Gridiron Goddesses: The Sport And Spectacle Of Lingerie Football

Open Access
- Author:
- Heath, Amirah
- Graduate Program:
- Media Studies
- Degree:
- Master of Arts
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- June 29, 2012
- Committee Members:
- Michelle Rodino Colocino, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
- Keywords:
- Women
Sports
Feminist Criticism
Postfeminism
Postfeminist Sensibility - Abstract:
- While women have made strides toward integrating the predominantly male sports industry, there is still a long way to go before they can enjoy the same power and legitimacy as men on and off the field. Despite the many victories of the feminist movement, including the passage of Title IX, patriarchal relations still permeate professional sports in the U.S. This thesis looks at the promotional media of the Lingerie Football League (LFL) (2009-2012) to reveal some of the material and symbolic forms of oppression against women in sports that contribute to the perception of women’s sports as second-rate. Promotional media that I study in this analysis include media representations of the league in promotional content on television (MTV2), online (Lflus.com, Mtv2.com, and Playboy.com), and in print (Playboy magazine). I also analyze the league’s uniform, team names, and logos. The results indicate that the promotional discourse created and endorsed by the LFL, at once blatantly sexually objectified the athletes who participated in this form of “fantasy football” and also demanded that teammates play the game as an aggressive contact sport requiring strength, physical conditioning, and risk of injury. Thus, contradictions in promotional media for the LFL pointed to ambivalence about women’s roles and capabilities in the sports industry. The LFL’s promotional campaign demonstrated how the league and its players embraced women’s athleticism in tackle football and simultaneously neutralized such athleticism as a threat to men’s domination of sports and to men’s domination of society in general. I conclude by arguing that the LFL’s latest rebranding efforts, that include ostensibly moving away from lingerie and embracing “performance wear” amounts to nominal change. Even as the “Legends Football League,” the new LFL still requires players to play in bras and panties with insufficient protective padding.