Different shades of orange?

In this chapter the authors discuss, from a critical cultural studies perspective, how individual female Dutch medal winners at the Athens Olympics 2004 from different ethnic backgrounds were portrayed in two national newspapers: ‘Het Algemeen Dagblad’ and ‘NRC Handelsblad’. Their main focus is on three athletes with different ethnic-racial backgrounds: the white, etnically Dutch swimmer Inge de Bruijn (one gold, one silver and two bronze medals), the black Surinam-Dutch judoka Deborah Gravenstijn (bronze) and the black Indonesian-Dutch badminton player Mia Audina (silver). They analysed the photo representations of Audina, Bruijn and Gravenstijn to examine the intersections of nationalistic, gendered and racial-ethnic subtexts in their portrayal. To do this, they first present their critical analytic framework, followed by their methodological approach. Then they present and discuss the media representations of the three women Olympic medallists and finish with some concluding remarks.