification of female bodies and female sexuality. Levy criticizes objectification of females by females, whether they are objectifying themselves or others. To Levy, raunchy exposure is degrading instead of liberating, but here I think the context is different than the examples she has referenced. When discussing incidences of female elite athletes who choose to pose nude or semi-nude in various magazines, a comment that came up more than once was that male athletes apparently don’t feel the need to do the same. In “The Body Issue,” the men are no less nude than the women, and similarly are not posing very suggestively. To me, the fact that both genders are featured sways the message more toward that of empowerment based on the display of their physique than outright objectification. The men featured in the issue in my mind dismiss the accusation that the women sought to expose themselves for reasons other than the display of physique intended by the editors. In other words, by virtue of the involvement of male athletes, I don’t think it a valid argument to criticize only the females who pose, because it can’t be assumed that their motives were any different from those of the males for agreeing to appear in the issue.

A look at the cover photos of Serena Williams and Gina Carano (a mixed martial arts fighter) reveals some interesting contrast. While both are clearly missing key pieces of clothing, Carano’s picture features her with gloves on, kicking a punching bag, while William’s pose has absolutely nothing to do with anything athletic, aside from the fact that her muscularity is evident. A glance at other pictures in the issue show that this is the case throughout, both with men and women. While some pictures include props that have to do with the athlete’s sport, others are isolated naked or near-naked poses. This is the part that makes me slightly agree with Levy in that “The Body Issue” to some extent feeds into raunch culture. Even though most of the athletes are fairly well-known, the isolated poses seem to break the association of the body with the sport except for when the reader remembers that they are looking at ESPN The Magazine. Furthermore, even in the pictures that contain athletic poses or props, such as the cover shot of Gina Carano, why is it that they must be nude or semi nude to be showing off their physique? Why can’t Gina Carano pose the same way, but be wearing a sports bra?

There probably isn’t a clear answer to this question, but I can speculate that to some degree the sheer existence of raunch culture is at fault. Popular culture is so hyper-sexualized that it is logical that the nudity must exist in order for the issue to have the effect that the editors wanted, that is, to boldly reify the athletes’ bodies. The title of the main section of the magazine – “Bodies We Want,” reinforces this logic. Maybe we are so desensitized to exposed bodies that without nudity, the presentation would not make as big of a statement. From this point of view, then perhaps instead of “contributing” to raunch culture, as Ariel Levy would say, “The Body Issue” instead designed the photo spread to cater to consumers who are enveloped in raunch culture. But at the same time, doesn’t that mean that to cater to raunch culture consumers pretty much is to contribute to it? I say this because the defining elements of raunch culture to an extent are reflected or even reproduced in order to target the audience that consumes it (that is, the nudity). I know that this logic goes in a circle and doesn’t do much to distinguish how “The Body Issue” could exist in the midst of yet not contribute to raunch culture, but as I considered the question I found myself continually wondering, does nudity automatically have to mean raunch? Does the focus on physique automatically spell out “objectification”? Does the fact that these athletes took their clothes off by itself dismiss all hope of a message different than objectifying their sexuality?

Again, I don’t think that there will ever be a clear answer to these questions, but the editors probably say no, and so would triathlete Sarah Reinersten and Olympic softball player Jessica Mendoza. This too is a slight aside, but Reinersten appeared nude and she has a prosthetic leg, and Mendoza appeared in the issue while eight months pregnant. Mendoza explained, “I try to get young girls to see themselves as beautiful and to not feel insecure about their bodies, the more we can get more realistic bodies in front of them, the better” (http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2009-09-28-espnmag-body-issue_N.htm). Clearly these are exceptions to the rule, for the “Bodies We Want” section is essentially a showcase of some of the “best bodies in sports,” according to editor-in-chief Gary Belsky (http://www.usatoday.com/sports/2009-09-28-espnmag-body-issue_N.htm). Yet while sex sells, I am not convinced that ESPN The Magazine intended to just sell sex. In the context of current raunch culture, these athletes can be objectified by consumers whether the editors want them to or not; perhaps the focus on their bodies rather than their skills makes this inevitable, even though the mission was to “celebrate” their bodies rather than objectify them. But that raises the question: does celebrating a body make it an object if it is separated from its function?

It is hard to come to any concrete conclusions about the extent to which ESPN The Magazine’s “The Body Issue” is a reflection of or contributor to raunch culture. Nonetheless, I do think that ESPN showed off a variety of athletes’ bodies in a balanced way in terms of the types of people they chose and the varying degrees of undress. I am still a little skeptical as to why nudity had to be there, but I still didn’t look at “The Body Issue” and immediately conclude that it screamed “Raunch”. I have a difficult time comparing ESPN The Magazine to Playboy and FHM, and so believe that even if the focus on physique in a way objectifies the athletes’ bodies, that they are objectified differently than what Levy describes in Female Chauvinist Pigs. While the antics of Amanda Beard and Brandi Chastain in FHM and Gear seem to fall into the trap of raunch culture, I found it much easier to maintain respect for the athletes who posed in ESPN The Magazine. Maybe it’s the fact that it is ESPN The Magazine and not Playboy. Maybe it’s the fact that at least some of the poses involved athleticism. But in any case, I’m interested to see what other people think.