Tags:  gender, inequality, lgbtq, prejudice/discrimination, sex/sexuality, social mvmts/social change/resistance, sports, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2012
Length: 1:00
Access: You Can Play Project

Summary: The You Can Play project brings athletes, gay and straight, together to promote and educate other athletes and sports fans about equity in all levels of sport from professional to recreational. The project argues "It’s time to talk about sports and it’s time for us to create change. It’s one of the last bastions of society where discrimination and slurs are tolerated. It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s an assumption in sports that gay and lesbian players are shunned by all athletes. It’s just not true and You Can Play is dedicated to providing positive messages from athletes, coaches and fans." Their website features a growing library of video clips, each 30-60 seconds long, with professional and collegiate athletes and team personnel describing their support for the initiative. Some videos simply show athletes' meanings of sport without vocalizing their support, while other videos feature explicit statements of support (e.g. San Jose Sharks forward Tommy Wingels says "I am proud to support LGBT athletes everywhere"). The videos can be used to discuss gender and sexuality stereotypes in sport, to challenge these stereotypes, and show how sport can also function as a site for education and social change.

Submitted By: Margaret Austin Smith

Tags: gender, media, sex/sexuality, sports, athletes, male gaze, olympics, self-objectification, sexual objectification, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2012
Length: 2:18
Access: LiveLeak

Summary: Hockey blogger for Yahoo! Sports, Greg Wyshynski, offered a scathing critique of NBC's video ode to the women athletes of the 2012 London Games. He sees straight through the flimsy defense that the video montage was merely a celebration of the human form, and he exposes it for the vulgar artifact of sexual objectification it truly is. He writes: "The 2012 London Games have been labeled 'the women's Olympics' thanks to record-setting performances and watershed moments like the dawn of women's boxing as well as the participation of female athletes from Saudi Arabia. How did NBC decide to help celebrate this incredible time for women in sports? With meaningless objectification, of course! 'Bodies in Motion' was an online video produced by NBC in which women competing in various Olympic sports were featured in softcore, fetishist slow-motion highlights, while porn-tastic jazz music played on the soundtrack. It looked like something a horny teenager with a DVR would have spliced together for YouTube; instead, it was the official rights holder of the Olympics in the U.S. that produced it.” Wyshynski's admonishment is spot on, but he doesn't go far enough. The sexual objectification during the 2012 Olympics needs to be discussed, not because its execution is reminiscent of low budget porn, but because widespread sexual objectification is harmful to girls and women. As political scientist Caroline Heldman has argued, an environment of sexual objectification leads women to self-objectify, which is the "phenomenon of girls and women viewing themselves from an external vantage point, constantly monitoring their behaviors and bodies to maximize their appeal." The harm for girls and women is quite measurable. For instance, Heldman notes the psychological harm. Women who self-objectify are more prone to depression, have lower self-esteem, and lower personal efficacy. They are also more likely to feel body shame, including shame about their menstrual cycles, and they are more likely to exhibit symptoms of anorexia and bulimia. They have lower cognitive functioning on average as well, which is expressed by lower grade point averages. Finally, they are more likely to experience sexual dysfunction, and Heldman's own research links self objectification to lower political efficacy.

Image by Brian Snyder/Reuters

Submitted By: Anonymous

Tags: gender, inequality, marketing/brands, sports, commercial, femininity, masculinity, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2011
Length: 2:00
Access: YouTube

Summary: This Adidas commercial is from their recent "all in" advertising campaign. It is an excellent short clip for getting students to think about how binary gender, masculinity, and femininity are constructed in popular culture and sports. For example, the male athletes are depicted in more physically aggressive/extreme and high contact sports, and while female athletes are present in the video, they are vastly under-represented and their bodies are almost always sexualized (e.g. in cheerleading or dancing). Possible exercise: have students write down descriptors of the men and women in the video then share with the class and discuss. Possible topics of discussion include how these stereotypes/portrayals are harmful to men and women, objectification of men and women's bodies, and heterosexism and sexism in the media and sports industry. Using commercials in this manner offers several benefits, including a quick assessment of student understanding of key concepts.

Submitted By: Anya Galli

Tags: bodies, disability, intersectionality, sports, masculinity, master status, stereotypes, subtitles/CC, 06 to 10 mins, 61+ mins
Year: 2005
Length: 85:00 (or first 10 min)
Access:  no online access (trailer here) 

Summary: This documentary explores the world of quad rugby (i.e., murderball), which is a full-contact sport for quadriplegics, who compete with wheelchair specially designed to take the hard knocks of the sport. The film follows the U.S. quad rugby team through their competition in the 2002 World Championships and the 2004 Paralympic Games in Athens. Recently, I have used the first 10 minutes of the film in a class period on disability, where we are introduced to the people on the team, and also to the sport. Watching these men physically compete in a competitive sport (and manage the activities of their daily lives) is great for breaking stereotypes about people in wheelchairs. It would also be a good way to explore master statuses (like being in a wheelchair); this film is a nice starting point to discuss both masculinity and how people maintain complex and multi-faceted identities despite disability.

Submitted By: Molly Dingel

Tags: bodies, disability, goffman, sports, theory, master status, stereotypes, stigma, subtitles/CC, 06 to 10 mins
Year: 2011
Length: 9:43
Access: YouTube

Summary: Anthony Robles is an Arizona State University student who won the 2011 NCAA Wrestling Championship, despite having only one leg. His case is an interesting example of stigma (i.e. a social or individual attribute that is devalued and discredited in a particular social context). When looking at him, people are likely to place an immediate stigma on him (note that many videos and headlines refer to him as a "one-legged wrestler" rather than "wrestler"), discrediting his physical abilities and perhaps assuming a poor performance in competitive sports. As noted by Goffman, this link is done through stereotypes, rather than objective attributes, which becomes clear in this video showing his 7-1 victory in the championship match. The tendency to qualify him as a one-legged wrestler and continually comment on his disability, as these announcers do, suggests the way a disability is used to form one's master status. In other words, Robles' missing leg becomes his primary identifying characteristic, overshadowing all other markers of status. This clip can be used in class to discuss disability, stereotypes, and master status, but it would also be useful to use the clip as a means of discussing how people often resist the stigmas assigned to them.

Submitted By: Lia Karvounis

Tags: bodies, gender, media, prejudice/discrimination, sex/sexuality, social construction, sports, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2006
Length: 4:46
Access: YouTube

Summary: Shown by ChallengingMedia, this clip critically examines post-Title IX media by discussing the difference in the coverage of female vs. male athletes. While female athleticism challenges gender norms, female athletes continue to be depicted in traditional roles that reaffirm their femininity as wives, mothers, or sex objects. Yet, male athletes are shown in a heroic light illustrating their courage, strength, and endurance.

Submitted By: Shinta Herwantoro Hernandez

Tags: biology, bodies, foucault, gender, intersectionality, lgbtq, media, prejudice/discrimination, race/ethnicity, sex/sexuality, social construction, sports, caster semenya, norms, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2009
Length: 3:44
Access: YouTube

Summary: Interview and commentary with Dave Zirin, sports writer for "The Nation." Zirin discusses the case of South African runner, Caster Semenya, whose gender was called into question after her victory at the 2009 World Championships. This clip is useful for talking about the social construction of sex and gender, and the pervasive discomfort around - indeed "disciplining" of - bodies that do not neatly "fit" into clear sex and gender categories.

Submitted By: Valerie Chepp