On Monday the Portland Trail Blazers announced their next general manager will be Rich Cho, the first Asian American general manager in the NBA. Fans, internet posters and beat writers reported this fact with pride, some even applauding the organization for breaking down barriers and upholding Portland, Oregon’s rep as a diverse and liberal city. When it comes to the treatment of women however, the Portland Trail Blazers are as sexist and non-progressive as an organization can get. If the hiring of Cho is the Blazer equivalent to the American Public electing President Barack Obama, then the Blazers are on the same level as Republican David Vitter when it comes to the treatment and representation of women.
What exactly has me so up in arms over the BlazerDancers this time? The team has recently added a “vote” feature on its BlazerDancer page, allowing fans to vote on who is most attractive. With the help of an aggressive but ultimately futile attempt at creating a fan-geared site called Iamatrailblazerfan.com, fans are now able to “connect” with the BlazerDancers much like they do in posting congratulatory messages on player's respective pages. Unlike the players however, the fans connect with the BlazerDancers by voting on their appearance.
Who are the women that make up the Blazer Dancers? To this question there is no answer, as the details don’t matter. These women are not prostitutes but are used to sell sex; the women themselves are not the problem, rather it is an institutional issue that says training women to perform sexualized routines for men under the guise of “cheer leading”is perfectly okay. The women who make up this year’s squad were picked based upon their physical appearance and although they may alight from collegiate or high school dance/cheer squads, those skills are not required for this job. As detailed on the Blazers’ own website, hopeful BlazerDancers attending tryouts must provide a full body photograph and show up with midriff and legs showing. Preliminary rules are outlined that state all potential BlazerDancers must consent to maintaining mandatory appearance and fitness guidelines. In essence, the tryouts have become nothing more than a debauched beauty contest in which the talent portion includes women doing the splits as team photographers snap away.
The 2010-2011 tryouts were judged by the Oregonian’s Blazer beat writer Jason Quick and Brian Grant, among others. The qualification that places these men at the judging table is the ability to assess female attractiveness as red-blooded men, nothing more, nothing less. Perhaps the team considered Quick a good guest-judge candidate because he’s representative of the white, male, demographic in Portland. Or maybe he’s just that desperate for a close up view of half-naked women. Regardless, the presence of two, non-dance professionals, upon the judging panel of the BlazerDancer tryouts sends a blatant message that this isn’t about whether the women can dance, its about how pretty they are.
Corporations and other male-driven institutions have long used sex to attract male (and female) consumers. The Portland Trail Blazers are certainly no exception as they are part of an institution that perpetuates severe beauty, gender, race, and socioeconomic stereotypes and norms. While sexy women are not the main product, they are part of an overall package that in part promises sex ( in the form of women reenacting sexual acts) as a perk or byproduct of attending an NBA game. The dancers are not supposed to dance, they are selling sex and in this, the BlazerDancers are nothing more than an extremely cheap commodity.
And each year, NBA organizations push the envelope a little more by upping the ante on the commodification of women's bodies. The clothes cover less, the routines are more sexual and the women are marketed less as humans and more as a group of sex pots created just for us. I am sure the women on the BlazerDancer squad have great personal histories and have achieved many things that have nothing to do with the way they look, but the Blazers’ organization renders all of that irrelevant, cutting away everything except what the NBA deems the most important-their bodies.
Naomi Wolf says in The Beauty Myth, “images that flatten sex into “beauty“ and flatten the beauty into something inhuman... Are politically and socioeconomically welcome”. Reinforcing Wolf’s theory, the NBA portrays the dance squads to be legitimate and appropriate forms of entertainment, all the while knowing the sex is what matters, not the dancing. And in this, women are relegated to one of the three stereotypical roles as child bearer, sex-pot for men, and a slave to beauty- all of which are means to control women and maintain patriarchy. While some NBA organizations are still trying to front with the excuse that the dance squads are indeed just that, the Trail Blazers don’t even pretend anymore, allowing fans to vote on the appearance of the cheer squad and thus completely dehumanizing women.
I love basketball and feel the sport has taken many great steps in trying to improve its public image. The NBACares campaign and Basketball Without Borders have no doubt helped many communities. Even as the two programs are obvious PR stunts to shore up fan approval, there is some good that comes of them. But the rampant sexism displayed by my favorite sport team never ceases to enrage me and completely negates any strides the league has made in their NBACares campaign. The sexist and degrading displays, which commodify and fetishize women continue every year, each season getting more and more egregious. This is in spite of the fact that the NBA tries to make itself out to be a family activity, that the NBA spends billions on PR campaigns and that over 50% of the fan base is comprised of women.
The Rose Garden should not be a gentlemen’s club and as the shiteous teams of the mid 2000’s here in Portland proved, if the team on the court is bad, no amount of sex routines will get people into the Rose Garden. There simply is no need for the sport to maintain the male-dominated sex atmosphere, because what fans in Portland ultimately care about is whether Greg Oden is healthy and the Blazers can get to the 2nd round of the playoffs.
LaPrincipessa | Twitter | Email
15 comments:
give me a break.
Absolutely spot-on. I'm doing my level best to raise my 8 year old son to respect women, and the Blazer Dancers just make my job more difficult, because there's simply no rational justification for their performances.
Additionally, the far more popular time out entertainment pieces are "acrobatic dunks off trampolines by guys wearing furry costumes" and "let's see if this guy can make a half-court shot for a new car."
The one thing that would be the most popular but no one does would be statistical analysis of the game thus far. Every team does this on their TV broadcasts, but no one seems to have figured out that fans in the arena might want the same thing.
thank you. this is why i won't take my 10 year old daughter (or 8 year old son, for that matter) to a blazers game. and this doesn't take into account the pre-teen girls who aspire and are implicitly encouraged (blazer dance camp?) to become the next generation of blazer "dancers" - though that's as much about parenting as anything. still, one would expect more from an organization that has otherwise attempted to remake its image.
"There simply is no need for the sport to maintain the male-dominated sex atmosphere, because what fans in Portland ultimately care about is whether Greg Oden is healthy and the Blazers can get to the 2nd round of the playoffs."
That last line encapsulates what was running through my mind the entire time i was reading your article. As a full-tilt, man-crushing Blazers fan and as father of a four-year-old daughter, I'm in wholesale agreement with you. When I watch a game with my kid, my hope is that she might learn some very general lessons about teamwork and perseverence. I could do without the insidious undertones of female commodification and hyper-sexualization. Unfortunately, it seems to be fully integrated with all the other nonsensical sensory overload that has become an accepted part of the Rose Garden experience.
I agree w/ the premise here. The Blazer Dancers are not something I would use to illustrate the finer points of our culture.
I think individual season ticket holders should let Mr. Allen know what they think.
I, for my part, call them the 'Blazer Hookers,' which is something the image conscious, Blazer corporate leadership would appreciate, or not.
I think there is a larger factor here that also contributes. It is the deep, deep, patriarchal message that men are good at sports and worth watching. Women, if they are good at sports, will eventually give it up for lack of serious options because, as the message goes, they are not worth watching if they are playing sports. Instead, they are worth watching if they are being pretty/sexy. This message was lived out on the basketball courts outside my house every day of summer, where the boys played basketball and the girls just watched them. They were welcome to play, but they just didn't, perhaps because they didn't want to, perhaps because they weren't supposed to, perhaps because they didn't actually feel welcome to.
Now I'm an adult, and the same messages prevail at the highest level of the sport. It is widely accepted nationwide that mens' competitions are more worth our time, and if women want a place at the table on a nationally televised event, well then they better be showing their midriffs and shaking their rears.
I think it is appropriate to call out the Blazers organization for this. But it is very difficult to get one team to edge away from their sexism when they are following the league example, which follows the example set by all professional sports, which follows the message that we're all sold. Men do stuff, women watch. Women show their bodies, men watch.
Perhaps it would be helpful to suggest a means by which individuals can most appropriately lodge their protest? An e-mail address, perhaps?
Thank you all for reading and for the support. I am used to the usual "ZOMG BLAZER DANCERS ARR HAWTTTT DON'T BE JEALOUS" type of comments. The feedback is especially appreciated.
I also agree with your general premise, and I think that it's another example of blatant hypocrisy that we as Americans have gotten cozy and familiar enough with to basically ignore.
One thing that snapped me awake to this issue, though... I was at a Trail Blazers game two seasons ago, and I watched a promotion where two little boys were brought onto the court to receive a gift from "Santa," (the boys couldn't have been older than 10 or so) and the first little boy received a BlazerDancer calendar, and I was thinking to myself, "wow, that's pretty inappropriate" and then the 2nd boy's prize was AN ACTUAL SCANTILY-CLAD BLAZER DANCER. This woman was shaking her thing in front of this kid, and he had to walk away with her, like she was his prize.
The whole thing was pretty shocking to me, and what was worse was that I looked around and nobody else seemed to have a problem with it.
I ended up sending an email to some customer service address or something (I can't remember now) but the fact that this happened and that, by and large, it was not NEWS was, and continues to be, an indictment on the oversexualization of our culture.
Jelani, that is... I don't even know. I have no words to describe that. How completely and utterly inappropriate . I have no words, but thanks for sharing that story - provides further testament to the lack of respect the organization has for women by their use of the BlazerDancers.
I agree, I much prefer the trailbreakers as actual entertainment. There routines are fun to watch and impressive at that.
WHAT I find more disturbing are the large numbers of adolescent dance squads the Blazers bring including but not limited to the Junior Blazer Dancers.
I'm not taking a stand one way or another, but just stating a fact.
The Blazer Dancers have previously publicly stated that they take pride in being the most modest dance squad in the NBA, and have had that repuatation for years. If you insist on specifics, they generally refuse to wear bikini-style bottoms, and instead wear shorts. Regardless of what you think of the Blazer Dancers, they are more conservative than the rest of the NBA.
I suppose then you have never commented on the attractiveness of a single Trail Blazer.
There is truth behind your statements, but such condemnation is a bit extreme.
Also, "While some NBA organizations are still trying to front with the excuse that the dance squads are indeed just that, the Trail Blazers don’t even pretend anymore, allowing fans to vote on the appearance of the cheer squad and thus completely dehumanizing women," pretending is better than being open and honest? It seems you would like to call to the forefront these "injustices" yet also are a proponent of a behind doors culture. Which is it that you prefer? Sex is natural, it is nature's driving force in the animal kingdom. Some things are then inevitably sexual. Maybe if the dancers got a benefits package and improved on their dance skills (lacking indeed), then you would be more content with the situation.
In essence though, the dancer's are the only one's who can respect themselves, they ultimately are an embodiment of their own self perceived portrayal of who they want to be and who they want the public to perceive them to be, for better or for worse, it is their responsibility, because we all know they are not doing it for the money.
Thanks for bringing forth a worthwhile discussion point.
It's a business and ultimately the goal of a business is to make money. I do agree about how it's wrong to vote who is most attractive on the website; they could at least have a bio on each of the dancers so we can know them as people and not just objects. Oh well, I don't use the site anyways.
Ultimately, the demographic for a men's sports team would dictate marketing and entertainment would be geared more toward a male audience. This maxes revenue so employees can continue to work and these dancers can continue to dance.
Now write about why equally qualified women make 75 cents to the dollar a man would make - something actually important.
1.) Paid dancing opportunities, particularly those that offer consistent audiences of over 20,000 as well as local and national television exposure, are rare. If you truly love dancing, doesn't this at least present a stage to continue your hobby? Doesn't an attractive, healthy female have every right to show the world how much work she has put in on her body and talents? Should we also rid the world of cheerleading, modeling, and whatever Lady Gaga is?
2.) What would you say to Jessica Sutta (Miami Heat) and Asia Nitoliano (Knicks) who were eventually asked to join The Pussycat Dolls because of their dance team experience and singing ability? Dawn Angelique Richards (Hornets) and Shannon Bex (TRAIL BLAZERS!) both left their teams to join Danity Kane... And Moon Bloodgood (Lakers) starred in Terminator Salvation and Burn Notice... If Pamela Anderson can be discovered because of a 'Fan Cam' then I hardly find fault in 15 girls putting in work to gain exposure.
3.) And this is work! The BlazerDancers are a paid member of the franchise, so technically you're arguing for them to lose their jobs in a rough economy (stretch, but it's true). According to Yahoo Answers, paid professional dancers make between $20 and $60 per game plus the opportunity for future appearances at events. Sexy or not, the choreography requires hours of rehearsal, conditioning, technique and a positive attitude which should be celebrated, not smashed. If anything, we should be discussing how they are underpaid respective to their role rather than belittling what this role actually is...
4.) You jest about scantily clad costumes but fail to acknowledge the fact that the girls of "So You Think You Can Dance" and "America's Best Dance Crew" are hardly prancing around in turtlenecks and rain pants. National Salsa competitions leave little to be desired when it comes to outfits and yet they maintain grace and esteemed beauty because they're dancing in a room full of suits and not jerseys? Where do we draw the line?
5.) One team has a "Match the Dancer to the Boobs" section on their website, but being from Portland you expect the Trail Blazers to set an example... Fine... As 10 years of history has shown us, the Dancers aren't going anywhere, so what can we do to improve their situation? Increased wages and scholarship opportunities seems like a start... What about featuring them as 'Guest Sideline Reporters' on the pre-game show? Or - gasp - giving them opportunities on local shows like "Talkin' Ball"? No qualifications seem necessary to appear on there...
6.) The NBA is a business that caters to an audience that is predominantly male. Males like females- particularly those in scantily clad outfits... Business 101 says "Cater to your target audience." If anyone is really that distraught at the site of a BlazerDancer, then simply stop giving the Blazers your money. It's easy and it will cheapen tickets for the rest of us (Supply and Demand - Business 202).
And parents - if you're worried about BlazerDancers, then please make sure you remove all access to the internet, basic cable, and internet phones from your children from now 'til eternity. All of these 3 options offer far worse things than fully clothed dancers. Also - STOP LETTING THE TV TIMEOUTS AT BLAZER GAMES RAISE YOUR CHILDREN.
7.) BlazerDancers are also expected to be ambassadors for the franchise and the community, doing volunteer work at hospitals, community events, and more.
So, hard workers who are attached to their sports team and their community looking for an opportunity to better their own situation? You say they should be disbanded, I say more people should be like them...
Very interesting dialog! I am in the sports business and we pride ourselves on quality, family entertainment (portland pilots). This article definitely makes me think twice about our game presentation. Thank you.
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