The New York Times Feels Lolo Jones Light-Skinned “Exotic” Iowaness Makes Her a Fraud. Are They Right?
From Frugivore – The first week of the London Olympic Games is in the books, and from Usain Bolt to Sanya Richards-Ross, the stars of track and field have lived up to their billing. Now as we enter into the second week on the track, arguably the Games’ most recognizably contentious star takes the stage. That star is 100-meter hurdler Lolo Jones, who finds herself in a peculiar position: a beautiful and talented track athlete who is the American face of Olympic track and field without holding any hardware to justify her earning millions in endorsements.
And that is why, today, The New York Times is praying and praying for Lolo’s downfall.
In a Sunday sports piece, Jerè Longman asks if Lolo is worthy of all the magazine covers, commercials, and TV specials — none of which were more infamous than her HBO feature where she proclaimed that she’s a long-suffering virgin who needs a Christian squire to slide on her glass slipper and unlock her chastity belt.
After asking this question, Longman suggests Lolo is a fraud, as much a media creation as her male Christian counterpart, Tim Tebow, whose marginal-at-best quarterbacking skills but classic Paul Bunyan looks and Evangelical spirit have landed him multi-million dollar endorsements and a back-up gig for the New York Jets.
Longman thinks that Lolo’s “exotic” looks (she’s from that exotic faraway land of Iowa) and story of redemption supersedes her hurdling prowess. Currently, in her specialty, measured in time, Lolo is only 21st in the world but leads every American track athlete in magazine covers. Additionally, Longman points to the fact that posing nude for ESPN The Magazine and Outside magazine, Lolo walks a fine line between her piety and her sexualized image (but , seriously Longman, this is America and sex sells, and again, just last week, Sportscenter resembled a Chippendales male review after Tebow ran though the rain shirtless!).
Janice Forsyth, the director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario, says Lolo may be just cashing in on a misogynistic sports entertainment landscape that values female athletes for their ability to sell beauty instead of brawn:
“It’s really a sad commentary on the industry Lolo is in,” Forsyth said. “Limited opportunities are there for women to gain a foothold unless they sell themselves as sex kittens or virgins for sale.”
Admittedly, Longman concedes that track and field is a sport that Americans don’t pay complete attention to in between Olympic years — unless one breaks a record, which Lolo has yet to do — thus the race to cash-in is intense for Olympic stars, most of whom can be seen attaching their smiles and reputations to seemingly contradictory sponsors like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola or arguably down right sinister corporations such as DOW, BP, and the myriad of credit card companies.
I would have to agree with Longman’s overall assessment of Lolo’s career. She like Tebow has done nothing to earn the accolades and attention they are getting. This is not to say we shouldn’t root for her but we shouldnt be turning a blind eye to Madison Ave and the media’s manipulation of her image. Her detractors are just asking that she earns the praise that she is being given on the track and she cant even do that.
Lolo has earned every bit of noteriety she has gotten. Up until this year she was the best American hurdler. She had spinal cord surgery last year which she still bounced back from pretty well. Sure she does not have a medal in the two Olympics she has been to but she has won world championships during her career and holds the American indoor record for the 60m hurdles. Lolo was so good in 2008 that it took a catastrophe like stumble on the second last hurdle for the competition to catch her. After her surgery no one thought she would be ready to compete at U.S. trials and she still made the team. Unfortunately for her, everyone is defining her career based on two Olympic disappointments. Just consider this, if she never had the spinal cord surgery she might have came into these olympics as the heavy favorite again and ran away with the gold. By the way, comparing her to Tebow is ridiculous, she’s achieved more in her career than he can dream of.
Fraud is too strong of a word to use. But I do agree that Jones has yet to medal for any Olympics but remains the poster child for 100 meter hurdles and is of constant attention. I would like to see Dawn Harper get as much attention for all she has already accomplished – and after she takes gold this year
Well, she got silver, but every story is going to be poor Lolo and I’m sure she’ll keep raking in money. If Dawn Harper didn’t get paid for getting gold, they certainly won’t give her anything when her second medal was just “silver.”
I’m astonished that they tell the Lolo story over and over again and don’t acknowledge that another American won, which SHOULD be important to us right. I mean, home team and all. But nope, doesn’t matter if the masses don’t find you hot…
Nic, you’re right once again.
HUH? Another light-skinned story?
exactly. why is Clutch promoting hate and division among black women? I don’t see where the New York Times says that , meaning the ttile of this article. Why would you title this article like that? Pathetic.
They aren’t. The commenters do that.
@726-
Seems like they are…Light-skinned is right in the title. :/
Longman is an idiot. Lolo Jones has been one of the world’s premier hurdlers since she was at LSU. Much of her notoriety came after she had already been an elite hurdler for some time. I first heard of her in the early 2000′s when she was relatively broke. Given she looks pretty much the same, why on earth is she just now getting all of this publicity if her press is only because of her looks.
The reason she was ranked so low towards the beginning of the year was because she has been returning from injury. She was running times consistently faster than any other American until her injury. As recently as 2010, she has been ranked #2 in the world outdoors and #1 indoors. She’s the American 60h record holder!! One injury and now she’s a mediocre hurdler? are you serious? That’s like calling Dwight Howard mediocre because he is injured. WTF
Dude! She aint won jack were it counts, donuts on gold.
dude, she has two world championship golds, three NCAA championships, an Olympic trials championship, and many other championships. What championships does Dawn have? one olympic gold in her entire career. no other majors. That’s like saying someone that wins the US Open, French Open, and Australian Open hasn’t won where it counts, because they haven’t won at Wimbledon. Gail Devers never won the Olympic Gold in the hurdles, by your “logic” I suppose she isn’t the greatest American hurdler in history.
anyone that thinks only the olympics counts, doesn’t know anything about Athletics. Track isn’t all about a single event that happens every 4 years.
I def didn’t agree with the Anna K comparisons or the use of the term exotic, but the premise of the article was accurate.
@Ravi
You know, it’s really not about winning gold, per se. You talk about her world championships as if they were won during 100m events, but those world championship titles of her’s are for indoor track, which is a 60m event. Swimming also has a short course world championships, but winning the gold in the 25M distance doesn’t hold the same significance as winning in the Olympic sized 50M pool, and swimming champions aren’t getting Lolo style publicity unless they win international titles or break records at the long course distance. I don’t see why it’s so difficult for you to admit that Lolo’s PR has been unusual for someone who rarely if ever won outdoor titles even when she was healthy. I mean, come on, she even got one of those TIME magazine Olympic issue covers, which in retrospect, seems silly to have put her in the company of Ryan Lochte and Gabby Douglas, when TIME could’ve just as easily used Felix, Jeter, or Richards-Ross, athletes that have actually won world outdoor titles within the last four years.
That whole tennis grand slam analogy is pretty flawed as well. Lolo’s record isn’t the equivalent of a tennis player that’s one title shy of a career grand slam. Slams are major championships, and Lolo hasn’t won any of those at the outdoor distance. Lolo is the tennis equivalent of a watered down Caroline Wozniaki, someone who has won a handful of tier one, tier two, tier three, etc. titles, got the number one seed from winning those titles but never won a slam, yet she’s getting top billing as if she has won slams.
Count me among those who only keep up with track and field during the Olympics and World (outdoor) Championships. So had I not read that NYT article on Sunday, I would’ve thought that Jones was upset in the 100m hurdles based on all the publicity she had been getting, but in reality, Jones wasn’t upset at all. Apparently, she was unsafe bet to medal, let alone win gold.
@Isolde
The tennis analogy is flawless. Any world championship is the equivalent of a Grand Slam in tennis. Wimbledon is more prestigious than the Australian but that doesn’t mean the Australian isn’t a grand slam. Similarly, the Olympics and outdoor world championships are the two most prestigious events, but they are not the only world championship meets. The indoor world track and field championships are the 3rd most prestigious international track competition the sport has. It’s like the Preakness of athletics. Not quite the Kentucky Derby, but still a top notch honor in our sport. She’s getting top billing as should anyone that has been the best in the world at what they do. She didn’t start getting press until she became the best hurdler in the world. She’s been running at a World class level for over a decade. Why didn’t anyone know who she was until she became the world’s best hurdler? if it was about her looks, why didn’t she get all this press in 2003? She doesn’t look any different.
Indoor track is a huge part of our sport and not some wholly separate event that doesn’t factor into who the greatest athletes are. A world indoor champion is still a world champion.
Admitting what you are claiming I should admit would require that I actually agree with what you are saying. She does deserve the PR she has gotten. She has been the best hurdler in the world multiple times prior to her injury. She won multiple outdoor titles prior to her injury. The Olympics and world titles aren’t the only titles to be won. How was it silly to have her in the company of Gabby. when they published, how many times was Gabby a world champion or the best in the world?
She wasn’t upset because she had a fantastic performance. She came back from surgery a year ago and worked her way back into the world’s elite. a couple months ago, she wasn’t among the top 5 Americans. There were 3 girls in college that were running much faster. Every time she made it through another round at the trials and Olympics, she was performing another upset. She’s been the underdog all year. For her to finish 4th was unexpected and I’m sure a very pleasing result. If you listened to the buzz surrounding her, no one was saying she was in contention for the gold. She was a long shot to even go to the Olympics this close after her surgery. If you didn’t know that she was the underdog then you haven’t been paying attention. No one seriously gave her a shot at even getting to the finals and certainly not a top 4 finish.
BTW, I’m not an occasional track spectator. I’m a college track coach and former college track athlete with over 20 years experience in the sport. I coach hurdlers and anyone that knows about my sport knows that Lolo Jones is one of the greatest American hurdlers ever. Top five in the history of American athletics.
There is one event that counts and thats the Olympics and sadly she has come up short yet again. Yes she is a very accomplished runner. But to fall short in the Olympics is the same as Charles Barkley never winning a NBA championship or Dan Marino never winning a Super Bowl, nice hall of fame run but the reason you play the game is missing.
To say that the Olympics is the only event that counts in any sport makes absolutely no sense. Track is a sport that is contested every year from the winter through the summer. There are dozens of international competitions throughout the year. The Olympics is not the meet that pays. It has a decent amount of prestige, but the payday comes from the Diamond league and IAAF events. The Olympics is important but it isn’t the end all be all of sports. Many of track and fields greatest athletes don’t have Olympic medals. In the big scheme of things, it holds little importance in the ultimate success of any athletes career.
@Ravi: you consistently make good points in nearly every comment I’ve seen you write on this site. I know you like engaging people but I still don’t see why you waste your time replying to people with rudimentary reading comprehension skills.
@isolde3 The premis of the article was that Lolo is hogging media attention. Longman attacked Lolo herself and not the media personnel that glorify her. I don’t feel like Lolo is calling magazines and begging them to put her on the cover. If she is being asked tho do these things can you blame her for saying yes. As far as her achieevments go you say her outdoor P.R. is strange for someone who has rarely won major outdoor titles. I’m not sure if you watched the 100 hurdles final in beijing but she was well on her way to winning gold and probably setting a new p.r. until she clipped that ninth hurdle. It took that massive mistake to deny her gold and give the competition a chance.
Lolo earned her media attention by consistently being one of the world’s best hurdlers since she was in college. The spinal cord surgery slowed her down but she still made the olympic team against all odds. Longman was talking as if Lolo wakes up everyday thinking of how to gain more media attention. Give the woman a break, years and years of hard earned victories should not be overlooked becasue of two olympic disappointments.
@Jean-Pierre
But who here is disagreeing with you about the media seeking Lolo out? We’re debating WHY the media is seeking her out and whether or not she is an anomaly due to the amount of media exposure she’s gotten in relation to how many medals she’s won that would be relevant in the eyes of the American public. Pointing out that Lolo has light skinned privilege is not attacking her. It’s telling the truth. I’m not here for that old trope again. There have already been two big articles on this site about that in the past month. Write back to me when you can bring up similar examples of darker female athletes with similar plot holes in their resumes that have gotten as much Madison Ave. love as Lolo, and then we’ll talk. Really though, I’m not kidding. I would love for someone to bring up another example, cause right now, I’m at a loss.
@Sasha, I taught high school for 8 years. I’m used to it. engaging in discourse is never a waste of my time. I learn more with every exchange. Every different perspective teaches you something no matter how much you might disagree. Besides, it gives me something to do when I finish with my work too quickly.
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
that’s sort of my motto
@ravi
I’m not questioning your knowledge base. I’m not alleging to know more about track than you do, but perhaps that’s your problem. You’re looking at this from the eyes of an insider and not through the lens of the general public. That tennis analogy was about as flawless as your comparisons of Lolo to Tyson Gay and Gail Devers, which are all tremendous reaches. Even with her silver medals in the hurdles at the Olympics, Devers had world and Olympic titles at the 100m distance and medaled in 100m world championship hurdles races, something Lolo has never done. Tyson’s failure to medal in the Olympics doesn’t detract from his world title at 100m or his setting of a world record, things Lolo never did or will likely ever do. This isn’t simply a matter of what Lolo has failed to do at the Olympics. This is about what she’s failed to do outside of the Olympics . . . healthy or otherwise, on outdoor tracks, at Olympic distances, which are the measuring stick that the American public uses for practically every other top track and field athlete at her level. You want me to believe that advertisers would normally make no distinction between titles won at the Olympic distance vs. the indoor distance when tapping a T&F athlete to anoint, and for me to buy what you’re selling, I’d have to see evidence of others who have had such high profile endorsements and media exposure with a record similar to Lolo’s. If Jones were really akin to Gay or Devers, then it stands to reason that the NYT article wouldn’t have much of a leg to stand on, and we probably wouldn’t even be having this discussion because the minute some questioned Jones’ credibility, we could point him to Lolo’s record of world (outdoor 100m distance) titles, medals, and world records broken. But that’s the thing, Lolo doesn’t have any.
The casual American T&F fan does not care about indoor records on shorter tracks, not when the highest profile events are held outside on longer tracks. Tennis has an indoor season as well, but hardly anyone cares. The races in the triple crown series are the equivalent of tennis slams to the gen pop. Like Slams, certain ones are more prestigious than others, and winning all three in a single year would be the equivalent of winning a career grand slam. The American public does not view the indoor world championships as a slam. Olympics and WC (at the long distance) are viewed in that light for an Olympic sport athlete.
Hurdles aren’t even a glamour event. Advertisers don’t usually concern themselves with “the best American hurdler” unless she/he was all but certain to be a medal threat, and yet Lolo proves to be the exception to this rule, because even according to you, she was a long-shot for a medal. Lolo isn’t the first athlete to battle back from injury before an Olymics. So, that doesn’t make her unique, especially since the casual T&F fan doesn’t even know about her injury. All they probably know is that she was on the cover of TIME, had a bunch of high profile ads, and like me, they probably think that athletes in high profile ads before the Olympics that are co-signed by TIME magazine are serious medal threats, but apparently that wasn’t the case. Even Ato Boldon alluded to such before the 100m hurdle final on NBC, when he said that she would need to have to race of her life to medal.
In order for the claims you are making true, you’d have to know more about the sport than I. Your assertions that my comparisons to other athletes in the sport being a reach is not the type of call a casual observer would have any understanding of. You clearly think you know something of the sport that I do not.
my comparison to Gail Devers was referencing her title as the greatest American hurdler of all time. Winning a gold medal at the Olympics in the 100m dash is not relevant when looking at her career as a hurdler. When did Gail Devers win an Olympic silver medal in hurdles? I brought her up to say that if the only thing that matters was the Olympics, as argued by someone else, then Gail Devers wouldn’t be the greatest. A perfect analogy, your analysis of the analogy — less so. I also mentioned that Devers had a similar experience in being the world’s #1 hurdler and stumbling at the Olympics. This is a fact.
Tyson Gay has not been the record holder for some time nor has he been #1 in the world for years. Lolo has been the world #1 much more recently. Lolo has 2 world titles indoors and as much as you want to pretend like it doesn’t matter, it’s still a world title. The basis of comparison is that they were both world #1 that have come back from injury to place 4th in the Olympics. If placing fourth in the Olympics after coming back from injury is enough to question a former world champion and current American record holders endorsements, then Gay should be similarly questioned.
The American public doesn’t determine who the top athletes are. The sport is objective and the runner with the fastest time is the best. It doesn’t matter which meet. The olympics is not the governing body for track, the IAAF is. IAAF sets the distances and the 60m hurdles is an IAAF recognized event just like the 100m hurdles. Endorsement money comes primarily from shoe companies, not just random advertisers. Shoe companies look at who is consistently ranked high in their event.
The NYT article has no leg to stand on. We are discussing it because the author and people commenting know little to nothing about the sport and apparently had nothing better to do than defecate on the accomplishments of one of the greatest hurdlers ever. She has several titles and an American record to her credit. Her credibility isn’t in question with anyone with even a passing understanding of the sport. Only those that honestly believe that the only meets that matter are the Olympics and outdoor world championships.
The ignorant American population doesn’t even watch track that much. they typically only tune in every four years. They don’t determine which meets are the majors no more than they do with Tennis. The grand slams are determined by the governing body of the sport. The major track meets are determined by the IAAF. Any world championship meet is roughly equivalent to a grand slam. The fact that you would try to argue otherwise to a professional in the sport when you admittedly are not is beyond absurd.
The shoe companies are very concerned with the best athlete in every event. The size of the contract is related to the marketability of the athlete. That is tied into their rank in the world, titles at all major competitions, records, and other aspects of marketability that are less tangible. That is the case with any sport. Hurdles are not as marketable as sprints as a general rule, but anyone that has spent time as the best hurdler on earth is getting love from the sponsors.
Lolo started getting press after she became the best hurdler in the world and the favorite to win the gold in 2008. if she was only getting press for her looks then why didn’t it happen prior to becoming the best American hurdler. The fact that she was once the best hurdler in the world is where her publicity originated and the fact that she is battling her way back from injury and a stumble at the 2008 olympics only makes her more marketable. coming back from injury isn’t unique, but I never said it was. Her Time magazine article was about her comeback. It didn’t say she was a favorite for a medal. Just because you oblivious to her place in hurdling history and don’t bother to know about the athletes you are posting comments on, doesn’t mean that the story of a fallen World’s Best hurdler making an against the odds comeback isn’t a compelling story. The media focuses on human pieces like this every Olympics. and Gabby wasn’t on Time because of her Olympic medals either. She didn’t have any at that time. She was in Time magazine because she had a very newsworthy story. Dawn Harper has a newsworthy story too, but she said she isn’t interested in divulging aspects of her life in order to be in papers. Coming from East St. Louis, I’m sure she has quite the story to tell. Don’t blame Lolo, because Dawn isn’t so PR minded.
I agree with most of your statements. Lolo is the truth in the world of track. At the same time, she has a powerful PR team that has definitely done their job. Unfortunately, many people don’t know about her track prowess because of her image and the press she’s gotten that has nothing to do with track. It’s not happenstance that she told her story in bits and pieces, even down to her virginity – this just adds to her media presence. Comparing her to Anna Kournikova is weak, because she’s done so much more in her sport than Kournikova. But in the end what matters is a gold, or medaling in the Olympics, which she didn’t do.
Her media presence, not just her performance, is what enabled her to continue be in the news, i.e. that Today interview where she was the sole interviewee, as opposed to Dawn Harper and Kellie Well’s interview. Lolo is seen as beautiful, is awkardly likeable, has what is concerned a compelling (great for news) story, and more because of her fall in the Beijing Olympics. She’s nowhere near mediocre, as you’ve stated, but her star was amplified to people who are not track and field followers for more than her successes outside of the Olympics.
As an Iowa transplant of 8 years (originally from Washington state), I’m endlessly amused at the word “Iowaness”! Why is there this assumption that black people can only come from the South or Northern inner cities?!
Yes black Americans are found in every state BUT they are few and far between in states like Iowa, Nebraska, etc. I know because I lived in those areas for years. Sighting were so rare…days went by with not a one.
I live in a small town in Iowa and we have people from all races/religions/walks of life….
I cannot imagine where you lived that “sighting were so rare…days went by with not a one”