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ESPN WRITER ATTENDS ARNOLD, SMIRKS CONDESCENDINGLY, WRITES ARTICLE
Written by Jim Schmaltz
Photo by Tiffany Mortensen
Like many bodybuilding fans, we at FLEX are puzzled by the snarky dispatch penned by ESPN the Magazine writer Shaun Assael posted on the ESPN web site a few days after the Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic. In his article, Assael roams the Arnold Expo with a companion named Dr. John - presumably the New Orleans funk-blues artist - flinging potshots at big, fat easy targets - well, maybe not fat - taking the supplement and bodybuilding industry to task for such unforgivable transgressions as allowing gorgeous, fit women to wear revealing outfits, and offering free samples of nutritional products. Weirdos!
Admittedly, for the uninitiated, the Expo can be a furnace blast of barely controlled mayhem, with its dizzying displays of bared flesh, wild-eyes hucksters and heaving bosoms, but you can see that in the commercials that run during any airing of SportsCenter. You'd expect this kind of "those wacky bodybuilders" pieces in a mainstream women's magazine, but not in a sports publication packed with hagiographies of athletes who use the very supplements Assael finds so disturbing. But perhaps that's changed with the demonization of the sports supplement industry resulting from the hysteria over ephedra's alleged role in the death of Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler. A tribute to the subtlety of Assael's article was its title: "A business that won't die." We get it.
Perhaps Assael wants us to admire his bravery for wading into the cult of physique and escaping with only his sensibilities violated. His self-righteousness certainly survived. Does this guy think he's the first writer to snicker at bodybuilders? We've read this reverse-nerdling expository before. Assael's piece is too cute by half, riddled as it is with many of the tired tropes of the genre: ironic detachment; eye-rolling condescension; anachronistic distrust of herbal remedies; a Zen-like ability to be unmoved by physical beauty; arch disgust at any human activity that occurs more than five square miles outside of Manhattan; and the self-congratulatory, smarty pants reduction - arrived at after spending a few minutes observing a pack of exhibitionist philistines - that the whiff of the decline of Western civilization is in the air. How massively insightful.
Further investigation of Assael's oeuvre reveals an obsession with all things big and brawny. In the February 6, 2003, edition of ESPN the Magazine's, he writes chillingly of a 1980 NFL strongman contest, casting the event as some type of symbolic watershed of steroid abuse in the NFL. This flimsy premise is held together by hearsay, baseless assumptions, and the long ago discredited assertion by the late Lyle Alzado that steroids caused his cancer. Also, Assael has penned an expose about the WWE - yet more big guys gone bad. Can you say, "agenda"?
Insult us if you must, Mr. Assael, but at least take the time to show respect for your craft and fact-check the damn thing. Assael misspells Denise Masino's name numerous times in the article, and an accompanying photo identifies the winners of the Arnold Classic contests as Kim Chizevsky (her name misspelled) and Kevin Levrone: something the two haven't done since 1996. Makes you wonder what else Assael got wrong.
But this is all just sex, lies and protein bars until Assael indicts the entire industry for the wholesale corruption of society. To do so, he reaches for the most tired of cornpone clichés: What about the children? He quotes a nine-year-old boy saying, quite implausibly, "I learned how to get big and take steroids." We doubt this child ever said anything like this without being prompted. Children are prone to suggestibility, even from ESPN writers. Assuming the kid actually exists. By the way, if you're out there Robert Maier, could you confirm that your son was accurately quoted?
Now that Assael has developed an appetite for the bodybuilding lifestyle, we'd like to invite him to the Mr. Olympia expo this year in October. And if Dr. John's not available, we suggest that he bring along Professor Longhair.
Written by Jim Schmaltz
Photo by Tiffany Mortensen
Like many bodybuilding fans, we at FLEX are puzzled by the snarky dispatch penned by ESPN the Magazine writer Shaun Assael posted on the ESPN web site a few days after the Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic. In his article, Assael roams the Arnold Expo with a companion named Dr. John - presumably the New Orleans funk-blues artist - flinging potshots at big, fat easy targets - well, maybe not fat - taking the supplement and bodybuilding industry to task for such unforgivable transgressions as allowing gorgeous, fit women to wear revealing outfits, and offering free samples of nutritional products. Weirdos!
Admittedly, for the uninitiated, the Expo can be a furnace blast of barely controlled mayhem, with its dizzying displays of bared flesh, wild-eyes hucksters and heaving bosoms, but you can see that in the commercials that run during any airing of SportsCenter. You'd expect this kind of "those wacky bodybuilders" pieces in a mainstream women's magazine, but not in a sports publication packed with hagiographies of athletes who use the very supplements Assael finds so disturbing. But perhaps that's changed with the demonization of the sports supplement industry resulting from the hysteria over ephedra's alleged role in the death of Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler. A tribute to the subtlety of Assael's article was its title: "A business that won't die." We get it.
Perhaps Assael wants us to admire his bravery for wading into the cult of physique and escaping with only his sensibilities violated. His self-righteousness certainly survived. Does this guy think he's the first writer to snicker at bodybuilders? We've read this reverse-nerdling expository before. Assael's piece is too cute by half, riddled as it is with many of the tired tropes of the genre: ironic detachment; eye-rolling condescension; anachronistic distrust of herbal remedies; a Zen-like ability to be unmoved by physical beauty; arch disgust at any human activity that occurs more than five square miles outside of Manhattan; and the self-congratulatory, smarty pants reduction - arrived at after spending a few minutes observing a pack of exhibitionist philistines - that the whiff of the decline of Western civilization is in the air. How massively insightful.
Further investigation of Assael's oeuvre reveals an obsession with all things big and brawny. In the February 6, 2003, edition of ESPN the Magazine's, he writes chillingly of a 1980 NFL strongman contest, casting the event as some type of symbolic watershed of steroid abuse in the NFL. This flimsy premise is held together by hearsay, baseless assumptions, and the long ago discredited assertion by the late Lyle Alzado that steroids caused his cancer. Also, Assael has penned an expose about the WWE - yet more big guys gone bad. Can you say, "agenda"?
Insult us if you must, Mr. Assael, but at least take the time to show respect for your craft and fact-check the damn thing. Assael misspells Denise Masino's name numerous times in the article, and an accompanying photo identifies the winners of the Arnold Classic contests as Kim Chizevsky (her name misspelled) and Kevin Levrone: something the two haven't done since 1996. Makes you wonder what else Assael got wrong.
But this is all just sex, lies and protein bars until Assael indicts the entire industry for the wholesale corruption of society. To do so, he reaches for the most tired of cornpone clichés: What about the children? He quotes a nine-year-old boy saying, quite implausibly, "I learned how to get big and take steroids." We doubt this child ever said anything like this without being prompted. Children are prone to suggestibility, even from ESPN writers. Assuming the kid actually exists. By the way, if you're out there Robert Maier, could you confirm that your son was accurately quoted?
Now that Assael has developed an appetite for the bodybuilding lifestyle, we'd like to invite him to the Mr. Olympia expo this year in October. And if Dr. John's not available, we suggest that he bring along Professor Longhair.
