When I think of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, I think snowboarding, ski-jumping, and figure skating. I think about national rivalries, the opening ceremonies, and the chance to watch sports events that I normally wouldn’t get to see. But Jerry Thornton, author of a blog entry titled “The Women of the 2010 Winter Olympics,” put a significant amount of time and energy into identifying the “hottest women athletes” to provide a “guide” to get others ready to watch. In other words, rather than watching the Games for what they are worth – a display of some of the world’s most talented winter sport athletes, Thornton researched the teams, picked out who in his opinion are the most attractive, and then ranked them so that he and others can watch women compete based on attractiveness rather than national affiliation, sport, or level of talent. Male chauvinist pig? Perhaps. Yet a step away from a focus on his actions on the individual level suggests that this is a prime example of how patriarchy is manifested in popular culture.
I’ll begin with a disclaimer, that clearly the nature of Thornton’s blog is to be a place for opinions. However, the obvious parallel to our course lies not just in the content of the entry but in the principles conveyed by its existence. First, there is the issue that the featured women did not ask to be included in Jerry Thornton’s blog. In that sense, the topic of this blog entry is proof of Ariel Levy’s statement that “hotness has become our cultural currency…Hotness is not the same thing as beauty, which has been valued throughout history. Hot can mean popular. Hot can mean talked about” (Levy 31). The 19 comments to Thornton’s post, many of which debate the worthiness of some of his selections, reinforce the notion that hotness is something to be consumed. And so in the context of raunch culture, the way that Thornton and his blog readers regard these women is not out of the ordinary. This contemporary spin on sexuality implies that for these “select” female athletes, that their sex appeal, not necessarily their talent, is what makes them worthwhile. Yet Jerry Thornton is not unique by creating such a list. Other websites, including Sports Illustrated, made similar lists, but to the dismay of Thornton included “chicks” who are winter athletes but are not competing on teams at this years Winter Olympics.
A closer look at Thornton’s blog entry may shed some light as to why some of these athletes may have made “the list.” The divisions of “gold,” “silver,” and “bronze,” with “gold” being the group of the most attractive athletes, show a curious discrepancy of types of pictures featured. Only the “gold” and “silver” groups contain athletes who have posed in FHM, Maxim, or other magazines partially nude. Did posing in such magazines give them sex appeal? Or is having sex appeal what presented them with the opportunity of posing in those magazines? It is probably a little bit of both, but even though level of attractiveness is a matter of opinion, I found it intriguing that those considered the “hottest” followed a general trend of raunchy posing. Though we do not know what the reactions, if any, of the athletes are (given that it is an independent sports blogging site they very well could be unaware that they are featured), the reactions of the commenters are extremely objectifying. In response to those athletes who chose to pose in raunchy magazines, Ariel Levy would probably say that they brought it upon themselves to have their names thrown around like objects, but what about those who didn’t?
A comment that jumped out at me was one that referred to Hilary Knight, a US hockey player, as a “gorilla,” and another that demanded, “take the chicks that play hockey off, there is nothing hot about chicks who play hockey.” Coincidentally, I recently had a conversation with a male Colgate student who stated that he does not like girls who play hockey. When I asked why that is, his only response was that girls should not play hockey. There are different angles that can be taken on this. First, when examining Jerry Thornton’s pictures of US hockey players, it is worthwhile to note that both posed in their hockey jerseys. Hockey jerseys are large, and quite the opposite of form-fitting. When juxtaposed with women posing half-naked in Maxim, they do not immediately convey the type of attractiveness that we as consumers of a raunch culture have been conditioned to accept. But could it be deeper than just appearance? If Jerry Thornton selected pictures of those female hockey players that divorced them from their sport, would they still be referred to as “gorillas?” We might not ever know, but it is interesting to think about the connotation of the sport in this particular case.
Men’s hockey is quite different from women’s hockey, for in women’s hockey checking is not allowed. The physicality of the men’s game often leads to fights and arguably embodies stereotypes of masculinity such as physical strength and aggression. On one level, maybe this particular Colgate male and blog commenter dislike women’s hockey players because they play a game that to some degree eliminates much of the physicality, which is a defining element of the men’s game. In other words, maybe to them, the women’s version of the game removes certain aspects that they feel hockey requires to be hockey, yet the association remains because for the most part, the sport is the same. On another level, when comparing female hockey players to other winter athletes, one could argue that hockey outwardly appears less sexy. Unlike skiing, figure skating, luge, skeleton, or other such events, hockey players are clad in protective gear and large jerseys instead of tight fitting body suits. The exception to this is snowboarding, but Gretchen Bleiler, a US snowboarder featured in the blog list, posed in FHM thereby solidifying an association with hotness and raunch. In sum, this angle boils down to social constructions of gender. Ice hockey in particular has an association with masculinity, whereas certain elements of other sports, whether they be the uniforms, or actions of the athletes themselves, contain reminders that draw onlookers to their sexuality.
Nevertheless, the interesting part about this blog entry is that we don’t get the female perspective. It is solely about the male perspective; the author is a male and the people who commented, though their genders are not identified, give the impression that they are most likely heterosexual males. Again, the women did not ask to be put on this list, which is in contrast to other instances of raunch culture magazine features where the women posed on purpose. Thus, my first reaction was to criticize Jerry Thornton as a male chauvinist pig. Why did he feel the need to go out of his way to compile a list of the hottest female athletes for the purpose of creating a “guide” to watching the 2010 Winter Olympics? It seems incredibly distasteful seeing as their athletic talent is not addressed aside from the mention at the beginning that they are on Olympic teams. But when examining his blog within a larger context, it is possible to view it not even just as a product of raunch culture, but as a product of patriarchy. As Allan G. Johnson stated, “the something larger we all participate in is patriarchy, which is more than a collection of individuals” (Johnson 30). Rather, it is an ideology that reflects a set of ideals, values, and beliefs that comprise a culture that “includes ideas about the nature of things, including women, men, and humanity” (Johnson 36). Furthermore, “to live in patriarchy is to breathe in misogynist images of women as objectified sexual property valued primarily for their usefulness to men” (Johnson 41). As Johnson emphasizes, that is not to say that all men inherently objectify women or “hate all things female,” but that this overarching social system has conditioned us all, male and female, to accept the idea of hotness as cultural currency, among other pre-conceived notions of gender identity (Johnson 41). If you step away from examining Jerry Thornton’s actions as ones of an individual, it becomes rather obvious that his webpage is a reflection of patriarchal culture; just as Thornton’s actions contribute to perpetuating the culture, the existence of the culture shape Thornton’s actions.
It would be interesting to hear the athletes’ reactions to being on this list. Would they be dismayed that these men presumably view them only as sexual objects, or would they feel empowered by the male attention? As we have discussed many, many times, sex sells. So if these athletes’ sexuality draws them fans, will they complain because they don’t agree with the principle? Once the fans see these women competing at the highest level in their sport, one would think that they would have an appreciation for their athletic prowess. Yet if the appreciation of their athleticism comes second, then does it count? These issues do not have a clear answer, for as long as patriarchy remains the way it is, our behavior is shaped in such a way that even if we appreciate a person’s athletic prowess that they cannot necessarily avoid being judged for their looks.
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