The “Selling of Candace Parker”and the Diminishment of Women's Sports
by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan
Breaking News: The WNBA is about to complete its 14th season. If you watched ESPN regularly, read a myriad of sports pages, or surfed the virtual sport world, the fact that the WNBA season was actually going on might be breaking news. In what could have been an exciting season—given the parity between teams and the influx of new talent, which could have resulted in increased cultural and sporting significance—the WNBA experienced yet another summer of alienation.
In a recently published piece in The Nation, entitled “Sex sells Sex, Not Women’s Sports,” Mary Jo Kane explains this marginalization, debunking the idea that sex is able to sell women’s sports. Rather, she notes that, “Sex sells sex, not women’s sports” leaving little doubt why women’s sports continues to struggle within the marketplace. “Millions of fans around the globe just witnessed such media images and narratives during coverage of the Women’s World Cup in Germany. Perhaps such coverage will start a trend whereby those who cover women’s sports will simply turn on the camera and let us see the reality—not the sexualized caricature—of today’s female athletes. If and when that happens, sportswomen will receive the respect and admiration they so richly deserve.” To reflect on these dynamics and the continued struggles of the WNBA to transcend (or even undermine) the sexist grips of American sports, I want to discuss an almost three-old year feature on Candace Parker.
In 2009, ESPN: The Magazine, as part of its women in sports issue, featured an article on Candace Parker. This one story encapsulates the persistent sexism that detracts from and inhibits the development of women’s sports within American culture. Reducing women athletes to sexual objects and potentially profitable spokeswomen, the article, entitled “The Selling of Candace Parker” does little to introduce and celebrate the contributions of women’s sports, but rather elucidates the systemic problems of American sports culture.
The emphasis on selling sex, rather than athletics and sport, is evident from moment one of the piece. “Candace Parker is beautiful. Breathtaking, really, with flawless skin, endless legs and a C cup she is proud of but never flaunts,” writes Alison Glock. “She is also the best at what she does, a record-setter, a rule-breaker, a redefiner.” Eliciting some criticism about the references to her body, and the reduction of her body to its sexualized parts, ESPN: The Magazine brushed off accusations of sexism, identifying the article as sensible given the demographics of the magazine. According to Gary Belsky, editor-in-chief, "It's not the worst thing in the world in a men's magazine to talk about things like that."
The sexualization of Parker and the focus on her body, at the expense of a narrative highlighting her athletic talents, doesn’t end with this initial introduction of readers to her physical attributes. Glock continues this treatise on Parker’s body before moving to a discussion of her “feminine charm”:
She is a woman who plays like a man, one of the boys, if the boys had C cups and flawless skin. She's nice, too. Sweet, even. Kind to animals and children, she is the sort of woman who worries about others more than about herself, a saint in high-tops.
It is this unprecedented combination of game, generosity and gorgeous that has Team Parker seeing miracles. They believe with all their collective heart that their 22-year-old, 6'4" stunner with the easy smile and perfect, white teeth will soon be the most recognized woman in American sports.
In other words, Parker represents an ideal femininity – nurturing, sexy, and heterosexual (the article make this clear though various rhetorical phrases, references to her husband, basketball player Sheldon Williams, and of course its discussion/visual presentation of Parker’s pregnancy); she is the perfect woman who happens to play basketball. In this regard, ESPN is selling Parker as a sexy and attractive woman whose job is to play basketball, a professional choice that in no way comprises her role as mother, wife, and sexual object to be consumed by male fans.
Yet, Glock doesn’t seem to limit Parker’s immense potential as the Michael Jordan of women’s sports because of her “flawless skin” and breast size (despite multiple references to her bust size), rather arguing that Parker can transcend women’s sports, breaking down commercial barriers to become “a one namer” because she isn’t like so many of today’s (black) athletes, whose brash and hyper-masculine demeanor alienates fans. She is “nice,” humble, and likable. She “is the total package, an advertiser's dream: attractive yet benign enough to reflect any fantasy projected upon her. Like Jordan before her, Parker is a cipher of sorts, nothing outsize or off-putting. Nothing edgy. Nothing Iverson. Aside from being an athletic freak, she's normal. You could imagine her hanging out at your family barbecue. This matters; if Parker seems like a down-home gal, a possible friend, then it's a short step to trust, and with trust comes a willingness to buy what Team Parker is selling.”
The racial text here is very interesting and revealing in that Parker is positioned not only against the longstanding stereotype of the sexually undesirable (and likely lesbian) female athlete, but as a point of departure from the modern black male athlete. Parker, like Woods (in 2009), is “characterized as “a breath of fresh air.” Her appeal is thus based “an American public “tired of trash-talking, spit-hurling, head-butting sports millionaires . . .” (Stodghill quoted in Cole and Andrews). She can be both a sexual and post-racial fantasy.
Yet Glock undercuts the commercial and iconic possibilities for Parker because she is a woman who chose to get pregnant. And choice is key here as the article positions Parker as someone who made a choice, likely against the will and advice of those inside of Team Parker, within the WNBA, and elsewhere. Following the opening paragraphs, all of which highlight the profit potential resulting from her identity and sex appeal, Glock seems to walk back this same argument, noting that getting pregnant was not part of the plan. Parker’s pregnancy “was a shock to her, her sponsors, and her WNBA team” because it would put the plans of so many counting on her on hold. Two years later, with Parker yet to fulfill this potential as WNBA star and marketing sensation, in part because of the time taken off with her pregnancy and then an injury, you can almost hear the skeptics saying, “We told you so.”
The implications of the article are striking it that it leaves readers with a troubling message that Parker’s appeal and her Achilles heal emanate from her female sexuality. That is had she used her feminine appeal to attract male sports fans, otherwise disillusioned by “thug” black males athletes and sexually undesirable female athletes, the sky was limitless. Yet, her decision to put “family first,” to fulfill the hegemonic patriarchal expectations of society, undermines her sporting appeal.
Interestingly Glock, in an effort to highlight both the marketing strategies embraced by Team Parker and her commercial appeal, reflects on the sexualizing demands placed upon contemporary female athletes. Noting that, “there are avenues available to women athletes … that involve waxing,” Glock laments that the once class-acts of sports are now “nuding it up” in Playboy. Candace Parker is thus presented as a throwback within women’s sports, more like “Michael Phelps” and “Yao Ming” (interesting choices to highlight the ideal athlete), embodying something different from those morally objectionable women.
“Women athletes are more likely to be marketed as sexy than as competent,” notes Mary Jo Kane, who is quoted in the article. “And many women go for it. These athletes are smart. They know what sponsors want . . .. It is the best and the worst of times. People like Candace are getting more coverage. But they are also forced to be sexy babes.” The feature article on Candace Parker is in fact exhibit A (and B, C, & D) for Kane’s argument in that the visibility afforded to her and women’s sport is delivered by an article about her body, beauty, bust, femininity, and sex appeal. Inclusion in mainstream sports culture is the result of this sexualizing process. ESPN, like the broader sports culture, isn’t selling women’s sports but sex. In this instance, as with the public recognition afforded to skier Lindsey Vonn, soccer star Hope Solo, race-car driver Danica Patrick, and tennis-phenom Serena Williams (check out this commercial featuring Williams), sex and sexuality are the primary vehicles for both the commodification and consumption of contemporary female athletes.
In a summer that has seen lockouts in the NBA and NFL (not too mention labor strife within some European Soccer leagues), that has seen waning interest in MLB and dissipating support for professional golf given the struggles of Tiger Woods, and that hasn’t had to compete with international competitions such as the Olympics, the WNBA had a chance to increase its cultural and market share. With only a slight increase in attendance, the cultural relevance and broader appeal of the game has seen little movement during a virtually sports-free summer. It has missed an “opportunity” because of the continue efforts to sell women’s sports through sex and sexual appeal rather than the beauty and brilliance of the game. As noted by Dave Zirin, “Every scrap of academic research shows that conditioning viewers to see women athletes as sex symbols comes at the expense of interest in the games themselves.” Or as Mary Jo Kane notes in this same article “For a female athlete, stripping down might sell magazines, but it won’t sell your sport.” The peripheral place of the WNBA, a fact evident and perpetuated by the sports media, the WNBA itself, and fans alike, demonstrates that the visibility afforded to women’s today (minimal at best) isn’t evidence of progress. Just ask Candace Parker.
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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis. He is the author of Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema and the forthcoming After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop (SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogs @ No Tsuris.
