Friday, August 27, 2010

My Weekend Crush

I’m not sure even if it is possible to be in love with a multimedia project, but I am. The New York Times, the staid national paper of record, ran an exhaustive special package on the women of professional tennis this week. It came with a fairly standard feature story talking about the state of the women’s game. But oh, kittens – the extras. Everything is in the extras. The project included an online photo essay and video gallery. That doesn’t sound like much until I tell you it’s a slo-mo video gallery of the incredibly fit, incredibly toned, incredibly strong women of tennis hitting balls really, really hard. I mentioned it was slo-motion, right? I am not even going to try to count the number of times I watched these videos back-to-back, on a loop, with the lights dimmed. This is porn, porn for muscles.

Now, I could get into a long-winded discussion about whether an article about the present state of women’s tennis really needs a blow-out multi-media package featuring some of the game’s biggest and most comely stars in flowing, spangly outfits and immaculate, full makeup hitting tennis balls. Objectification, glamorization, etc. etc., blah blah. But this is not the time or place for that. Instead I want to admire, with every fiber in my body, the dedication and drive, strength and sweat it takes to become a professional athlete. I want to appreciate how hard these women worked to be able to hit that hard. I want to leave small sacrificial offerings at the temples that they’ve transformed their bodies into. I want to marvel at the beauty that comes with strength. In short, I want to watch them play. Happy weekend, all.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's US Open time.

As always looking forward to watching the finals as someone grunts the ball across the court.

rocketdyke said...

ah, i will be sitting in the stands from 9/3 to 9/6, watching each one of these lovely amazing athletes grunt and stress and sweat and compete (if they haven't been knocked out of the competition by then). i love the us open.

vrgriffith said...

The video gallery was just amazing. I wish I could see those bodies live.

Anonymous said...

These ladies are amazing...I must say though...why don't you ever mention Amelie Mauresmo? She's amazing and has done much to transcend the view of gay athletes.

Anonymous said...

I love watching women's tennis. Been doing it since high school. I play it too :D

ravaj said...

my forever crush!

have you seen this yet?
all the best
aj

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1305711/Nigellas-pleasure-principle.html

Shazzer said...

I was surprised by how moving I found these videos to be. So glad someone made the effort to get them into an embeddable format so they can be more widely shared.

scribegrrrl said...

The print versions are even more stunning -- sometimes print still beats the web!