The Beauty of Sports Photography

In the chapter “Framed and Mounted: Sport Through the Photographic Eye,” Rowe constructs an argument of how sports photography has changed the notion of aesthetics to the public eye.  He correctly asserts, “The most important object in sports photography is sport’s prime instrument, the human body,” (143).  There are some iconic photographs ingrained in our memories, such as Michael Phelps displaying his eight gold medals from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, or Brandi Chastain taking off her shirt after scoring the winning penalty kick for the United States in the 1999 World Cup.  However, the act of capturing an athlete’s body in action is one that has also been harshly criticized in recent years.

Take for example, Sports Illustrated and their yearly swimsuit edition.  The magazine which usually features athletes playing a sport, celebrating a victory, or donning a gold medal on the cover, once yearly features a female swimsuit model (frequently wearing more skin and less bikini).  The athletic publication known for football biographies, game predictions, and previews of an upcoming season dedicates an entire issue of their renowned magazine to women in swimsuits (or lack thereof).  Rowe points out an admirable piece of information to readers however, when he emphasizes that this kind of marketing for Sports Illustrated works.  “If Sports Illustrated has felt some concern about criticism of, especially, its gender politics (Davis 1997: 6-7), it has also provocatively drawn attention to this aspect of its activities,” (169).  The swimsuit edition was first published in 1964 and so long as people continue to support the magazine, it is unlikely that the magazine’s reputation will suffer (169). 

Perhaps the problem is not how people perceive the magazine models, but in fact how people perceive themselves.  We, as a society, judge ourselves in comparison to the models we see in advertisements and on the cover of magazines.  The result is a generation dedicated to doing everything in their power to have muscles like the male bodybuilder, or be as thin as the model on the runway.  Especially prevalent in females, these aspirations can cause physical and emotional damage.  So much so that Dove has created a “Dove Campaign for Real Beauty,” encouraging women to view themselves in a different light.  Check out their video below.  Their tagline: “You are more beautiful than you think,” emphasizes how critical women are of their bodies today.  Dove’s campaign builds on Foucault’s (1979) “concept of the ‘panoptcion’ (self-monitoring and self-discipline imposed by feelings constantly under surveillance) of women’s body images” (156).  So Dove set out to change the minds of women all over the nation.  Is the media to blame for an audience’s feelings?  How do you determine if photograph is moral or immoral?