Whatever happened to "real" bodybuilding?
There was a time, years ago, when bodybuilding was exactly that, bodybuilding. This was decidely a male sport where men actually took great time to strategically evolve their musculature to its physical limits. Women were not bodybuilders, but stereotypically participated in "beauty peagents," which involved evening gown competition, bikini competition, a personal artistic talent like singing, dancing, poetry, or a dramatic reading, and responding to a pseudo-intellectual question about world peace or whatever.
The true legends of bodybuilding did not use steroids, or tans, or wigs, or other parlor tricks. Instead, they did it the old fashioned way, they lifted weights, maintained a healthy and well-balance diet, and trained religiously, but not for sheer mass, which is the focus for most of today's male bodybuilders, but for muscular definition, balance and symmetry. Here, take a look:
Stephen Lester Reeves (January 21, 1926 – May 1, 2000) was an American professional bodybuilder, actor, and philanthropist. He was famous in the mid-1950s as a movie star in Italian-made peplum films, playing the protagonist as muscular characters such as Hercules, Goliath, and Sandokan.
At the peak of his career, he was the highest-paid actor in Europe. From 1959 through 1964, Reeves went on to appear in a string of sword and sandal movies shot on relatively small budgets[2] and, although he is best known for his portrayal of Hercules, he played the character only twice: in the 1957 film (released in the US in 1959) and its 1959 sequel Hercules Unchained (released in the US in 1960). By 1960, Reeves was ranked as the number-one box-office draw in twenty-five countries around the world. Source: WikipediaLarry Dee Scott (October 12, 1938 – March 8, 2014), nicknamed "The Legend" and "The Golden Boy," was an American IFBB professional bodybuilder. He won the inaugural 1965 Mr. Olympia competition and defended the crown at the 1966 Mr. Olympia contest before retiring.
IFBB Mr. Olympia 1965-1966, two consecutive times. Source: Wikipedia
Sergio Oliva (July 4, 1941 – November 12, 2012) was a Cuban bodybuilder known as "The Myth". This sobriquet was arguably given to him by bodybuilder/writer Rick Wayne but Oliva himself has doubted this claim. Supposedly Wayne had begun calling Oliva "The Myth" (because everyone who saw him at the 1967 Montreal World's Fair said he was "Just unbelievable").
IFBB Mr. Olympia 1967-1969, three consecutive times, 1968 uncontested and unchallenged. Source: Wikipedia
There was a time when, without regard to their race or color, men were proud and honest about they way they looked, and their on-stage appearance mirrored the veracity (truthfulness) of their training. Then, one day back in the late 1960s men's bodybuilding took a nasty turn, because as reported in Muscle & Fitness magazine and similar publications, some judges believed contestants like (Sergio Oliva, Serge Nubret, Albert Beckles, etc.) with darker skin (Black men) had an advantage (over White men) under the stage lights. Clearly, this was both racist and stupid because White men with or without tans (Dave Draper, Larry Scott, Lou Ferrigno, Frank Zane, Tom Platz, Reg Park, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Franco Columbu, Dorian Yates, etc.) won contests just as often as Black men (Albert Beckles, Ronnie Coleman, Shawn Ray, Serge Nubret, Sergio Oliva, Lee Haney, Phil Heath, etc.).
Keep in mind, most of the owners and judges of bodybuilding contests are White people, and they believed the separation of muscles and striations for Black men was more discernible, looked better, etc. So, since many if not most White people view their pale skin as objectionable - as validated by their constant need to tan (yeah, I said it), it became a practice for most White contestants to darken their skin by tanning in the sun (potential for skin cancer) or by chemical application (less likely for skin cancer) to hopefully improve their plight against people of color. Yeah, that's really sad, even pathetic. Here, look at the head of this White bodybuilder compared to the rest of his body below his neck.
CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGEIs the self-esteem of White people and other light-skinned people so low, so distasteful that they resent or reject their natural pigmentation? As represented by the photo below and conveyed in an editorial by Strength Oldschool, "It’s hard to tell which bodybuilders are Black and which are White??"
QUESTION: Given our age of so-called enlightenment and political correctness, who the hell has the right to tell White people and other light-skinned people their skin color is NOT good enough, that their skin color is inferior, inadeqate, pathetic, unsatisfactory, terrible, lousy, or photogenically unacceptable? Is this message in the best interest of bodybuilding?
ANSWER: Absolutely no one has a right to tell you or anyone that your skin color is inferior, inadeqate, pathetic, unsatisfactory, terrible, lousy, or photogenically unacceptable! Prior to being born, we do NOT have the option to pre-determine our race, sex, or the hue and tone of our pigmentation. It's both obsence and racist for anyone to promote and sustain the racist, slavery-based paradigm of the dark-skinned field nigger versus the light-skinned house nigger.OBSERVATION: Consider the irony, the contempt, and the hypocrisy of White bodybuilders and other light-skinned people to darken their skin to be "black-ish," but only to spurn and disdain their appearance as a permanent fixture.
So, like it or not, bodybuilding became and remains a racial issue. Frankly, the easy fix to eliminate tanning is to change the stage lighting to better capture musculature and striations of each participant. This is an easy fix, because competent photographers, videographers, and cinematographers do this on a daily basis. It's extremely easy for a competent photographer, videographer, and cinematographer to light the stage to capture any visual target with varying degrees of contrast - that's exactly what "we" do. Here, take a look.
Below is one-(1) photo treated with varying degrees of light, contrast, or darkness, and a competent photographer or stage manager can do the same thing in a "live" setting with spotlights, keylights, footlights, etc. Have you never heard of "film noir," dah?
COLOR ORIGINAL COLOR DARKER COLOR DARKEST B&W ORIGINAL B&W DARKER B&W DARKEST Unfortunately, the majority of professional and amateur bodybuilding organizations elected to play the race card instead of allowing or requiring athletes to present themselves "as is" or truly "all natural." It doesn't matter whether it's professional or amatuer, there's nothing "natural" about today's bodybuilding.
In fact, racism in today's pseudo-bodybuilding is so powerful that even Black people have been brainwashed (think Willie Lynch) to tan and darken their skin just like their White-skinned competitors. Clearly, the pyramid is upside down. Do White people and lighter-skinned (brainwashed) Black people hate their skin color so much that they must darken their skin to be competitive? Really? No, really?? Sadly, the pseudo-bodybuilders born from millennials, and Generation X, and the #Metoo generation either don't know the racist history of bodybuilding, or worse, they don't care.
Just like male bodybuilders, some women began to pile on muscle pushing their "natural" physical limits, which greatly distorted the bodies of some women so much that they looked more like men than women (such as Chyna, Nicole Bass, Julia Vins, Iris Kyle, Nataliya Kuznetsova, Rene Campbell, Brigita Brezovac, Alina Popa, Denise Rutkowski). But keep in mind, these are exceptions and not the norm for the overwhelming majority of female bodybuilders. Today, for the most part, women don't actually bodybuild; instead, they kinda body shape, which is especially true of amateur drug-free natural pseudo-bodybuilding events that only function as "beauty pageants or contests." What happened? In the beginning . . . the "ideal" female body was only slightly enhanced by muscle development, but . . . every woman's body is different, with varying degrees of potential, so the limits for mass, definition, balance and symmetry are also different.
Cory Everson, 6 time Ms. Olympia 1984 to 1989 Women began to put on more muscle, but Bev Francis, a former six-time world powerlifting champion, is the woman who changed it all. Bev Francis, and later Iris Kyle, really put on more muscle mass and much greater cut and definition.
Iris Kyle, 10 time Ms. Olympia 2001, 2004 & 2006 to 2014 Iris Floyd Kyle (born August 22, 1974) is an American professional female bodybuilder. Kyle is currently the most successful professional bodybuilder ever, female or male, with ten-(10) overall Ms. Olympia wins and two heavyweight wins, along with seven Ms. International wins and one heavyweight win. She ranks as the best female bodybuilder in the IFBB Pro Women's Bodybuilding Ranking List. Due to pressure from social media and the “#metoo” movement that female bodybuilders looked too much like men instead of women, the level of masculinity has dropped off significantly and we basically have female models with really toned bodies. The final Ms. Olympia contest, which represented true bodybuilding for women, was held in 2014. Except for the Rising Phoenix World Championships there are very few bodybuilding events for elite athletes of Kyle's stature. Consequently, Kyle remains undecided about whether she would continue competing in professional female bodybuilding competitions.
Update: Beginning in 2020, the Ms. Olympia contest returns from it’s six-(6) year hiatus! Hopefully, participants in this event will do so without any performance-enhancing-drugs-(PEDs).
Kai Greene and Iris Kyle posing together at the Arnold Classic Seminar It is what it is.
No matter, it's called "bodybuilding" for a reason, and as represented by the photo (at right) of eight-time Ms. Olympia champion, Lenda Murray, elite women "bodybuilders" used their athleticism (intense weight training and aerobics) to manifest exquisite balance and symmetry, and outstanding clarity of each muscule group. Athleticism is required to be a bodybuilder.
Athleticism is NOT required to be in a beauty pageant. A beauty pageant does not involve the actual manifestation of any athletic prowess, or physical acuity, or building muscle mass, or skill-based athleticism, and is NOT a "physically competitive" sporting event.
Given the aforementioned, several organizations offer a "Bikini" division, and an "athletic" division, and a "figure" division which clearly have abolutely nothing to do with actual "body . . . building."
Lenda Murray, 8 time Ms. Olympia 1990 to 1995 & 2002 and 2003
ENGAGING IN A WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM IS NOT
THE SAME AS ENGAGING IN A BODYBUILDING PROGRAM
Again, the final Ms. Olympia contest, which represented true bodybuilding for women, was held in 2014. But now, bodybuilding for women has been castrated to specifically showcase significantly less muscle development, and far too often fake hair, fake breasts, fake skin, etc. Sadly, the only difference between a traditional beauty pageant and a bodybuilding contest is the omission of a talent segment for today's women's pseudo-bodybuilding.
In summary, professional and amatuer bodybuilding organizations have established that Black bodybuilders and other people of color are pre-determined to win solely because of their color, and that White people and other lighter-skinned people, are therefore, unilaterally disadvantaged, because their pigment is inherently inferior.
I challenge White bodybuilders and light-skinned Black, Latino, and other people of color to file charges of racial discrimination with the EEOC against all professional and amatuer bodybuilding organizations to prohibit the use of any artifical means to augment skin color.
On 14 February 2020, A360 Media, LLC sold Joe Weider’s Olympia Fitness & Performance Weekend to Jake Wood. Wood relaunched the "Olympia Fitness & Performance Weekend" in December 2020. In 2024, as represented in the video below, although many competitors continue to tan and darken their skin, without a doubt "real" bodybuilding has returned with a focus on muscle size, development, and definition as the "standard."
"Real" bodybuilding does not function like a beauty contest with a focus to "objectify" the sexual appearance (i.e., tits, ass, hips, eroticism, smile, hair, etc.) of women.Andrea Shaw, 5 time Ms. Olympia 2020 to 2024
Attention bodybuilders, this is supposed to be the #MeToo generation, and people should accept you as you are; so be PROUD to be YOU! Likewise, to all promoters of both male and female bodybuilding events, current technologies in both photography and film and related lighting systems make the use of tanning solutions to darken skin completely unnecesary. Stop with the racism. Wake up.
I welcome your feedback.
Trip Reynolds
trip.reynolds@yahoo.com
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Reynolds' Rap First Amendment to the United States Constitution - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. |