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Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Sparks Controversy. Offensive or Overreaction?
WFLA News ^ | 2/14/13

Posted on 02/14/2013 9:26:16 AM PST by Impala64ssa

The website Jezebel is calling out the men's magazine for using minorities as "props"

It's been a big week for Sports Illustrated. First, a blogger leaked the swimsuit issue's much-anticipated cover, upstaging David Letterman's big reveal on Monday. Now website Jezebel is calling out the men's magazine for using minorities as "props" in photos featuring models in bikinis posing in seven different continents.

Jezebel argues that the magazine is perpetuating racial stereotypes by drawing power and class lines between the Westernized models and the "primitive locals" and points to a long history of media using people of various ethnicities as "extras", citing Nylon magazine, the Free People catalog, British Vogue, and J-Crew.

Depending on where you look, the reaction has been mixed, even among the men who are supposed to be titillated. On Jezebel's website, one male commenter wrote, "Pics of woman with local natives is NOT hot, it's exploitative, so the mission is fail right there. Oh and exploitative. I do not know what they were thinking….fail all around." While another guy wrote, "Some of the examples are ›‹reaching a bit…the one with the boat….why pick that for China? Especially when everything I read about China is how they're an industrial powerhouse." And one helpful reader on Sports Illustrated's Facebook page pointed out, "Technically speaking they were not shot in all seven continents. While Easter Island may belong to Chile, it's a Polynesian island, and not part of the South American continent." Oy.

Shine reached out to Sports Illustrated and Scott Novak, SVP, Communications & Brand responded with "No comment" but added that the man who appears in the Namibia photos "may have done other editorial work before."

"These photos depict people of color as exotic backdrops," David Leonard, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies at Washington State University, tells Yahoo! Shine. "As with beautiful oceans, picturesque trees, people of color are imagined as exotic, as novel, as foreign, as uncivilized and as a point of comparison for the civilized white beauties scantily clad in bathing suits. Beyond functioning as props, as scenery to authenticate their third world adventures, people of color are imagined as servants, as the loyal helpers, as existing for white western pleasure, amusement, and enjoyment."

"As Jezebel writes, where are the images and pictures of bustling cities, skyscrapers — the pictures reify dominant narrative about the uncivilized and primitive third world. They define people of different races as 'other' and the sexual white female body as desirable, as they're to be watched, consumed, and enjoyed by men in lounge chairs," he adds.

Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Professor of History and Ethnic Studies, Director, Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America (CSREA) at Brown University tells Yahoo! Shine: "It's understandable why some would find these photos disturbing. The juxtaposition of scantily-clad white, modern, cosmopolitan and western woman against natives, animals, exotic scenery, primitives (African native), traditionals (Chinese fisherman; ethnic minority girls in China); The exception is the photo of the Spanish bullfighters, in which case the model is suggestive of the bull. The white models are tourists and colonials."

Fashion magazines and advertising are guilty of depicting racial stereotypes, too. In August 2011, Vogue Italia's website featured an accessory they called "Slave Earrings" with the tagline, "A classic always in evolution." After the inevitable backlash, they changed the title to "Ethnic Earrings" and posted a statement that it wasn't their intention to insult anyone. That same year, the skin lotion company Nivea issued an apology on their Facebook page for their "Look Like You Give a Damn Campaign" in which a clean-cut black man held the head of a caveman lookalike with dark skin and an Afro.

To be fair, not everyone's outraged. Most likely, the people buying the magazine aren't exactly reading too much into the photos. The Swimsuit Issue's Facebook page has 200,000 likes. As one commenter puts it: "I'll be buying my issue this weekend. I sure hope they don't sell out...."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: pc; sensitivity
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I suppose calling the SI swimsuit issue sexist is so old hat, out of fashion. My, my racism is everywhere! Here's an idea, taking a cue from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, why don't all us Whiteys wear a big red "R" around our necks whenever we're seen in public?
1 posted on 02/14/2013 9:26:28 AM PST by Impala64ssa
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To: Impala64ssa

The whole idea behind Affirmative Action is to use minorities as props in Academia and the Corporate World.


2 posted on 02/14/2013 9:33:17 AM PST by Cowboy Bob (Soon the "invisible hand" will press the economic "reset" button.)
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To: Impala64ssa
Jezebel is one of the most obnoxious man-hating sites on the internet (especially from their resident anti-male male, the limpwristed Hugo Schwyzer). I've blocked them so I don't accidentally click any of their links.

It goes without saying that they are part of the Gawker network, which published the names of NYC CCW holders in response to the suburban newspaper that did the same, then went on twitter to disparage anyone who called them out on it.

The entire Gawker network is scum and I urge everyone to never visit any of their sites, listed here.

3 posted on 02/14/2013 9:33:17 AM PST by Dan Nunn (Support the NRA!)
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To: Impala64ssa

SI sexually exploiting and objectifying women, duh

but at least they aren’t nude with paint this year


4 posted on 02/14/2013 9:35:40 AM PST by GeronL (http://asspos.blogspot.com)
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To: Impala64ssa

This may require some additional research and very close scrutiny :)


5 posted on 02/14/2013 9:36:14 AM PST by RedMDer (Support Free Republic)
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To: Impala64ssa

Its the yearly paen to white beauty (ftr the black model is very pretty)and how this must kill the fems and their anti-white allies. Too bad, though like that fraud Playboy mag and its leftism I find both stupidly hypocritical.


6 posted on 02/14/2013 9:40:37 AM PST by junta ("Peace is a racket", testimony from crime boss Barrack Hussein Obama.)
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To: Impala64ssa

Are there women in in the swimsuit issue? I like looking at locales.


7 posted on 02/14/2013 9:42:02 AM PST by moviefan8
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To: GeronL
I bought an issue last night to make sure it would not fall in the hands of a minor.

There is one picture of Kate Upton wearing only a scarf (strategically placed).

8 posted on 02/14/2013 9:45:54 AM PST by Perdogg (Mark Levin - It's called the Bill of Rights not Bill of Needs)
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To: RedMDer

9 posted on 02/14/2013 9:48:10 AM PST by Perdogg (Mark Levin - It's called the Bill of Rights not Bill of Needs)
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To: GeronL
SI sexually exploiting and objectifying women, duh but at least they aren’t nude with paint this year

Hmmm Something we can agree on.

10 posted on 02/14/2013 9:50:25 AM PST by verga (A nation divided by Zero!)
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To: Impala64ssa

"...I only buy the mag to read sports stories and articles, maybe the occasional advert that might grab my interests...I often find the mag boring and dull"

11 posted on 02/14/2013 9:50:28 AM PST by Doogle (USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..never store a threat you should have eliminated))
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To: Perdogg

You don’t get many of those by the pound


12 posted on 02/14/2013 9:50:54 AM PST by al baby (Hi Mom)
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To: Perdogg

What was the line from the old Warner cartoons?

Oh yeah. “...Mama buy me that”.


13 posted on 02/14/2013 9:57:32 AM PST by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: Perdogg

That is a beautiful cloud formation in the background. What is there not to like about nature and the natural.


14 posted on 02/14/2013 9:58:27 AM PST by forgotten man (forgotten man)
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To: Impala64ssa

Men have been admiring the female figure and reproducing it as art for over 3000 years. Get over it.

What is it about libtards to think, on one hand, that people can be rewired to conform to their version of political correctness but, on the other hand, are no more capable of controlling their sexual actions than a dog in heat?

15 posted on 02/14/2013 10:00:58 AM PST by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: Impala64ssa
I remember when the swimsuit models used to wear swimsuits. :-)

I recently re-upped my subscription (it was free, for 6 months anyway). It had been a few years since I'd perused a copy of SI's swimsuit edition. I was rather surprised to see - on the last page - fully naked models.

Not that I'm complaining. But, it was a little surprising.

16 posted on 02/14/2013 10:03:06 AM PST by wbill
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To: Impala64ssa

Another day, another complaint of evil “racism.” Yawn.


17 posted on 02/14/2013 10:03:44 AM PST by Nea Wood (When life gets too hard to stand, kneel.)
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To: Perdogg

That “scarf” looks digital, painted on; not that I’m complaining, of course!


18 posted on 02/14/2013 10:06:36 AM PST by pingman (Trust a lib? Surely you jest!)
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To: pingman

she is nude with full body paint and her hoo ha Photoshopped.


19 posted on 02/14/2013 10:10:40 AM PST by eyrish69 (Yellowstone Wolves - Smoke a Pack a Day!!!)
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To: Perdogg

20 posted on 02/14/2013 10:13:28 AM PST by RedMDer (Support Free Republic)
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