Alana Blanchard Grilled By VICE | Opens up on genetic gifts vs. surf skill
Alana Blanchard is pretty much the most popular surfer in the world. Recently she sat down with the lovely Mimi LaMontagne and talked about the age old debate about girls surfers being models and if it matters. Alana rips, so who cares if she makes some cash looking good as well. Guys do it as well. Gotta sell that product. Who cares if anyone poses with a surfboard anyway? It’s not that serious.
Vice Sports: Do you ever feel like you have to justify yourself to people – prove your talent?
Alana Blanchard:No, I guess I never even thought about it like that. I seriously just don’t even care. I just want to put out cool edits and hope that people watch them, and show people that I can surf in those edits…
I do sometimes see the competition girls surfing an amazing wave, like Cloudbreak in Fiji, and I’m like, oh my gosh I wish I was there – but that’s the thing about being happy with where I am. I can honestly sit here and talk about contests, and I have no competition with my friends anymore. I can finally talk to them as a person about competing, and it’s a cool thing and it’s so good to be easy with. It’s weird. And I’m really happy for what the girls on Tour are doing, too – I don’t hate on what they’re doing or anything. I’m like, “What you guys are doing is so sick, and it’s so stressful, and it’s amazing – but I just can’t do it. It drove me crazy.”
Vice Sports: When you’re told your whole life that you can’t surf, and you have to justify that you can – does it irk you when you see girls who can’t surf present themselves as surfers? There’s that weird dynamic of hardcore surfers hating on women that model alongside surfers, and then the opposite as well.
Alana Blanchard:I think I used to for sure. I used to be like, oh my god she can’t surf at all but she’s just trying to look like it. But now? I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. The whole world is selling something, right? If they want to do that, then that’s fine. If they want to pretend they’re surfers, then why not? That’s cool that we’re actually at a point in surfing where people want to pretend that they’re surfers.
Yeah, I guess it would be annoying for some people who are like, “Hey, I’ve worked my butt off to surf this well, and you’re just selling your body with my sport and getting more attention for it!” That would suck. But it’s not all about that. It’s not all about the attention. It doesn’t annoy me, personally. I think it’s funny.
Who says you can’t hold a surfboard and pretend you’re a surfer? It doesn’t bother me – I just think it’s interesting. I wouldn’t go around hating on girls who do that.
Vice Sports: This might sound super wanky, but how do you balance the way you present yourself to the world, in terms of image? Like, surfer versus model.
Alana Blanchard:It’s a hard one because people are always going to say something. If you don’t put enough surfing out they’ll say, “Oh, she doesn’t surf.” And I’ve gotten that my whole life. That was why I wanted to be on tour in the first place – to show the world that I could surf. And that didn’t even work anyways – people think I still can’t surf – and it’s all good. I don’t care. But then on the flip side, if you do put a video out, they’re like, “Oh yeah, whatever, she sucks anyways.” You’ll never win. And I don’t need to justify myself to the world, because we’re all just humans – we’re all the same.
To me I’d rather be a real person and authentic, rather than spend my time caring about justifying whether or not I can surf. I’d rather just go out and have fun, because that’s when I surf my best, when I’m in the moment and having fun.
There’s a lot more so head over to VICE SPORTS and read the whole interview w/ Alana Blanchard.
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