Sports Illustrated magazine  is notorious for its covers. A few times each year a lucky girl is chosen to be photographed on the beach in almost nothing, doing her sexiest pose. Of course this magazine created by men for men searches to find new, hot, females each year; all of these girls happen to be white, thin, young, beautiful and of course heterosexual. Each year the magazine becomes more progressive, progressively reducing the amount of clothes the girls are wearing. It seems as though the bodies of the women are almost identical from cover to cover, and year to year. One race, one weight, one body, one age, one type.  “Sexy” is embodied by these women and these women only. Women of other races, weights, etc. are not able to be sexy. It isn’t in their makeup. The male gaze simply doesn’t see them as attractive.

 This year Sports Illustrated decided to push some boundaries. They allowed a 65 year old woman to be featured in the magazine. At first I was excited as I searched for the image, but once I found it I was instantly disappointed. Instead of putting forward a new idea of beauty while challenging stigmas that surrounded the topic of age and beauty, the magazine perpetuated a cycle that allows only a certain type of woman to be beautiful; although this woman was older, she looked young. Once again we see an example of media “pushing boundaries.” We can’t see her wrinkles, or her cellulite. Her body is edited. She can be old, but she can’t show the signs of age, she can be black, but she needs to have white features and straight hair.  Basically you can be different but you can’t look different. Real age still isn’t allowed. So these “changes” aren’t really progressive at all. In fact they are even more damaging because now expectations are not only put on young woman to look a certain way, but older women are expected to meet an unrealistic standard as well. Realistic bodies still aren’t shown. Age isn’t celebrated it is denied. In sum, diversity is still absent.