'Show them what crazy can do'

Written by Melody House

On the 24th of February, in a commercial break during the Academy Awards, Nike aired their new advert 'Dream Crazier'. With Serena Williams narrating, the advert highlights groundbreaking, emotional, and controversial moments in women’s sport. This is a common narrative in Nike ads. Yet ‘Dream Crazier’ goes further. It offers us an interesting critique of the language used to describe women athletes, and a nuanced way of combatting it.

‘Dream Crazier’: Nike, Youtube

‘Social justice’ seems to be Nike’s new theme when it comes to selling their products. After American Footballer Colin Kaepernick was essentially ‘made redundant’ for kneeling during the National Anthem at one of his games, Nike made him the face and voice of their ad campaign 'Dream Crazy'. The move sparked outrage. Hashtags such as ‘#BoycottNike’ and ‘#justburnit’, began trending on twitter. Yet Nikes stocks skyrocketed, earning the company at least $6 billion. The new ‘Dream Crazier’ - which clearly harkens back to ‘Dream Crazy’ - is set to yield the same results.

It is important to question the motivations behind massive corporations adopting feminist narratives to sell their products. Although admirable, at the end of the day their goal is to maximise sales, not to smash the patriarchy. And it is notable that the words ‘feminist’ or ‘feminism’ aren’t mentioned explicitly in the advertisement, or in the description on Nike’s website, arguably functioning to distance Nike from this collective identity and political struggle even as it seeks to appeal to individual consumers who share feminist values.  Yet there is something so powerful in hearing Williams’ cool and unwavering instruction to ‘Show them what crazy can do’, that I can’t help but love the ad. Capitalist intentions aside, it does offer an important critique on the type of language used to describe women athletes. This is my focus in the remainder of the blog post.

It was not that long ago that the term ‘women athletes’ sounded oxymoronic. The first woman to run the Boston Marathon, Kathrine Switzer, notes that in the 1960s people believed that if women performed strenuous activities they would run the risk of sprouting a moustache or chest hair.

Kathrine Switzer, First Woman to Enter the Boston Marathon: MAKERS.com

Sport was, and to a certain extent still is, seen as an incredibly masculine activity. As such, women athletes receive constant criticism of being 'too manly'. Serena and Venus Williams have been sneeringly called the 'Williams Brothers'. Referring to South African olympic athlete Caster Semenya, Canadian athlete Diane Cummings was quoted saying running against her felt like she was 'literally running against a man'. The Nike advert alludes to this, with a shot of Semenya running while Williams states, “When we’re too good, there’s something wrong with us.”

It is, of course, no coincidence that these are all women of colour. Williams, and other women athletes of colour are constantly subjected to not only sexist, but racist comments and depictions of themselves. The Nike ad could do a lot more to address these issues. The only concrete reference to racism in the advertisement is the shot of Ibtihaj Muhammad cheering as Serena says, “A woman competing in a hijab…crazy”. It feels like an afterthought, and the message falls flat here. Considering Nike had Serena Williams, a black woman athlete, narrate their ad, they could have put a much greater emphasis on challenging the intersections of racism and sexism in representations of women athletes than they do. Nike’s focus, as the title suggests, is on the ‘crazy’ trope often attached to women, which they imply is unmediated by race, when this is not the case.

The ad still has considerable rhetorical power, however. Feminist scholar and blogger Deborah Cameron talks about what she calls ‘The Humpty Dumpty Model’ in her book Verbal Hygiene (1995). Drawing on the Lewis Carroll character’s chapter in Through the Looking Glass (1871), Cameron explains her language model: Alice asks Humpty Dumpty to define the word ‘glory’, He replies “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you”. Alice, rightfully, objects. Humpty Dumpty retorts “When I use a word…it means just what I choose it to mean”. Alice questions whether he can actually do this, as surely this would make communication impossible if everyone were to ‘make up’ their own meanings to words. Humpty Dumpty says the only important factor is “which is to be master”. Where this is generally used to pose the question, ‘Who’s to be master? The people or the language?’, Cameron notes that this is misleading, as it ignores the language users. Therefore, she proposes the question should really be ‘“Who’s to be master, me or you?”’(taken from Verbal Hygiene, 1995, p.121 - emphasis my own). This is what the Nike ad is doing.

Alice meets Humpty Dumpty: https://aliceinwonderland.fandom.com/wiki/Humpty_Dumpty

As Williams narrates, ‘If we want to play against men, we’re nuts…If we dream of equal opportunity, delusion…If we get angry…we’re just being crazy’. Women’s emotions are constantly being belittled and dismissed. We are thought of as being ‘ruled by our hormones’, therefore any feelings we have are invalid and irrational. We are simply ‘crazy’. The Alice’s of the world would have us believe that this is a bad thing. Crazy is a negative attribute. You don’t want to be crazy! Yet, as the Nike ad points out, a women running in a marathon was considered crazy. Women competing in professional sports was considered crazy. The thought of a woman having a baby, and returning to work after the fact - regardless of her profession - was considered crazy. Suddenly, ‘crazy’ takes on a whole new meaning.

 

The Nike ad is not perfect. It fails to properly address the racist commentary women athletes have to contend with, and like most businesses Nike’s motives are questionable. Yet it does offer us a thoughtful, and empowering approach to re-conceptualise some of the ways women are spoken about publicly. Taking on the role of Humpty Dumpty, we can change the negative ways women are discussed by taking control of the narrative. How it is interpreted all comes down to who the master is: real women, or sexist clichés?