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UCI orders E3 Harelbeke to withdraw controversial advert
The UCI says it will initiate legal proceedings if the organisers of the E3 BinckBank Classic fail to withdraw an ad which shows two women in bodypaint, entwined to form a frog. “Who shall crown himself prince in Harelbeke?” reads the accompanying text.
This is not the first time that world cycling's governing body has clashed with the organisers of the race commonly known as E3 Harelbeke.
In 2015 the UCI said it was "extremely unhappy" with a sexist poster for the Belgian race. On that occasion, the materials in question were pulled.
This year’s campaign was launched on February 25 to an almost immediate backlash.
New Campaign #E3BinckBankClassic pic.twitter.com/fZffSiVhVQ
— E3 BinckBank Classic (@E3Harelbeke) February 25, 2019
In a statement last night, the UCI said:
“The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) regrets and strongly disapproves of the choice made by the organiser of the E3 BinckBank Classic, an event on the calendar of the UCI WorldTour (the highest level of competition), for its visual promotion of the event’s 2019 edition.
“The UCI has already intervened on several occasions in the past to remind the race’s organiser of its responsibilities with regards to the image of cycling conveyed by its communication campaigns.
“The UCI has been fighting for several years to promote equity between men and women in cycling through different initiatives such as a charter to promote men/women equality within the UCI’s administration, an equality charter for podium ceremonies, and also different documents demanding the respect of ethical principles for everyone working within UCI Road Teams.
“In view of the above, the UCI has ordered the organiser of the E3 BinckBank Classic to withdraw the visual promotion from all its communication channels in which it appears. In the case of non-compliance, the UCI will envisage initiating proceedings with its legal bodies.”
The race organisers are yet to comment.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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34 comments
Daft thing is, if I were looking to fight sexism in cycling I would be asking questions first about the validity excluding women from the event. Men and women race together in marathons, why not in this event?
Whether this 'works' as an advert for a cycling race is not the issue - that is the client's problem. Whether it is indecent is an issue, but it is not the issue at stake here, which is sexism. One commentator has raised a relevant point on that issue: that it 'objectifies' women (as distinct from men), reduces their value - by virtue of being female - to an object of others' desire. Well, that might have some merit, but I think that any element of sexual attraction is the least part of the image, which works first and foremost on the level of a trompe l'oeil. To say it is sexist you have to think that the artistry is merely a thin excuse to show a couple of "fit women". Possibly true - but the thing is, that is specifically and intentionally not what draws you in to the image in the first place.
so...
if you are correct, why 2 women? Why not 2 men (accurate from a fairytale point of view) or a man and a woman?
I think the most plausible interpretation of the advert is that it is implying that the male winner of the race will kiss the frog and “win” 2 naked women. This is sexist by your proffered definition.
If you can come up with a different, more likely and non sexist meaning to the advert, then please do so.
P.S. I know you're trying to be intellectual and all that, but this particular optical illusion is due to camouflage, not a distorted perspective.
Ah yes the UCI....."That's terribly sexist take it down. We can't have that sort of thing. Oh and yes girls would you please mind stop pedalling for a bit as the blokes are taking it easy and we rather you didn't show them up. You can carry on it a bit."
As a piece of performance art it is rather clever. If people painted as frogs gets you off then I suspect any problem you have in seeing this as sexually demeening is closer to home. In the context of using the performance to promote a cycle race, it seems very far wide of the mark and not appropriate.
http://www.frog-racing.co.uk however....
Id say its sexist as an advert because its using male gaze to objectify women in imagery , there is no reason to have used naked women in body paint to depict the image of a frog there, its not an art contest its an advert for a cycle race, and I suspect the tagline/image are also then deliberately linked for us to make the connection with the frog prince fairy tale even if its spun slightly differently with the suggestion perhaps the handsome male winner of the race gets to kiss the naked women frog instead.
they could have easily used a real frog ,if it was only about the idea of visually presenting a frog, but they didnt and just to make sure you get the hint these were naked women instead, they made a video to force the point home, and on their website theyve cropped and edited the image so you cant see anything but a naked woman in body paint.
now based on their past advertising, I suspect they produce these things on the basis of no publicity is bad publicity, its designed to provoke a reaction in a way that gets us talking about their race in the traditional cluttered calendar period of Belgian/Dutch races that all merge into one and seem to go on forever
so objective achieved, but Im glad the UCI saw fit to call them out on it
It's just sad isn't it.Maybe ok in an art gallery if that's what tickles your fancy but as an advert for a men's cycle race it's just sad.Cycling gets it wrong again.
Ok. So if it had been a women's cycling race?
No. Its just a sad advert for any cycle race. Dont forget the whole frog and prince thing is all about introducing women to oral sex.
Can you name any other top sport that would use this advert???
How can one forget if one didn't know in the first place? I'd love to see the supporting documentation for this. It sounds all very interesting and conspiratorial.
LOL next you will tell me you dont know what little red riding hood is about.
I'll take that as a bit fat no on the supporting documentation and just a little, if somewhat bizarre, fantasy on your part.
Werewolves, IIRC
Really?
Nope, never heard that before...
As john1967 is busy working out whether Dylan was a stoner or not. The evidence is noty that kissing a frog is all about introducing women to oral sex, but rather the thoughts of a couple of people.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jpc.12432
Somewhat interesting and probably says more about Jones and Bettleheim.
I guess the thing to do is look to see who Jones and Bettleheim are,
Bruno Bettleheim:
Bruno Bettelheim (August 28, 1903 – March 13, 1990) was a 20th century child psychologist. An early writer on autism, Bettelheim's work focused on the education of emotionally disturbed children, as well as Freudian psychology more generally. Much of his work was discredited after his death, due to accusations of plagiarism, fraudulent academic credentials, and allegations of abusive treatment of patients under his care.
Wikipedia.
I think that puts that theory to bed (fnarr, fnarr!), doesn't it, John?
As for the artwork, it's artwork. The human form is quite beautiful and if you can't separate art from sexual or exploitation, I suggest you have a good look at yourself.
Have you seen David's willy? It's tiny.
Wow, this is going a long way from the topic. But in my view the second part in bold pretty much follows from the first part just put in bold.
Personally I think psychology (and psychiatry) is a pseudo-science. See also Jordan Peterson, William Sargant, Radovan Karadžić, and any number of other charlatans including Freud himself. It's not for nothing that it has the worst record for reproducibility of all academic disciplines. Maybe 1000 years from now it will have become a proper science, but at the moment it's largely bollocks. Bollocks with remarkably low moral standards at that (see the role of psychologists in helping the US military devise methods for toture). Edit - oh yeah, and throw in the guy who invented Wonder Woman! He was an academic psychologist with some curious theories and lines of research. Or BF Skinner. The history of psychology and psychiatry is full of crackpots.
As for your last point - what? If it's all about the beauty of the human form, how come they didn't go with two naked blokes, eh? One can separate art from sexual exploitation, but that requires one to actually do that, and the whole point of this ad is that it puts them together.
Weird advertising. Tbh if I hadn't seen the fuss about it if not have zoomed in to the frog to see what was going on. At first glance I just thought it was a frog. Makes no sense to do it with nude nodels. An actual frog would have been better.
Weird advertising. Tbh if I hadn't seen the fuss about it if not have zoomed in to the frog to see what was going on. At first glance I just thought it was a frog. Makes no sense to do it with nude nodels. An actual frog would have been better.
It's clear that the E3 organisers like to push the boundaries when promoting their event and sometimes they'll overstep the line. In the case of their 2015 ad they tried to be topical and went too far in terms of both the imagery and the underlying message.
However, in this case, I'd say that they've pushed the boundaries, but not necessarily gone too far.
Had I just seen the image in isolation in a magazine ad or on a billboard then I may not have immediately realised that the frog prince was actually two women in body paint. However, thanks to this article and the included video, the potential sexism has been highlighted.
Advertisers will always try to appeal to their target audience by one or more mechanisms and one of those mechanisms is the fact that men find the female form attractive. Unlike the 2015 ad, this one doesn't objectify women anywhere near as overtly and I'd say it just about manages to stay on the right side of being clever and creative and it's their "previous" that is the driver making this more of an issue.
We do need to push for equality in all walks of life, but we also need to be aware that the power of sexuality won't go away and that sometimes, like humour, it will offend some of the audience no matter what the intention.
But why is that exclusively their 'target audience'?
Plus, also, I don't think it's exclusively going to be off-putting to women, there's something off-putting to people of both sexes about encouraging an image that says "we're all Trump in a locker-room here, aren't we, lads?". It's a little embarrassing.
It's also a bit of a 'reach' - since when have either frogs or princes been related to cycling? Wonder if they had the image first and then had to brainstorm a suitable tag-line? Or did they think of the concept of 'frog/prince' then realise it was very weak and decide to add female nudity to spice it up a bit?
(Still think the actual body painting is quite well done, though!).
It is directly relevant. The company in the article markets the image that women in cycling are there for decoration and titillation whilst men get on with the job of riding.
Not relevant at all. It's only relevant to you because you want to seem like some hero, and who cares? Please keep your weird fantasies out of this discussion.
Well, the charge was one of sexism, not of being offensive. Many things offend - not all are sexist.
Really? You can’t see what’s offensive about women’s contribution to the bike race being just to writhe around for your amusement?
My daughter is going to a track training session at the velodrome tomorrow. Would you suggest that she takes off her clothes for a photo shoot whilst the boys ride round the track?
Your 2nd paragraph (about your daughter; congrats BTW) has got absolutely nothing to do with the (valid IMO)1st paragraph; nothing at all. The person who you responded to didn't even hint at anything like that.
Your 2nd paragraph (about your daughter; congrats BTW) has got absolutely nothing to do with the (valid IMO)1st paragraph; nothing at all. The person who you responded to didn't even hint at anything like that.
Taking a working definition of sexism as being "characterized by or showing prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex", I struggle to see how that applies to this video. I suppose the incongruity of the imagery in the context of cycling could lead one to suppose that the only other motivation for including women must be negative, ergo sexist. But other than that stretch of logic, how does this video fit the definition of sexism. Would it have been sexist if it showed two men? Or one of each? What if they were older? How about the context - would it be ok if it was not a cycling event but the Amphibian Preservation League? I am genuinely curious to know what makes this sexist, what would need to be changed to make it not sexist.
I think it's quite clever as a bit of 'art', but it also seems inappropriate and irrelevant for this particlar purpose. In this specific context I can see it could be considered sexist. But it is absolutely dependent on that wider context. In another setting (say an art exhibition with multiple body-paint-related works involving both genders) it woudl be fine.
I think it's a good example of how subtle and utterly-context-dependent 'sexism' can be.
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