Wowzers, what a week for women’s surfing. On Monday lunchtime we posted this critique of the Roxy Pro Biarritz 2013 trailer, which instead of showing the five times ASP Women’s World Tour Champion Steph Gilmore riding barrels, has her in the shower, in her pants, looking out the window, being all topless and sultry…
We asked where the surfing was at? And asked you to comment which you did and then some. We’ll post the best ones below. But we’d also like to say how pleasantly surprised we’ve been by the industry response. Excuse the (not very humble) brag but we were pretty much the first media on to this, posting our critique Monday lunchtime, having been alerted to it by tweets from Stef Nurding and Emily Casswell (big up guys). The next day The Inertia and Surfer magazine posted great pieces, and Cori Schumacher launched a petition to get Roxy to end this particular campaign, having read about it on our site. We also had this awesome parody vid from France and Roxy themselves released this statement on their facebook page. At least they enjoyed the parody too!
#DAREYOURSELF. It’s our mantra. Whether you are athletic, smart, funny, sexy, daring, confident — we support whatever combination you choose to be. Women are complex and multi-dimensional. To ignore this fact is to ignore who we truly are. Obviously, there’s been much conversation around the video we recently released. We believe all athletes are naturally beautiful, in and out of the water. You certainly don’t have to be sexy to be an athlete, & we also believe it’s not wrong to be an athlete and to be sexy, if you choose to be. We don’t judge one to be better than the other & we don’t believe in excluding one for the other.
Thank you for the passionate thoughts shared on the video, & for expressing how much you respect women in surfing. Oh yeah, & for the parody, thanks for making us laugh.
Hmmm. We’re all for people looking good and of course respect an individual’s right to portray themselves how they want but the actual sport of surfing has been getting too marginalised of late with these reductive, one dimensional portraits of women surfers. Maybe the sexing up of women’s surfing has finally come to a head. Here’s hoping and here are your comments.
First up those that liked the trailer…
What disturbs me is that Many people are so sexually retarded that they would look at this as some sort of message? They are not selling sex and there is absolutely nothing wrong with selling “SEXY” which is what all advertising does!
WAKE UP Prudes!
Yep – sex sells yet again. I personally like the ad and it completely reflects surfing’s sell out to the media/advertising industry… anyone who can surf that flat pile of shit is a hero to me!
Laura Baasch:
I’d be lying if I said I watch guys surfing for their skill alone. Some of them are smoking hot and I love watching footage of their ripped bodies with my own surfer guy fantasies. I’m not sure you can desexualise a sexual creature
Then the very many that didn’t…
The connotations of the video are blindingly obvious and they could at least have put some surfing in the video.
What I find worrying is the long term implications, which is that young surfers won’t have access to the financial resources and support that their more attractive competitors have.
Cori Schumacher:
The trend of sexualization of women in surfing has been steadily building.
Regardless of who chose to go in this direction (sponsored surfer or brand) the salient aspect of what is going on right now is the response from viewers. They simply and most vociferously do not agree with how the surfer is being depicted and how it depicts women’s surfing competition (and perhaps, more generally, women’s surfing). It is as though this is the final drip of water that has burst the dam. The reality is that the image-wars have begun. Who is more sexy? And which brand “owns” the sexiest surf lady?
This is not women’s surfing.
Ah sex sells / if you don’t like it you’re a prude, that old chestnut. What does this say to all those young aspiring surfer girls that Roxy markets to – if you’re not hot you’re no good as a surfer, that surfing is about looking hot?
To the guys commenting on this thread, I’ve got to ask if that was your daughter / sister who totally ripped, would you happy about her being reduced to just a hot body in this way?
You should be mindsurfing the waves not mindshagging the contestants!
Wow. Even if they ended with her shredding it at the end, i would still have been thinking ‘ wtf have i just watched??’ but the fact that it had no action in it at all?! Plus who the hell drives barefooted and why bother having a shower before a surf?! Seriously, imagine if they made a clip of Ronaldo or Walcott or Beckham same as this to promote the World Cup. It would never happen!
