Week 7: Tanned Blonde Trophies

Ford and Brown's article, Gendering the Waves, gave one of the most succinct and insightful discussions of patriarchy, feminism, and intersectionality I've ever read in just a few pages. I was incredibly struck by how easily surfing was and is aligned with these issues, which plague every other part of society, no matter how "square" or otherwise antithetical to the concept of surfing as paradise they are. I think it's interesting that people try to theorize surfing as somehow separate or untouched by the heavier issues like the social constructs of race and gender and how they affect privilege, though with just about any modern activity or historical practice, it's easier to believe that you've found paradise when you exceptionalize whatever you're doing as somehow separate from the problems that affect all modern humanity.

I think the most important issue discussed in these first few pages was the concept that "men and masculinity often take an assumed or centered position in social discourses or narratives and thereby serve as the implicit subject around which all knowledge is constructed." This concept can easily be adapted to surfing's origins and other tales of white colonialism; we trust white men's accounts as truth more quickly than native traditions like oral storytelling. Similarly, we've always accepted women as little more than beach decorations  - or as Fiske (cited) writes, "Females are passengers, spectators, there to be won, possessed, flaunted by the male." This was exemplified in today's selection of demeaning surf corporation videos, which (for the most part) refused to value or focus on these women's talent as surfers, or anything beyond their physical attributes. Their bodies are the focus; there are constant close ups of butts, midriffs, legs, etc, their faces are far less important, because that's what makes them human rather than part of the atmosphere.

These videos also reify and support a very specific vision of womanhood, specifically, blonde, white womanhood. While being fit comes naturally with being an athlete, all of these women happen to be beautiful, and for the most part, blonde, which begs the question: how many women have not made it to the public surfing sphere because they were not the idyllic California blonde? Furthermore, out of the 6 female surfer videos we watched today, approximately none featured a person of color (to my knowledge), which reminds us that even now, surfing remains a largely white sport due to legacies of inaccessibility for the poor, which history tells us has always overlapped with large communities of color.

What's disturbing about finding this trend in the most recent surf media is that it is incredibly reflective of films made over 50 years ago. The surf films we've watched from then are about as whitewashed as modern surf productions, at least the sample we've seen in class. The sexualization/objectification of womanhood is also reflected in old films. As I wrote about in my post on Muscle Beach Party, women's bodies are casually used as background or as decoration. Interestingly, in Gidget, women are hypersexualized and focused on - Gidget's goal eventually becomes a manhunt, her friends are consciously using their assets for this purpose. These are two different kinds of objectification, the first saying "you're not important enough to come into the foreground," the second saying "you're only as valuable as your sexual prowess." Both of these false narratives are at play in the videos from today, though especially the Roxy.

Videos like this are still being produced (despite public outcry) because most of us still buy into the idea that surfing is the sport of Kings - not Queens. The discourse seems natural, despite being specifically created by groups in power. Just as these narratives are constructed by those identifying with more powerful (and equally artificial) social constructs, surfing itself is a created activity, not part of "nature," as Hall (cited in Ford and Brown) writes: "Sporting practices are historically produced, socially constructed, and culturally defined to serve the interests and needs of powerful groups in society." Surfing is, obviously, not an exception. It was consciously categorized as a male sport, despite its origins in Hawaii as a unified community activity. Just as Hawaiians didn't just drop dead when Cook invaded, surfing's boys-only classification didn't "just happen." Men are not naturally better at sports, as demonstrated by the rate at which women are breaking sports records now that there is slightly less institutionalized sexism in sports from school age to professional levels. I think that understanding that the world didn't magically become unjust is the first key to solving injustice, and that requires acknowledging privilege, which comes along with accepting some responsibility.