Through the Arch

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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.

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Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2008 > August > 19 > Entry

Blog: An Eye For Controversy

By Tom Archdeacon | Tuesday, August 19, 2008, 09:10 PM

BEIJING — So now a fourth controversial photo has emerged showing Olympic athletes posing in a team photo while pulling back the skin on the sides of their eyes in an — you chose the qualifier here — offensive, derogatory, racist, innocent, affectionate, funny reference to Chinese people.

My vote is for offensive.

And yet I know I can’t claim to come from the most culturally sensitive state. Not as long as we still have Chief Wahoo grinning away atop every Cleveland Indians ball cap.

Anyway, here at the Beijing Olympics, a two-week-old photo has surfaced of four women soccer players from the Argentina team posing in their blue uniforms as they pull their eyes back. The image was published in the Argentine sports newspaper Ole.

Before that, it was Spain’s Federation Cup tennis team — one that had just beaten China in a pre-Games competition — posing at a dinner party, their eyes pulled tight in what one reference called “a Chinaman’s pose.”

And before that, the whole debate was ignited by full-page ads of the Spanish men’s and women’s Olympic basketball teams in Marca, the country’s best selling sports daily.

Done as an ad for the courier company Seur, official sponsor of the Spanish Basketball Federation, it shows the 15 Spanish players using both hands to pull back their eyes in what is supposed to be the stereotypical Chinese look

Ironically, Spain’s basketball teams have been sponsored by and now wear uniforms made by the Chinese company Li Ning since 2002. And they just signed an agreement to continue the partnership through 2012.

As the photos have drawn worldwide attention, the interpretational debate has intensified and often gotten quite nasty.

The Spanish teams don’t see what the big stink is about. The basketball federation said the ad was a gesture of “love, sympathy and appreciation toward the Chinese people and their country.”

Only Pau Gasol, the Los Angeles Laker from Spain, seems to have some reservations about being a part of the photo, though he said it’s “absurd” to call to it racist.

“Some of us didn’t feel comfortable doing it just because to me it was a little clownish for our part to be doing that,” Gasol told media members at Beijing Normal University.

“But the sponsors insisted and insisted. I think it is just a bad idea, but it was never intended to be offensive or racist against anybody. I didn’t find it very funny. I didn’t find it offensive, either. I guess some guys didn’t mind.

“I don’t want to be that way, to be doing that stuff. If anybody feels offended by it, we totally apologize for it. We never meant anything offensive by it.”

While the debate goes on, sometimes karma takes care of matters best.

Take those women soccer players from Argentina.

They lost all three of their Olympic games , including a 2-0 defeat to China in their final match.

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