Whether you like her or not... she's getting attention for Indy Car racing.
PT Barnum sure was correct. There is no such thing as bad PR.
I was amazed at the Media following her all over the Speedway in May. And now it is just growing.
Good Morning America, SI Cover, CNN...
The left front wing that took 5 cars out of the Indy 500 is now up for sale on EBAY. With 3 days to go it sits at $25,000. Are you kidding me??? You can buy a full show car without an engine for that.
ESPN has been running non-stop ads promoting the Texas Race. I haven't seen them promote races on ESPN in the past at all.
Now I'm hearing reports from Texas that the throng around her is double what it was at Indy. That takes me back to one of the best comments I ever heard about the Media... Jon Stewart once said "Watching the media cover a story is like watching 6 year olds play soccer." This is so true and DanicaMania is just proving it all over again.
I sure hope she doesn't take out half the field as she will be starting 3rd on Saturday night. Not only would that kill the media throng, it might just kill her career.
The IRL found their Anna Kournakova. Now can she become the IRL's Tiger Woods?
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Do you think that she is atractive? She does. I remember her saying in an interview around Indy that being a girl is difficult and then being an attractive girl in racing is more difficult. Might need media training.
I wonder what her fiance has gotten himself into.
[Sorry, had to fix my previous post.]
Oooo, more female stuff. You know I've got to comment. (Sorry Steve! I've turned your blog into the ya-ya sisterhood. Mea culpa.)
As I said before, I have really mixed emotions about the level of Danica Panic-a going around.
On the one hand, I really like the idea that a talented young person, who's also a woman, is doing well in racing. That fact deserves attention, because it's breaking a barrier.
But it doesn't deserve attention over and above the results of the race. There is a RACE going on, people - perhaps we should track the results and celebrate the winner, or something wacky like that!
Not only that, but the whole question of whether she's attractive is very, very loaded. I'm sure everyone has heard all the arguments regarding women in sports & their attractiveness, but I'll re-hash it anyway for this new situation:
First off, attractiveness would never be an issue for a man. Jeff Gordon is attractive (not to me personally, though), but his looks play a very minimal role in how he's viewed as a driver. (Except for that "Jeff Gordon's Gay" song, which is pretty damn funny.) Jeff could be butt ugly or even more of a pretty boy, but it's his ability that counts. If he were in a wreck and his face burned up tomorrow, he would still have a job.
However, because Danica is female and her attractiveness IS an issue, she walks the same fine line as all women who excel at what they do. If she's too attractive, she risks being labelled a racing bimbo who got where she was on her looks alone. Then, every screw up would be fodder for that image. Or, if she was good and someday won the 500, she'd have to deal with Bob and Tom making snike remarks about her mammaries while she's downing that glass of milk. (Would they still have the 500 Festival Queen in the winner's circle with her? Would they find an attractive man, maybe?)
But - if Danica was 50 lbs heavier and 20 years older with a moustache and buck teeth (see again: Dale Earnhardt), people would snicker and smirk about that, too. Half the people at the track would make snide remarks about her being a cow, lesbian (notthatthereisanythingwrongwiththat), or worse. I bet Bob and Tom could make a whole album out of that material. Hardy har har, indeed.
(On the plus side, at least if she was fat, Robbie Blow-Hard would shut his trap about her weight.)
Bottom line: Danica has to be moderately attractive (but only moderately) to be accepted. That, and she still has to be talented.
So, to answer Anon's question: at least in the opinion of this straight woman, I think she's fairly nice looking. She's lucky that she's pretty, but not the Anna-Kournikova-bimbo sort of pretty. She's got perfect looks for her career, and she's got talent too.
Even so, she still gets treated differently than the other drivers. Women who look like her aren't supposed to be pushy or bold, which makes it damn hard to be the kind of agressive driver she needs to be. I bet it *does* irk people when she mentions that it's hard to be an attractive woman in racing. It's just a reminder that we're ultimately fixated on her looks, and we expect her to act differently because of her looks. There's no place in sports for that.
The bigger question is: what do we do to put the emphasis back on the race itself? Stop watching TV and reading the papers? I'm sure Danica hasn't exactly tried to quell the publicity, but what should she do? Stop responding to interview requests? She'd be labelled again as an ice queen, and I'm sure her bosses would have a fit. What sports star doesn't want more publicity (other than OJ)?
I think Danica Panic-a is here to stay for a while, but hopefully like any other fad, it will fade. And then, we can focus on her talent (and every other driver's talent, too).
As for her fiance, I'd say he has a smart, attractive woman with a great career and lots of money and fame in her future. He also will never have to drive during road trips, and he'll never have to beg for a ticket to a racing event for the rest of his life. Not a bad deal, in my book.
Well, she has pretty much said that she decided to go the route of leveraging her looks in her career when you watch the interviews at Indy.
Everyone remembers the Maxim spread she posed for a few years ago when she was still driving in the CART feeder series. Therefore, I think that she made a conscious effort to play up her looks in order to advance her career. I am not saying that is bad but I would consider that decision before determining that the press have positioned her as such in the past month.
Anna,
I can't argue with anything you said. Danica and the IRL should ride the publicity as far as they can take it.
My fear is that our media today has no patience. If she doesn't win in the next few races... and I doubt she will... they will jump off the Danica Wagon as fast as they jumped on. And that is too bad. Because I truly believe she has talent and given this year to learn, she very well could win a few races next year and be at the top of the IRL for years to come.
That is if the media doesn't ruin racing for her this year.
I think she is indeed attractive. And I think, sadly, that her level of popularity has everything to do with that and not her driving. She's certainly getting more attention and support than Janet Guthrie or Lyn St. James, both of whom could be argued to have been much better drivers than Danica.
Danica-mania is just that -- a media mania. Here's what the San Francisco Chronicle said:
"She is not the first, but so far, Danica Patrick is the best.
The best media darling. Self-promoter. Ambassador for women in racing.
Oh yes, and driver."
Janet Guthrie deserves to be remembered along with Danica. Who can say how Guthrie would have finished if she had had a better car to drive 20 years ago? Same for Lyn ("Go For It, Steve!") St. James. So Danica is not really breaking barriers for women. Women have driven cars before, and women have been judged by their looks before. What's the big deal?
We can just hope that she's got a sponsor willing to stay with her. The mania will end, as Steve says, after a few races. But if Letterman and Rahal stick with her, she can win someday.
Let's remember that there have been a lot of very good drivers who have never won at Indy. So if Danica ever wins at Indy or any IRL race, then she is more than simply a media darling.
Until then....
anonymous asks, "Do you think she is attractive?"
There is a site on the internet that shows some airbrushed near-porn of Danica, and in those pictures she IS attractive.
At 220 mph she looks the same as any other Indy 500 driver.
"At 220 mph she looks the same as any other Indy 500 driver."
You just said more in about 15 words than I did in my long winded response. Love it!! Excellent!
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