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Abstract

Through a critical examination of representational images produced by Nike and directed to female consumers, this article makes visible the politics and production of desire within Nike advertising to women. It begins by highlighting how Nike, through its association of knowledge, power, and truth, has and continues to publicize and authorize a particular notion of who or what counts as a female athlete. It proceeds by engaging in a careful psychoanalytic reading of Nike’s ideal of excellence for serious female athletes and athletics in combination with themes of emancipation within the most recent advertising efforts directed to women. The article illustrates that desire is constructed through political and cultural conditions, but it also invested with the power to authorize and normalize those conditions. Therefore, desire must be an object of analysis within critical readings of Nike.

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That’s Who I Want to be

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