I wanted to tackle the role of gender roles in sports. When looking for clips, I felt intrigued by an old ESPN video showcasing one hour of “Dazzling Women of Sports in Swimsuits.” I used the intro of that video as the intro of my assignment, but instead of going straight to the swimsuit models, I transitioned the intro into varying clips of men running the 4x4, one more recent and the other more “filmic” looking. The men’s 4x4 is interrupted by the “Dazzling” women, using the soundtrack to put the viewers in a trance. The title card: DAZZLING WOMEN IN SPORTS goes straight into a montage of women in sports throughout history. The women are angelic, but can also be ferocious. Women are shown boxing, in the background, “One hour of Dazzling Women in swimsuits,” to contrast with the original ESPN footage of swimsuit models with the women boxing.
I took various clips and audio from a documentary about the advancements of women’s roles in sports throughout history. I included a bit where the narrator mentions the advancement of “a sport for both sexes,” contrasting again in the background with a montage of filmic media of men playing traditionally “male” sports. Men are shown boxing, a more modern clip similar to the blue and red uniforms of the women boxing previously, the narrator says, “Women can take it,” equating the ability of men in sports to that of women.
I used an old intro of “The Greatest Sports Follies” from Sports Illustrated. Compared to the ESPN intro for the swimsuit models, this one felt more “silly,” almost like male sports are meant for being foolish compared to the angelic women. The intro ends with a hairy leg and an elephant noise. I transitioned the sports follies of men back to the swimsuit models to emphasize this contrast.
One question I did want to propose in this project is: What is strength when it comes to sports? One of the sports swimsuit models mentions how she enjoys feeling sexy and feminine, which I see as a way of validating her identity as a woman. I used audio from a Zoom conference discussing women’s roles in sports: Now vs. Then. In this Zoom conference, one of the women discusses the issue of body image when it comes to the representation of women in sports. I transitioned this audio from the swimsuit models to football players and men being violent in sports to show the contrast of expectations.
Another issue discussed in the Zoom conference was how women used to not be able to play men’s sports, “50% of people.” I wanted to compare this situation to the role of transwomen in sports, so I transitioned to a clip of the audio of Trump not only calling transwomen “men,” but also banning their ability to compete in women’s sports, much like how cis women used to not be able to compete in male sports in the past.
I included a clip from a PragerU podcast, discriminating against transwomen competing in women's sports. The woman in the podcast argues that the role of sports is not to “have your identity validated,” which I feel juxtaposes the ESPN swimsuit model’s argument of how sports validate her femininity and identity. I found a news segment discussing men participating in pole dancing classes, which I felt was relevant to this argument, since what was once a "traditionally female sport” now has men participating. In the background, I used audio from another news segment discussing the involvement of transwomen at a high school’s women’s track team, and how the involvement of transwomen in women’s sports might anger cis women.
To conclude, I included a montage of both women and men in sports throughout history, with female athletes discussing how sports allow them to feel strength, ending with the end credits of the DAZZLING WOMEN IN SPORTS.