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Articles by Beatrice Labonne

    DIM DIM GIRLS vs POM POM GIRLS

     

     In the nouveau French language, a Pom Pom girl is an American cheerleader.  No need to elaborate; everyone is familiar with the energetic pompon performance of the cheerleaders during US college football games.  In contrast, the DIM DIM girls are a recent French creation and are the embodiment of the fun and games of the Rugby World Cup. It is not obvious, but American football derives from British Rugby. 
    Dim Dim girls

    Apart from being played with an oval shaped ball, these two sports could not be more unlike.  By the same token, the DIM DIM girls and the pompon girls are worlds apart! 

    The Rugby World Cup is regarded as an international event except for baseball-addicted Americans and soccer-crazed Brazilians who have probably never heard of it.   Compared with other sports, rugby is ultimately exotic.  Many of the competing teams come from colourful South Pacific islands such as Tonga, Fiji, the Samoas, and New Zealand.  Actually it seems that the smaller the island, the stronger is the team. Also several rugby squads have exotic names.  The South African team is known as the Springboks; the Australians are the Wallabies; the Argentines are the Pumas; even the feeble Portuguese are nicknamed the Wolves.   

    The Rugby World Cup is currently taking place in France, and I have recently been watching many games on TV. Rugby Union is not an alien sport for me; I was born in a city proud of its rugby squad, and I spent a couple of years in rugby enthusiast-Australia. Australia has fielded a strong team but it hardly fits the exotic south-Pacific-island picture.  The novelty is that I am not alone; an increasing number of French women are finding the game both glamorous and exhilarating.  

    At the international level, rugby games are action-packed, and action is also taking place on the grandstands.  In the Paris stadium, I took notice of a group of sexy girls clad only in their black underwear.  When thrilling action takes place on the field, their dancing, gyrating and cheering were again and again covered by TV cameras.  Thanks to information provided by an Australian rugby website, I discovered that they were the much blogged-about DIM DIM girls.  The models on the swimsuits calendar of the Sport Illustrated magazine can go back to the locker rooms!  DIM is a well known European Lingerie Company, and its sexy models have become the star attraction of the World Cup as well as a hip advertising scoop. DIM is right on the advertising mark, focusing on rugby fans, and particularly on the increasing number of women fans.   

    After their British and Australian sisters, French women are now discovering the rough and tumble game of rugby.  It has been described as a ruffian’s game played by gentlemen (as opposed to soccer, which is a gentleman’s game played by ruffians and routinely supported by hooligans!).  Obviously, women are fascinated by the gentleman dimension of rugby. They like to proclaim their admiration for the positive social values of rugby, namely team spirit, fair-play, friendship between winners and losers, and the cheerful and benevolent atmosphere on the grandstands.  For them, rugby is a true family game where they can join hubby and bring the kids.   

    According to sceptical male fans, women are only disclosing part of the story.  They watch games whose arcane rules probably escape them (anyway, very few men are fully conversant with rugby rules) to primarily admire the physical attributes of the 30 players who rip themselves apart on the field.  True, rugby games send testosterone flying.  The colorful terminology of rugby may inject an additional titillating ingredient; it consists of bizarre terms such as hooker, mauling, ruck, open scrum and scrummage, to mention a few.  For me, a rugby player is one part gladiator and one part Chippendale!   Some famous players are actually emulating the Chippendales and have become the hunks du jour by exhibiting their sexy male nudity on expensive calendars.  To their credit, they don’t wear spandex pants but sweaty tight jerseys.  Furthermore famous rugby players commonly moonlight as cosmetics poster boys 

    This being France, the mother country of thinkers, women could not exclusively be attracted to the gorgeous muscular bodies of the rugby players. Consequently, and to boost TV audience, women magazines fell over themselves to set in motion the rumor mill: rugby players have brains.  They read books, occasionally write memoirs and are sensitive, kind, romantic and compassionate soul mates. They love flowers too, notably the English team. Its emblem is a delicately embroiled red rose on the players’ jersey.    

    The New Zealand squad, the All Blacks (after their trademark black jersey) is out of the ordinary.  To bully their opponents, the All Blacks players always start the games with the Haka a Maori war dance.  Visit the squad’s website, and you will discover that these Haka performers are in fact a bunch of homey pussy cats.   

    To watch a rugby game is to see the players in the flesh.  These guys are real, and worlds apart from the helmeted, shoulder padded robotic colossus who perform on the synthetic turf of American football stadiums.  It is a culture thing, for me rugby is head and shoulder above other team games.   

    Exit the Pom Pom girls, welcome to the not so dim DIM DIM girls!

    Beatrice Labonne, October, 7th, 2007. 

    www.DIM.fr 
     

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