Visual Texts
>> Sunday, September 23, 2012 –
aed 812
Ethnicity. Nationality. Race.
What am I?
Yesterday, a teacher at an international school in Beijing updated her Facebook status.
“It's international day and children are crying because they don't know what they are. I feel their pain!”
For some, the answer is not so clear.
Last night, I was talking with teenage girls. Two Korean-Americans, a Chinese, a Korean, an Indian, and an American whose dad is Chinese-American and mom is white. Their American friend is moving back to the states after being here for a year. In discussing this upcoming adjustment, we began debating the friend’s identity. One Korean-American insisted the girl was German and Irish. I contended the girl was 100% American. She did not live in those countries. Her parents were not born in those countries. While she can trace her roots back to those European nations, she is American. A European mix-breed.
In light of those discussions, I was shocked to randomly stumble upon Lolo Jones’s twitter and read her tweet asking if someone has ever dated a ½ white girl. A few more clicks, some articles and pictures. The girl I had thought was Caucasian with dirty blonde hair turns out to be of French, African-American, Native American and Norwegian descent.
(At this point in time, I would like to clarify. The track and field events were on the tail end of my time in the states. I was too busy packing, missing planes, and beating jetlag to be aware of any media coverage of her events or media coverage of her media coverage. So I got caught up on all of it today.)
How is this 30 year old woman portrayed?
Issues of ethnicity, race, sexuality, and gender abound, with a touch of religion thrown into the mix.
To begin, I performed a Google Image Search (Safe Search-moderate) of her name. Ever wanting to help, Google suggests you might want to add the terms ESPN, Olympics, hot, hurdling, or LSU to your search. Four of those terms relate to her career path and skill. One is entirely based on her physical attractiveness. (ESPN could also be in reference to her physical beauty, since she posed naked for ESPN in 2009.)
The first 34 images were diverse, ranging from a shot of the 4th place finish to black lingerie, and even included an image of Dawn Harper, Jones’s teammate who beat her and earned the silver medal in London. Looking at only the 20 posed photos, not the candid shots (before/during/after a race or during an interview/press conference), I analyzed the images using the following categories.
Google Image Search—Top 20 Posed Images of Lolo Jones
8-Normal Clothes 6-Athletic 2-Weak
3-Athletic Clothes 4-Powerful 6-Sexual
5-Fancy Clothes 2-Dominant 6-Passive
4-Minimal Clothes—lingerie, flag bikini, or no clothes visible due to cropping
From my personal perception, she seemed equally as likely to be shown as athletic as sexual and/or passive. In Killing Us Softly 4, Jean Kilbourne observes that dominant and powerful images of athletic women are often counterbalanced by the media with sexualized images, as if to make their power less threatening. Lolo Jones is another female example of this phenomenon, but with some interesting complexities due to race/ethnicity and sexuality.
In regards to race, Lolo is part of a long history of multiracial children who do not neatly fit into binary categories of white and black. While I assumed she was Caucasian based on photos from races, her image fluctuates between the races. Lolo’s light skin, light hair, and bone structure group her with many African-American and Asian-American models who are more successful due to their similarities to white ideals. In her case, this is even more pronounced due to her genetics. Her medal-earning teammates, with more traditional African features, did not receive as much publicity. There are a myriad of factors to this media frenzy around Lolo, such as her agent and her own marketing campaign, but one cannot deny that Dawn Harper and Kellie Wells have darker skin, less Caucasian features, and Olympic medals.
Apart from Lolo’s natural beauty, her sexuality became more prominent in the public eye when she admitted to being a virgin at the age of 30 and cited religious beliefs for saving herself for marriage. This emphasis on her sexual identity, the media’s love of her beauty, and her inability to earn a medal at both the 2008 and 2012 Olympics led some to insult her, referring to her as another Anna Kournikova. As one sports commentator said, “If you want to dismiss a female athlete, you use the word Kournikova; that’s how you marginalize her.” The term insinuates that she is famous for her looks despite mediocre skills, which is not accurate given Lolo’s first place finishes in many world events. Additionally, Anna Kournikova was an excellent doubles player and ranked 8th in the world. 8th of 6 billion is impressive; she was not just looks.
But in this world, whether you are too pretty or not pretty enough, it is held against you.
To further analyze the image of Lolo Jones in the media, I found 20 images from magazine photo shoots, advertisements, and publicity shots from Lolo’s own website. I used the same criteria for analysis as with the Google Images, but added what race I perceived Lolo in the image, what setting she was in, and if she was dismembered or her body equated to an object she was advertising.
20 Images of Lolo Jones from magazines, advertisements, and publicity shots
3-Normal 8-Powerful 6-Weak 6-White 8-Outdoor
8-Athletic 10-Athletic 8-Sexual 9-Multiracial 3-Domestic Interior
3-Fancy 6-Dominant 9-Passive 5-African American 7-Unknown
5-Costume 1-Gym
1-Nude 2-body equated to an object (never dismembered)
Both of the pictures above show Lolo advertising for Red Bull, but the image on the left shows her as powerful, athletic, and dominant. She is confident and assertive, facing the outdoor world bravely. In the image at the right, she is reclining in a domestic space, even partially covered by sheer curtains. Her body is passive and she smiles with slight seduction, as if you are a male approaching her romantically. In the image at the left, it is as if she has consumed the Red Bull. On the right, the male viewer is the only one who could possibly have Red Bull in his system; her submissive body speaks nothing of energy drinks.
In a similar manner, the two images below show Lolo as weak, passive, and sexual in a domestic space. The nude photo for ESPN attracted more attention three years later in light of her comments about virginity. She glances over her shoulder, vulnerable, almost bashful, as the presumed male approaches her. On the right, she is frail, slumped in an armchair, her nakedness only covered by a towel. In both cases, she is aware of the gazing male, but her eyes communicate a passive submission to his dominance.
The cover of TIME magazine uses unmuted primary colors to render a very different story. Along with Gabby Douglas and Ryan Lochte, Lolo is shown in action, muscles tense, limbs and hands strong. She is focused on her task, not a demure woman in need of male attention. She strides confidently into her challenge; 100 meters of hurdles and the world that watches.
Despite the contradictory messages in the images of Lolo Jones, her story is stereotypical of the female athlete. At times she is strong; other times she is desperate for a man’s attention and protection. She seems to jump between the two roles seamlessly, even within the same advertising campaign.
Her racial story is less clear. A multiracial heritage makes her a chameleon, able to play up either end of the spectrum with lighting, hair, clothing, and Photoshop. Additionally, the ambiguity might give her a broader appeal among viewers who perceive her identity in light of their own. Though my recognition of her as white, multiracial, or African-American changed in the various photos, only the Vargas-inspired ads seemed to identify with a specific racial story, and that of classifying her as a white sexual object.
Is it important that the audience be able to place Lolo’s race into a distinct category? While my mistaken assumption of her race being identical to mine was surprising, the popularity of Lolo in the media implies that it is less alarming than indecipherable gender. When it comes to gender, Lolo is clear in that regard.
She is a sexualized female.
