Popular Culture Review Vol. 8, No. 2, August 1997 | Page 94
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Popular Culture Review
basketball was exciting and status conferring. Most of the Red Heads
players planned on playing a few years and then getting married.
Products of their socio-cultural times, these were traditional women
who were socially conditioned to accept the feminine roles of
housewife and mother.
Publicity Images
The Red Heads' owners believed that to get bookings, it was
more important for publicity to focus on the women's appearance than
on their athleticism. Consequently, past basketball experience and
current game statistics were largely ignored in press releases and
game programs. The owner's instead focused on four publicity images
(beautiful women, exciting games, patriotism, dollar signs). These
images were carefully constructed and integrated.
Beautiful Women and Excitement
The following quotes from the 1970-1971 program illustrate
how the owners carefully merged beauty and athleticism to project an
image of beautiful women playing exciting basketball. "The RED
HEADS will prove basketball can be beautiful, as well as exciting."
"The All American Red Heads are not only champion athletes, but
each girl is a Superlative in her own right."
Feminine beauty rather than athleticism is used as the major
drawing card to attract fans. In a whole page of photos of team
captain, Pat Overman, there is not one game action shot or statistic.
Instead there are four pictures that highlight her good looks, charm
and femininity. The first picture shows Overman in her red, white
and blue uniform with a beauty crown on her head and a cape
wrapped around her shoulders. The caption reads, "Crown Princess of
Girls Professional Basketball." The impression left is that the game
is more of a beauty pageant than an athletic event The second
picture shows her talking on the telephone while looking in a mirror
applying her lipstick. The caption reads, "Miss Basketball —Fone'n
and Fixin." This plays into the stereotype that women are more
concerned with appearance and chatting on the phone with their
"girl friends" than with being serious athletes and reinforces the
belief that women are basically frivolous creatures. The third
picture is a portrait shot of Overman's head framed in a basketball
net. The last photo shows Overman in a Ziegfeld Follies or Radio