VOLLEYBALL: More than just the view from behind

This advertisement or poster is the typical focus for most male directed ad's. It centers on the physical and promotes sexuality for women. It clearly identifies volleyball as a sport that is not about the athleticisim, but merely an opportunity to watch women run around in bikini's. In addition to this objectification of women, the ad generalizes and promotes the idea that all Brazilian women have nice butts, for lack of a better term. The ad focuses on their backsides and does not provide any indication that women in volleyball are competitors, athletic or positive. It clearly stipulates the notion that volleyball excentuates and provides men with the opportunity to, yet again, view women as sexual objects that can only be represented through over-sexualized images rather than athletes or competitors.

Volleyball's role in the sports areana is interesting within advertising because much of the advertisements promoted for the sport, tend to focus on beach volleyball. The media takes a sport that is rigourous and intense and provides the viewer with images of bikini clad women that are freshly oiled up and seen as spectacles for male pleasure. Their backsides are the main focus of any ad, along with their rock-hard ab's. Rather than promoting the sport or focusing on the athleticism and talent of these women, they choose to focus on the body and objectify women through their ability to run around in a bikini.  Is there a way media producers can showcase the hard work and dedication that goes into playing beach volleyball or how their rock hard bodies are a result of their athleticism and physical abilities?  In an effort to combine the two powerful sources-- sex and sports-- advertisers need to empower women yet diffuse the ideas of sexuality in order to hinder negative stereotypes.