Fox News Thinks Female Olympic Athletes Should Wear Makeup to “Look Beautiful” on the Podium

[Photographer]

Should female Olympic athletes wear makeup? Can it make them feel more empowered and more like themselves during competition? After USA Today published an article on this subject last week, a Fox News show called Sports Court decided to take it on. This being Fox News, the commentators offered intelligent, well-reasoned, nuanced opinions on the matter.

Just kidding.

“Why should I have to look at some chick’s zits?” That pearl of wisdom came courtesy of media personality Bo Dietl.

The segment was probably doomed from the start. If host Tamara Holder wanted to have a sensible discussion about female athletes and makeup (and it’s not clear that she did—she started the discussion by declaring that “We all know the old adage, ‘sex sells’ ”), she probably shouldn’t have had on two men who don’t know the first thing about female athletes, makeup, or the Olympics. But encourage men to air their uninformed views she did: In addition to Dietl, commentator Mark Simone also offered up his thoughts.

Simone opened strong: “The whole point of the Olympics, the whole reason for this training, for this work to get there, is product endorsements.” No, dude, that is not the whole reason for the Olympics. Sure, endorsements are important to some athletes, but others take part in sports less visible than swimming or gymnastics and are thus less likely to earn major endorsement deals. It’s simply not accurate to say that every Olympic athlete is driven by the bags of money waiting on the other side of the medal podiums—especially women, who on the whole earn less than male athletes anyway.

In the original piece, USA Today’s focus was on whether makeup could be empowering for female athletes. Leave it to Fox News to sidestep that question and bring it back to looks. After the aforementioned charming zit comment, Dietl added, “I like to see a person who wins that gold medal go up there and look beautiful.” Their nod to gender equity was a suggestion that the men wear makeup too, so they look better. (Dietl also proved that he is well-qualified to talk about sports on TV by failing to remember Michael Phelps’ name, calling him “that skinny guy.”) Several times, the two men also turned the question onto host Holder, asking how she looks when she “crawl[s] out of bed in the morning.” “Look at you—you got great legs,” Dietl said to Holder at one point. This was before he criticized a hypothetical gold medal–winning female athlete who looked like a “washed-out rag.” He would not support such a woman, no siree.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/08/11/fox_news_show_sports_court_discussed_a_usa_today_article_about_female_athletes.html

[JI7]

1. to make men like Ailes happy ?

[Liberty Belle]

2. Dumb and impractical--think runny mascara

and sweating off your foundation....

Seriously if they want to focus on cosmetic issues, how about why is Trump so orange?

[maxsolomon]

20. Lindsey Vonn has made racing in full makeup normal in Women's Alpine

It's helped to make her into an endorsement machine in a sport that hardly anyone watches.

Maybe she doesn't sweat when she skis, but I do.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. Shock jock? Trying to make name by making stupid comments?

[Photographer]

7. Not a way to say what I'm thinking.

[Rex]

4. It is like CEO Pig Man is still there, running things.

[onecaliberal]

5. Fuck those stupid sexist twits.

[pnwmom]

6. And here I've been watching these events and thinking that every young, healthy, fit person

is incredibly beautiful.

[Hekate]

8. And that's the truth

[ProfessorGAC]

19. I'm With You

They're all in phenomenal shape, most look like they're carved out of marble.

Simone's comments about Phelps as "the skinny guy" are hilarious. That guy has more muscle in one leg than Simone has in his whole body. "Skinny guy". That guy could rip Simone into tiny pieces with his bare hands.

[bhikkhu]

9. Of course the article is ridiculously offensive

and the commentators have no idea what they are talking about, or what real physical competition is. I'm male, and have been involved off and on in competitive sports. If I didn't look like a washed out rag at the end of a race I'd think I wasn't doing it right, and I can guarantee that the winner of any good race looks and feels like a washed out rag by the end - that just means that every last bit was given. That's actually a good feeling, and something you like to see.

[scscholar]

10. Faux Knews sounds like my boss

The saddest thing was though that I was wearing makeup.

[citood]

11. I have noticed that the women gymnasts wear fake eyelashes, make up, and sparkly outfits

Makes me wonder if their scores would suffer if they didn't...and if so why they put up with it.

[Retrograde]

13. And in other sports where appearance seems to count

like synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics (and figure skating, for that matter). IMHO, athletes are impressive enough without the sparkly distractions. And yes, I think that their costumes do affect their scores.

When I run the Olympics they'll go back to plain leotards in their countries' colors, with maybe the name of the country on it, and there will be mandatory deductions for every square inch of glitter.

[mythology]

18. In my experience, women gymnasts love the sparkles

Granted it's a limited sample of the women in our gym, but it seems fairly consistent across a variety of "traditionally" and "non-traditionally" feminine women. I've tried to talk them out of it, which only resulted in a threat to glitter me. The makeup they agree is ridiculous, but I've heard far too many in depth conversations on leos to think they don't actually sincerely like the sparkles.

[davidn3600]

12. Newscasters wear make-up, even the men do much of the time

These people on the news are constantly being worked on by make-up artists and hair stylists. So they probably don't see anything wrong with what they said. These people are told constantly that they have to look their best when in front of the camera.

Although, in some sports, the women DO in fact wear make-up. Women's gymnastics and figure skating especially....which just happen to be the most popular female events in the Olympics.

[Kingofalldems]

23. So...you agree with the Fox people?

[davidn3600]

24. No. Just trying to look at it from that point of view

These on-air reporters are in a business where appearances matter.

And in some sports, the female athletes do glamor themselves up.

[LanternWaste]

14. These are the same half-wits that pretend bikini-glam pictures

These are the same half-wits and simpletons that pretend bikini-glam pictures on the covers are directly relevant to the content of sports magazines.

The breadth and depth of that particular brand of wisdom held by some humans and all pan paniscus's is simply so very underwhelming.

[Stinky The Clown]

15. Bo Dietl is the very definition and embodiment of Dumb Fucking Lunkhead

[Tommy_Carcetti]

16. Wait, has Roger Ailes left the building yet? nt

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

17. It doesn't matter if he leaves. He built the place.

Removing Ailes is a lot like removing the head of ISIS: there are a bunch like him ready to take over.

[Initech]

21. Did they replace Roger Ailes with Zapp Branagin?

[Eleanors38]

22. Are you sure his name isn't Diddle? Phew! Wadda stinker.