Watch: Candid clip of a fan taking a shirtless picture of Feliciano López at US Open goes viral
The photo has started a debate on whether the situation would still be funny if the genders were reversed.
Blonde woman, top left. She is all of us 😂 pic.twitter.com/3EG7DHl32d
— 💨No Match Windy, No? (@nomatchwindyno) August 26, 2019
The video of a fan successfully taking a picture of the Spanish tennis player Feliciano López as he changed his shirt has started an online debate.
López was changing his shirt during his four-set first-round victory over American Taylor Fritz at a US Open match at Flushing Meadow, New York earlier this week when the fan spotted him. Promptly but discreetly, she took a picture using her phone camera.
Mission completed, she delightedly sat back. Only, she had no idea she had done all of this on the record!
The video quickly went viral, with social media users laughing at the unknown spectator’s enthusiasm for – er – tennis.
She spoke entire sentences with her facial expressions and eyebrows lol #Talented
— Leslie (@LeslieHavener) August 27, 2019
At this point I’m waiting for the power of the internet to track her down
— 💨No Match Windy, No? (@nomatchwindyno) August 27, 2019
However, several users objected to the laughs, saying that the spectator’s actions were perhaps slightly creepy and verged on objectification. Had it been a man clicking the photo of a woman sportsperson, they said, the internet would not have been amused.
Same situation... What would happen with a woman player and a guy taking pictures ???
— Ivan Alex Calderon (@ivancalderonr) August 27, 2019
A whole feminism raise against a felony.
Absolutely disgusting. He is not an object. Imagine if that had been a man photographing Sharapova.......
— Andrew Hamilton (@andrew0017) August 27, 2019
Strange that if the genders were reversed this would likely be seen as perverted or at the very least frowned upon. Meh.
— Cory Desmond (@ProdigyXII) August 27, 2019
Others, meanwhile, argued that the scenario cannot be reversed because we live in a world where women sportspersons have been rebuked for indecency for changing clothes on court.
I imagine that in a world where women were allowed to take their shirts off in public...on broadcast television no less...that the bloke catching a pic would be mostly met with laughs too.
— Josh Killcrop (@JoshKillcrop) August 28, 2019
I can’t imagine. There’s a double standard here that doesn’t allow women to swap out shirts like the men. Add in societal power dynamics and your whole imaginative scenario just disappears.
— Mike Mannix (@PsychOutWXNA) August 27, 2019
