RACIALIZED PLEASURES

Queer studies in athletics

 

 

 

 

 

 

By blog post shows the representation of gay athletes in the olympics and the quantifiable increase in representation over the years. I related this to the Tongson quote saying “These moments of queer encounter, created the conditions of possibility, of righteous and radiant queer operating systems, platforms, fantasies.” I wanted to look at how I have seen in my experience as a athlete as well as how we see the representation of athletes in the media shape queer individuals in athletics?  Having experience as an athlete, I have found that athletics have been a welcoming environment and platform for gay women. I think this is due to the way that our society has molded athletics as more masculine and women athletes as more masculine. Growing up, I have been labeled as less feminine because sports are supposedly for men more than women. However, over the decades, this perception has decreased and more girls have been welcomed to athletics. You can see the space that athletics have had for gay women in the 2018 olympics that I have showed in my blog post. There were many openly gay athletes who have been open in the media about significant others that you can see in the pictures that I have used. These individuals serve as great role models for young queer individuals and show the space that athletics hold for gay women. However, as you can see, there were many more gay women than gay men. This is due to the masculine environment of athletics and how gay men who are molded by society as more feminine would not be as welcomed in this group of people. This is an issue that we need to improve because as shown in the video that we watched in class, more “feminine” men are not always gay. This is just the way that our society perceives gay men when many gay men- like the one in the video- is actually very masculine and someone we wouldn’t view as gay when we first met them. As discussed in Gesture, Emphera and Queer feeling, “appearance and performances are not an attempt to imitate a woman, instead he is approximating a notion of femininity.” Many of the gay men athletes were figure skaters which is a form of dance that we can look at. Rather than imitating a woman in the form of figure skating, these men are challenging the idea of femininity. Similar to the influence that Aviance has on young gay men, I think these figure skaters can be a role model to young gay boys to show that being a boy does not mean you have to be masculine and tough all the time. It is ok to be yourself and the way that you feel as an individual.

I downloaded the video of the representation of gay athletes in the Olympics from youtube using y2.mate. I then uploaded it into Imovie and cut out bits and pieces of what I wanted to show. I took part of the intro and then three of the athletes that they show. Next, I faded the video by decreasing the opacity and making it transparent. By making it more transparent, I was able to upload photos of the athletes in the media, showing their lives with significant others or the way that they promote representation of queer individuals in athletics and in general. The end of my blog post shows more pictures of gay athletes in the olympics with the quote from the keyword posted on the pictures. All photos that I got were off of google but came from different news articles or magazines about the individuals in the media.