#aplang15espn

[ash-andrews]

The Body Issue Harkness Observations

Sorry I posted this somewhere else and didn't realize. I believe that both discussions were better than they have been. The purpose wasn't focused on as much, and people really went deep into their arguments.There were a couple more things that we could have discussed more, like actually focusing on the people with disabilities, but it was fine anyways. The guys discussion could have gone farther if they would have expressed their opinions more, but I understand how that could be complicated in the situation that they were in. 

[claudiaaitonean-blog]

ESPN

During the time the guys were talking, they brought up the different viewpoints from the girls and from the guys. One of the guys said that they wanted to know how the girls feel when they see the bodies of the opposite-sex. They touched on a lot of the same things like the statue observation, the eye contact, poses, etc.. 

One of the things that surprised me was the fact when the the guys said they would've had different discussions if the girls weren't in the room.

Overall, what i took from these discussions is the fact that beauty is expressed in different ways, and in this case, they show "beauty" one way or another. i mean some of those pictures were just disturbing, but for most, i could see the emphasis on the "beautiful" that people don't usually see as beautiful. I mean, I don't think that all people think a naked man in a field is the most beautiful thing on earth, but, for example, the track girl with one fake leg is expressing her athletic beauty. Having all of these people naked i think just emphasizes the beauty of the body, not a brand or anything else, just the body itself. 

The reason, i would say, they use athletes' bodies is because that's the bodies we want to see, those are the bodies we admire.

[alexisbrownaplang-blog]

The Body Issue

A big idea that we hit on a bit during our Harkness discussion, and what I would have loved to dissect more was the title of the magazine we were looking at for ESPN. The title of the magazine is "The Body Issue." I believe this is a play on words. It's called an Issue because it's a magazine issue, yet when it's put with the word body it sets a different tone. I think ESPN is speaking about the issues we have with our bodies. In society we see a specific type of body that is accepted for females which is medium height, skinny, long blonde hair, nice butt, and pretty eyes. Yet in the Body Issue we see women with short hair, colored women, legless women, older men, and larger sized men. It shows us that the bodies we gawk over should be the bodies that we already posses because the body issue presses on the issue of the lack of value we see in our own bodies.

[isiah-ells-blog]

Espn

The harkness from the boys and the girls were overall pretty interesting. In a way boys and girls have the same view of the topic. The girls focused more on what the picture was trying to say to our society as a whole ; and how they want people to have tht top of body. Which is almost impossible considering the pictures are of professional athletes and they train each and everyday to get to that trophy caliber body. As for the boys, we focused on mainly the same topic but instead we limited ourselves to saying what we wanted to say because of the females surrounding us in the room.

[khadijahkhan01]

ESPN Harkness Observations

I honestly think the Harkness Discussion was really good. There were a few similarities between the two Harkness's however, there were differences too. I really admired the different types of things the boys noticed, for example, the picture in the field. We, the girls, didn't really look deep into that specific picture, but the boys did. Another thing I really liked was how they were involving the perspectives of the girls into the discussion. Like how Robbie asked about the viewpoints of the girls. The boys built a lot of connections with the previous pictures that the class viewed as a whole. It's really cool and interesting how the whole discussion of the same picture can change due to genders differences and unique perspectives. 

[jcsroka2]

This is a behind the scenes look at Hope Solo's Body Issue shoot. I think what she talks about in the video could benefit many of us in the writing of our papers. She addresses being a sex symbol, her own body, and the celebration of female athletes. 

[eduu-22]

The Body Issue

When it came to this picture

both groups alluded it to the statue, Discobolus

Looking at both pictures, the main difference is that Jeremy Campbell is looking directly at the camera and the statue is focused on throwing the actual disk. I do not know if it is justifiable to call Campbell's picture an action shot in comparison to the statue.

This topic of body image reminded me of  Elle Magazine's 2014 Women of TV 2014 issue. There were four different covers, however, each magazine had the same contents on the inside (go through the slideshow and see how the covers all say the same thing). Three of the women's covers are in color and show their whole body, however, Mindy Kaling's is basically a black and white headshot. 

  These are all posed pictures, but why did they (Elle) decide to make Kaling's the odd one out? 

[alexaaalonso]

ESPN's The Body Issue

"The Bodies We Want" ?

After having the harkness with the girls and then hearing the harkness with the boys, I noticed a clear difference. We were quick to state our opinions where as the boys were more quiet. I think they felt awkward and didn’t want to say anything that they thought might offend us.

I do think that both of us came to agreement on the fact that the the subtitle “the bodies we want” totally contradicted the quote that came after it. The quote used words like “gawk” and “in awe.” When we hear “the bodies we want” you think more of inspiration and motivation, rather than gawking in admiration. We brought this up in the harkness and I think it is a good point. We all felt that yeah, it would be nice to have these bodies, but we don’t necessarily want them! I think for most of us, they showed us the true values of dedication, hard work, and athleticism that the athlete embodies. Yes, these pictures did make me thing about my own fitness and soccer and how hard work pays off, and being fit is something really important to me! But honestly, I don’t care if my legs are as big as Abby Wambach’s.

Comparing it to the Sports Illustrated magazine covers, I think ESPN did a better job of embodying the true values of sports because they (literally) stripped the athletes down to what makes them amazing at their sport- there was no distractions (clothes, pose). It was just the athletes and their athletic bodies.