The Swimsuit Issue and Sport: Hegemonic Masculinity in Sports Illustrated(SUNY series on Sport, Culture, and Social Relations)

This study of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue demonstrates how the magazine encourages individual and institutional practices that create and maintain inequality. Laurel Davis illustrates how the interactions of media production, media texts, media consumption, and social context influence meaning. Individuals' interpretations of and reactions to the magazine are influenced by their views about gender and sexuality, views that have been shaped by their social experiences. Based on extensive interviews with Sports Illustrated producers and consumers, as well as analysis of every swimsuit issue from the first in 1964 to those of the 1990s, the book argues that Sports Illustrated uses the swimsuit issue to secure a large male audience by creating a climate of hegemonic masculinity. This practice produces considerable profit but on the way to the bank tramples women, gays, lesbians, people of color, and residents of the postcolonialized world.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Chapter 1 Introduction Feminist Analysis with a Twist Studying the Mass Media Getting at the Meaning of the Swimsuit Issue Chapter 2 Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue: The Rise To Popularity And Profitability History of the Swimsuit Issue Popularity of the Swimsuit Issue Profitability of the Swimsuit Issue Chapter 3 The Basic Content: "Ideally Beautiful And Sexy Women For Men" The Basic Content: Ideal Women's Bodies The Ideal Readers: Men Denotative versus Connotative Level Meaning Factors That Encourage Denotative Level Consensus Recognizing the Power of Producers and the Text Chapter 4 The Struggle Over Public Sexuality Debating the Degree of Sexual Meaning Debating the Morality of Public Displays of Sexuality Chapter 5 A Vehicle For Public Declarations of Heterosexual Identity It's about Heterosexuality Securing Heterosexual Status through Consumption Using Heterosexual Status to Secure Masculine Status Chapter 6 Profiting From The Masculinity Crisis The Masculinity Crisis and Response to the Crisis Fashioning Sports Illustrated as a Men's Magazine Critiques of the Sports Illustrated Strategy Chapter 7 The Struggle Over Gender Men Who Identify with Hegemonic Masculinity Women Who Identify with Hegemonic Femininity Men Who Do Not Identify with Hegemonic Masculinity Feminists Who Criticize Hegemonic Masculinity and Femininity Backlash against the Feminist Readings Chapter 8 Hegemonic Masculinity Built On The Backs Of People Of Color Racism as a Central Component of Hegemonic Femininity Racism as a Central Component of Hegemonic Masculinity Chapter 9 Hegemonic Masculinity Built On The Backs Of "The (Post)Colonialized Other" The Hegemonic Masculine Subject as Actual and Media Tourist "The (Post)Colonialized Other" as Exotic Spectacle for the Hegemonic Masculine Subject The Hegemonic Masculine Subject as Colonizer of "the (Post)Colonialized Other" Chapter 10 Conclusion Appendix A Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issues (From 1964 To 1991 And 1996) Appendix B Non-Academic Media Material Related To The Swimsuit Issues Appendix C Interview Schedules For Producers, Consumers, And Librarians Appendix D Recruitment Of, And Information About, The Interviewed Producers And Consumers Notes References Index

About the Author :
Laurel R. Davis is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Springfield College.

Review :
"The Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is the cultural keystone of what is worst about male-dominated sport media. This book is the most systematic treatment of the SI swimsuit issue to date, and it reveals some of the ways that sexism, racism, heterosexism, and Western ethnocentrism have been woven into the cultural fabric of men's sports. But it is more than an analysis of SI. Davis unfurls cutting-edge critical analysis of media through this ostensible exercise in the study of a sport magazine issue. The book is a fine example of the explanatory power of feminist analysis that takes other multiple systems of domination into account; i.e., race, ethnicity, nationalism, and sexual orientation." - Don Sabo, coauthor of Sex, Violence, and Power in Sports: Rethinking Masculinity "The author does something that few others in media studies have done-to look at how producers, texts, and consumers all work together to construct the meanings of a text. Rarely are all three examined as systematically and coherently as they are in this book." - Margaret Carlisle Duncan, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee "Deconstructs an important social issue about sport that is necessarily shaped through the media." - Lawrence A. Wenner, author of Media, Sports, and Society: Foundations for the Communication of Sport and Editor, Journal of Sport and Social Issues