I went to an advance screening of Whip It on Thursday night and was so pleased to come out of the theatre with my expectations having been met. To be honest, I was practically giddy afterwards. While the plot of Whip It isn’t necessarily innovative, the movie is still incredibly entertaining and fiercely feminist.
Before seeing Whip It (and before being aware of the rising popularity of women’s roller derby in North America), roller skates brought to mind an image of a 1950s/’60s woman wearing a poodle skirt and skating around serving hot dogs and french fries to patrons at a drive-in movie theatre. Contemporary roller derby has reinvented the roller skate, salvaging the retro coolness associated with this piece of sports equipment and melding it with a punk rock aesthetic and athletically challenging competitive sport that makes current roller derby chicks forces to be reckoned with. Combined with the convention that roller derby players adopt rockin’, tough-girl pseudonyms (Babe Ruthless, Iron Maven, Maggie Mayhem, Bloody Holly), it’s clear that this sport is not for the fainthearted. These girls really can body check.
Whip It showcases roller derby’s legitimacy as a women’s competitive sport complete with requisite athleticism and no-holds-barred attitude. And, while some of the appeal of this movie can be attributed to the hip, retro, punk rock aesthetic that the female figures embody, the roller derby players in the movie are clearly intended to be featured as athletes who kick ass. In fact, at no point in the movie did I feel that the roller derby girls were being displayed for the purpose of male voyeurism (unlike the women in the Lingerie Football League, who act as objects that men can ogle. So gross.).
I do wonder, however, how men figure in the real world of contemporary roller derby. In Whip It, women certainly play the dominant roles in the movie, but the team coach and the referee are both men, which hints just a little bit at the idea that men are still needed/required to regulate women’s sports. I’m not suggesting that the movie would have been better had women played these roles; I guess I’m just wondering why it ended up this way. And, for anyone who is familiar with women’s roller derby in North America, what roles do men play if any? Presumably, they must make up some portion of the fan base.
And, speaking of fandom, I think Whip It has not only converted me into a fan of women’s roller derby but also reignited my love of ripped fishnets and thick black eyeliner. Now if only I had a pair of roller skates…
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