Ugly Americans: A Look At The Worst Of #NBCFail

In a world where female athletes are actively expected to be not only the best at their sport, but also the best-looking while doing it, the barriers are certainly still there. They only grow exponentially when you add being non-white on top of that. The remarks aren’t blatantly racist, but they’re dismissive of a certain reality and certainly follow the ‘post-racial’ storyline featured this decade on America. His remarks came after a week of criticism towards Douglas about everything from her hair to her mother’s finances (even going so far as to dig into her Chapter 13 documents).

Almost more disturbing than the comments about her hair was the analysis by armchair therapists who used their pulpits to comment on the way Douglas’ mother raised her, by questioning whether or not we should be ‘unnerved’ due to her Christian faith.

Bob Costas might want to think about how scrutiny of this nature might affect how a young girl sees herself.

U.S. Olympic hurdler Lolo Jones. Courtesy: Outside Magazine.

In contrast, Lolo Jones has had NBC’s promotional machine behind her since May, despite not being a favorite to medal in her 100m hurdle event. Prominently featured not only on NBC, but in magazine photo spreads and several commercial sponsorships, Jones received predominantly positive coverage until a New York Timesarticle published a day before her event final.

The article attempted, very badly, to dissect Jones’ popularity, saying that she’s playing up her “exotic beauty” rather than any actual talent. While fellow Team USA members Dawn Harper and Kellie Wells were the actual favorites to win medal at the 100m hurdles in London, they didn’t receive half the coverage or attention that Jones did. When the two women did medal in London, NBC had Jones on alone to talk about the article and how it might have gotten into her head. Wells and Harper, though, shared a three-minute interview with Australian gold medal winner Sallie Pearson.

The Times article would have been less of a personal attack on Jones if it had deigned to mention the real issues at play in the differences of marketing Jones, Harper, and Wells. There was an opportunity here to talk about the ways in which female athletes are held to a higher standard of beauty than their male counterparts. Or, if they’d really felt up to a challenge, broach the topic of the standards of Black female beauty that the media is willing to profile. Instead they went with the simple personal attack that really accomplished nothing aside from getting Jones another Today Show slot.

Harper and Wells not only beat Jones in the U.S. Olympic trials, they were the American favorites. Because Pearson was running at peak performance, Jones wasn’t expected to medal at all. Yet she was the sole focus of American media. In an interview with Michelle Beadle her teammates noticed:

Beadle: You thought you weren’t getting enough respect…Why is that?

Page 2 of 4 | Previous page | Next page