Playing Unfair By Sut Jhally Summary

Extra Credit: Playing Unfair The documentary “Playing Unfair by Sut Jhally” documents the issues and disparity between the coverage and amount of respect given between male athletics and female athletics. This video critically examines post-Title IX media by discussing the difference in the coverage of female vs. male athletes. While female athleticism challenges gender norms, female athletes continue to be depicted in traditional roles that reaffirm their femininity as wives, mothers, or sex objects. Yet, male athletes are shown in a heroic light illustrating their courage, strength, and endurance. The video went on to say that if one without any previous knowledge of sport and its’ history, were to turn on the television to ESPN or any …show more content…
I can’t imagine how there hasn’t been a bigger uprising, especially since this video came out, to push for more respectful and at the very least accurate depictions of females in sport. The video mentions that the lead in on shows like Sportscenter show what the most important issues of the day are, this made me decide to watch Sportscenter for once with my brother and see if there was a lead in about a female athlete, which there was not. You would even be hard-pressed to find any mention of female athletics anywhere on the show, except for a small mention on the bottom of the screen about soccer player Hope Solo’s issues with domestic violence, which I had already heard through gossip websites so that should show you the quality of that miniscule mention of any woman on the hour long program. This thought lead me to try and find some news coverage on women’s sports on ESPN’s website, which there was absolutely none and it took googling “women athletics ESPN” to find that they have a website dedicated to women athletics.While the idea of female athletics having their own ESPN website seems nice, if you really thing about it, it just gives ESPN a reason to not cover women sports on their main page because they have a whole site dedicated to it, which they do an absolutely horrid job of advertising. Really, having a separate website just rubs me the wrong way and sends a message of segregation I feel. The video made me think about what can be done to help women’s portrayal in the media and I concluded the only thing that realistically can be done is to just show women’s sport more, give it priority television time over programs like bowling that I occasionally see while scrolling through the channel guide. When a “worldwide leader in sports” doesn’t cover half of a group of people in the world, there is something wrong. Since ESPN has a women’s website, why not replace ESPN2 with a women’s athletics channel?