What Are <i>Sporty Sisters</i> Talking About? A Textual Analysis of an All-Female Athlete Reality Show

Abstract

This study explores the representation of female athletes cast in a South Korean reality show titled Sporty Sisters (Korean title: Nonun Unni). Though there have been attempts to understand the media representation of female athletes from diverse media landscapes, the analysis of Asian female athletes is limited. Such interpretations have been discussed through geopolitical relations or nationalistic representations, which lack in-depth understanding and exploration of Asian athletes. Therefore, this paper expands the narrative by analyzing the first season (54 episodes) of Sporty Sisters. It is observed that professional athletes who transition to the entertainment industry are identified as “spor-tainers” and implicitly follow norms and rules applied to public figures. In this reality show, female athletes express their opinions on marriage, menstruation, pregnancy, and domestic roles while displaying characteristics of a girl crush, manifesting a variety of the female attributes of sportswomen. Despite the social expectations to fulfill their roles as sports celebrities and Korean women, Sporty Sisters is an outlet for female athletes to an extent to freely expose and describe their experiences as athletes and individuals.

Keywords

• media representation
• female athletes
• Korean female athletes
• reality show
• thematic analysis