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| Roxy's anonymous ass is getting female surfing attention for the wrong reasons | Roxy's anonymous ass is getting female surfing attention for the wrong reasons |
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| Surf company Roxy’s latest ad is getting attention for all the wrong reasons. It’s a short promotional trailer advertising the Roxy Pro in Biarritz, an upcoming contest part of the Women’s World Championship Tour of Surfing. The problem? Not a single wave is ridden – but it sure shows a lot of behind. The backlash has been steadily building since its release, with many declaring it lazy and offensive to female surfers. | Surf company Roxy’s latest ad is getting attention for all the wrong reasons. It’s a short promotional trailer advertising the Roxy Pro in Biarritz, an upcoming contest part of the Women’s World Championship Tour of Surfing. The problem? Not a single wave is ridden – but it sure shows a lot of behind. The backlash has been steadily building since its release, with many declaring it lazy and offensive to female surfers. |
| The ad begins in a bedroom, where an underwear-clad female form with long blonde hair undresses, showers, and heads out to the beach. There are some "artful" ass shots, followed by more ass shots – as one writer counted, 12 butt shots in one minute and 46 seconds exactly. The anonymous surfer girl's face is never shown. But Roxy is a big company with a smart media and advertising team. Would it have killed them to put just one surfing shot in there? | The ad begins in a bedroom, where an underwear-clad female form with long blonde hair undresses, showers, and heads out to the beach. There are some "artful" ass shots, followed by more ass shots – as one writer counted, 12 butt shots in one minute and 46 seconds exactly. The anonymous surfer girl's face is never shown. But Roxy is a big company with a smart media and advertising team. Would it have killed them to put just one surfing shot in there? |
| Surfers are used to Roxy plugging the typical blonde size six surfer girl to sell their products, and no one has complained (much) in the past. So what exactly is so offensive this time, as the surfing giant is merely using a tried and tested marketing approach? Probably the fact that this little voyeuristic semi soft-core porn clip is representing a professional sport which has been fighting a long and ongoing battle for gender equality. | Surfers are used to Roxy plugging the typical blonde size six surfer girl to sell their products, and no one has complained (much) in the past. So what exactly is so offensive this time, as the surfing giant is merely using a tried and tested marketing approach? Probably the fact that this little voyeuristic semi soft-core porn clip is representing a professional sport which has been fighting a long and ongoing battle for gender equality. |
| Skills wise, women’s surfing has been reaching new heights in recent years. The reigning female champions – Stephanie Gilmore and Carissa Moore to name two – have been taking it to a whole new level, displaying powerful and awe-inspiring surfing talent. And yet here we are, gently tiptoeing around one of the oldest issue in women’s pro surfing: do athletes have to be sexualised to attract and keep your sponsors? | Skills wise, women’s surfing has been reaching new heights in recent years. The reigning female champions – Stephanie Gilmore and Carissa Moore to name two – have been taking it to a whole new level, displaying powerful and awe-inspiring surfing talent. And yet here we are, gently tiptoeing around one of the oldest issue in women’s pro surfing: do athletes have to be sexualised to attract and keep your sponsors? |
| I work for a surf magazine, and it’s a question I have asked many of the female surfers I meet – and the answer is always the same. They just delicately dance around it, avoid the question, or straight up refuse to answer. It seems it’s either just par for the course, or they know that speaking out can result in sponsor backlash. | I work for a surf magazine, and it’s a question I have asked many of the female surfers I meet – and the answer is always the same. They just delicately dance around it, avoid the question, or straight up refuse to answer. It seems it’s either just par for the course, or they know that speaking out can result in sponsor backlash. |
| So what does this mean for your everyday surfer girl? When I began surfing 10 years ago, it was unquestionably a male dominated lineup, but more and more women are now owning the breaks. Yet there seems to be this underlying foundation of women’s surfing we just can’t seem to shake – that it is a byproduct of and dominated by a men’s industry. | So what does this mean for your everyday surfer girl? When I began surfing 10 years ago, it was unquestionably a male dominated lineup, but more and more women are now owning the breaks. Yet there seems to be this underlying foundation of women’s surfing we just can’t seem to shake – that it is a byproduct of and dominated by a men’s industry. |
| Stemming from back in the day where a woman’s place was to sit and look pretty on the beach, part of the surfing culture still seems to advocate for women to be trivialised in order to survive in the industry. The sad thing is, some of the online comments from parents in response to Roxy’s promo video have stated they wouldn’t want their daughters involved in the image of women’s surfing. | Stemming from back in the day where a woman’s place was to sit and look pretty on the beach, part of the surfing culture still seems to advocate for women to be trivialised in order to survive in the industry. The sad thing is, some of the online comments from parents in response to Roxy’s promo video have stated they wouldn’t want their daughters involved in the image of women’s surfing. |
| Over the years, I have been conducting my own personal experiment: I mentally note whether I catch more waves surfing in knee length boardies v a small bikini. It’s not hard to guess what the results were: a small bikini gets the waves. | Over the years, I have been conducting my own personal experiment: I mentally note whether I catch more waves surfing in knee length boardies v a small bikini. It’s not hard to guess what the results were: a small bikini gets the waves. |
| Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being or feeling sexy, and if rocking a bikini (which I often do) or posing for editorials is your thing, that’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. But when it becomes a mandatory requirement for selling serious sporting events, then we have a problem. After all, you rarely see a promotional video saucily exhibiting Kelly Slater’s package. | Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being or feeling sexy, and if rocking a bikini (which I often do) or posing for editorials is your thing, that’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. But when it becomes a mandatory requirement for selling serious sporting events, then we have a problem. After all, you rarely see a promotional video saucily exhibiting Kelly Slater’s package. |
| Maybe women’s surfing has reached a stalemate. Companies say there’s no money in contests, and decide to push the lifestyle content instead. The surfers don’t want to lose their sponsorship, and so they follow instructions without complaint. But as Janna Irons rightly asks, who, then, is this style of marketing aimed at? Surely the target demographic would be teens, young women, even mothers – not pubescent males. | |
| Roxy’s response to the video backlash posted on their Facebook reads as follow: | Roxy’s response to the video backlash posted on their Facebook reads as follow: |
| 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, and 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 and we don't believe in excluding one for other. | 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, and 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 and we don't believe in excluding one for other. |
| Until the athletes themselves stand up for their image, strongly backed by surfing companies, women’s surfing will be in limbo, missing out on being an empowering representation of modern female athletes. | Until the athletes themselves stand up for their image, strongly backed by surfing companies, women’s surfing will be in limbo, missing out on being an empowering representation of modern female athletes. |