Rosie O’Donnell – Bitch Flicks

Rosie O’Donnell and Gina Prince-Bythewood Attend the Athena Film Festival

“The movies we screen here tend to be unfiltered,” Barnard President Debora Spar told me on the red carpet of the Athena Film Festival Saturday night. “They’re powerful. They’re different voices. And we just want to provide a platform to get those voices out there.”

This is a guest post by Paula Schwartz.

The Athena Film Festival, co-founded by Kathryn Kolbert and Melissa Silverstein, just ended its impressive fifth year last weekend, Feb. 5 through 8, and featured a strong slate of films, panels, documentaries and shorts focusing on female protagonists and filmmakers.

The film festival ended on a strong note with the screening of Difret, based on a true story about the abduction of a 14-year-old girl in an Ethiopian village kidnapped on her way home from school. She killed her captor after he raped and beat her, and the subsequent trial riveted the country and started a national conversation about child brides. The film, directed by Zereseney Berhane Mehari and produced by Mehret Mandefro, is executive produced by Angelina Jolie. It was Ethiopia’s submission for best film foreign Oscar and will be released in this country in March.

Gina Prince-Bythewood and Melissa Silverstein

But back to the awards ceremony Saturday night, where Olympus Has Fallen actor Dylan McDermott–the only man on the red carpet and a member of Barnard College Board of Trustees–told me he wished there were more female directors. He noted that he made a film directed by Jodie Foster–Home for the Holidays back in 1995–and that Joanne Woodward discovered him while he was doing a workshop and later mentored him and changed his life: “She was maybe the best director I ever worked with.” He added, “I find that women directors are very different from men. Their sensitivity and their vision are a lot different. The two best directors I worked with were women.”

Athena honoree, Beyond the Lights director Gina Prince-Bythewood, told me on the red carpet she was excited about being in the company of women whose work she held in high esteem. “That definitely got me on the plane out here from L.A. to the Athena Film Festival; I’ve heard so many great things about it. Amma Asante was honored last year and we’ve become good friends during this whole awards season. And just that it’s a festival focusing on women and the importance of female filmmakers,” she noted. “There is a difference between female and male filmmakers, and it’s really about the point of view and what we focus on with our female characters, so it’s a beautiful thing to be a part of it, and I hope that honestly I can see some cool films and be inspired as well.”

The filmmaker told me her next film will focus on female friendship and the way it changes over time. “It’s a little more comedic in tone” than her previous works, referencing Beyond the Lights, which was screened later that night at the festival to a packed audience, and at which the filmmaker participated in a lively Q&A. “I love finding young voices, people that have something to say and have chops, and I think that’s my responsibility as one that’s gotten through the door to reach back and help others as well.”

I asked the filmmaker her reaction to the Oscar nominations. “There were a number of people who should have been in the conversation,” she told me. “There were no people of color nominated in any of the acting categories. I mean David (Oyelowo) obviously should have been nominated. Gugu (Mbatha-Raw), who gave two phenomenal performances (Beyond the Lights and Belle) that were 180 degrees from each other; any other actress would have been exalted after that,” she said. “The problem is the drumbeat for her happened too late. It should have happened out of Toronto, but I’m excited for what’s next for her. I just hate that she’s not in the conversation right now.”

Rosie O’Donnell generated a frenzy of media attention on the red carpet as she made her first public appearance since she announced her marital split from Michelle Rounds and her exit from The View. She attended the premiere of her documentary, Rosie O’Donnell: A Heartfelt Stand Up, and later presented the President’s Visionary Award to HBO Documentary President Sheila Nevins.

O’Donnell told journalists on the red carpet her decision to leave the popular daytime talk show, which was just announced the previous day, was a decision she made with her doctor. She suffered a heart attack in 2014, and her doctor carefully monitored her health and told her after the holidays she had an uptick in numbers that indicated an increased risk of a heart attack, possibly as a result of stress from work and her personal life.

O’Donnell cautioned that all women should take care of their health but conceded she knew she was fortunate. “It’s not everyone who can take a break from working because of stress. It’s easy for me because I’m very rich, right? So I have a lot of help. So it’s easy for people like me to talk about it. I have somebody to watch the baby if I don’t feel like it, so I have a much easier life than 99.9 percent of women on the planet and I know that. But every woman needs to take their health seriously,” she said. “I ignored it, my own. I didn’t really participate in anything besides mammograms cause my mother died of breast cancer. I was so sure it would be breast cancer that got me, so when I had a heart attack I was stunned.”

A few days earlier Jodie Foster received the Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award and was supposed to attend the awards ceremony Saturday but had to jet back to L.A. for the Director’s Guild Awards in which she received two nominations.

During the Athena awards ceremony, via video, Foster, who has been an actress since she was a child, noted that, “There I was a young girl wanting to be a director and never seeing a female director’s face. I thought it was something I would never be allowed to do.” After her mother took her to a film festival of works by Italian director Lina Wertmuller, Foster said, “I came to realize that I could be a woman director if I wanted to because there was one out there, and that was a life-changing moment for me.”

The awards ceremony, which turned out to be a great party attended primarily by women, honored Gina Prince-Bythewood, producer Cathy Schulman, and HBO Documentary Films President Sheila Nevins.

O’Donnell, who presented Sheila Nevins with her award, noted that she fell in love with documentaries from the time she saw Grey Gardens. Then subsequently she’d see documentaries on HBO and every documentary she said, “has a name and it’s Sheila Nevins. Who is this witch I thought to myself?” O’Donnell met Nevins back in 1996, “when most of you Barnard students were in elementary school.”

O’Donnell said of Nevins, “She’s the woman I look up to the most in all of showbiz. Her heart is the biggest of anyone, and she’s got a Geiger counter for truth that’s never failed.” She added that she’s done six or seven documentaries with the HBO Documentary head that does the heavy lifting. “I give her a tremendous amount of credit, and I do very little work, and that’s how I like it.”

In a speech that was basically a stand-up comedy routine, O’Donnell also joked that she saw a woman who walked by wearing a grey hat, who caught her attention. The woman sat at a front table and O’Donnell cracked, “I saw you walking by and I’m like, ‘I don’t know who she is, but she might be my next wife.’” The audience roared. O’Donnell added the feeling might not be mutual and segued into a dig at Brian Williams: “Maybe that’s the problem in my relationships. I see someone and I make shit up like Brian Williams. I escaped on 9/11 from the Twin Towers. Oh No, I didn’t. I got mixed up. F—ing Lance Armstrong liar.”

Gina Prince-Bythewood’s emotional and heartfelt speech about her journey as a filmmaker was the evening’s highlight. She spoke about being adopted by white parents and her search for her birth mother that didn’t work out as hoped. She began her journey as a filmmaker with a rejection from film school but that didn’t deter her: “I wrote a letter to the head of the school telling her she made a mistake. She called me and said I’m in.”

Bythewood credited much of her success to other women who advised and mentored her, including A Different World producer Susan Fales Hill, who presented Bythewood with her award.

Sheila Nevins and Rosie O'Donnell — Sheila Nevins and Rosie O’Donnell

Bythewood said that people asked her all the time about discrimination against Black directors. “I’ve personally not been discriminated against,” she said. “What is discriminated against are my choices, which is to focus on women and especially on women of color, their goals and their love stories and it’s a tougher fight.” A fight made especially difficult because only 4 percent of directors are women in the Directors Guild, and in the Writers Guild it is only 10 percent, “which means that our images of females that young women … are seeing is from a male point of view, and I think that that’s frightening. I think that’s dangerous and just ignores our perspective. It’s not just what happened at the Oscars,” she said. “It’s the fact also that of the films nominated for best picture not one has a female protagonist and is from a female point of view, and that has got to change. I’m in that fight.”

Paula Schwartz is a veteran journalist who worked at the New York Times for three decades. For five years she was the Baguette for the New York Times movie awards blog Carpetbaggers. Before that she worked on the New York Times night life column, Boldface, where she covered the celebrity beat. She endured a poke in the ribs by Elijah Wood’s publicist, was ejected from a party by Michael Douglas’s flak after he didn’t appreciate what she wrote, and endured numerous other indignities to get a story. More happily she interviewed major actors and directors–all of whom were good company and extremely kind–including Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Clint Eastwood, Christopher Plummer, Dustin Hoffman and the hammy pooch “Uggie” from The Artist. Her idea of heaven is watching at least three movies in a row with an appreciative audience that’s not texting. Her work has appeared in Moviemaker, more.com, showbiz411 and reelifewithjane.com.

What ‘Now and Then’ Taught Me About Friendship

Summer has always been a magical time where childhood lingers, and every time I get on a swingset again, or have a hankering for a push pop, or throw on my ‘Now and Then’ soundtrack, I think of my childhood and feel invigorated with that rush of youth. I think of Taylor and Sara, and a time when we were so eager to make our own adventures. I also think of those four girls from the Gaslight Addition; somehow they affected my life by making me appreciate what it means to be and have a true friend in this wild world.

This guest post by Kim Hoffman appears as part of our theme week on Female Friendship.

I was pretty excited about Sara’s 11^thbirthday party. Her mom owned a print shop and I was told we’d be having cake and playing games there; I enjoy the smell of paper so it didn’t seem like an odd place to have a party. After Sara opened presents we were outside at a picnic table lit by a floodlight from the print shop, glittering and bedazzling hats and T-shirts.

Sara’s birthday was in March, and just a few months before, a group of us went to the movies to see a new film called Now and Then. Since then, it was all any of us could talk about. We’d gone back to see it countless times, and one of those times, we were the only ones in the whole theater, a group of four or five of us girls, running around, doing cartwheels and singing and dancing. (I’d be remiss not to mention that I actually still have the original soundtrack, and it’s in my car as we speak.)

What Sara hadn’t told us was that her mom’s print shop was located right next door to a crematorium. It was a small grey building with a giant stone yard, filled with coffins of all sizes. I saw that my finished hat masterpiece was drying next to one that said the same thing as mine, “Teeny,” speckled with orange and yellow flower power decor. A blonde girl walked over with an impressed-looking grin on her face. “Wow, you actually look like Thora Birch,” she said to me. A few other girls formed around us and we all began to gush over our favorite movie of the year. A fancy car drove by at that very moment and we all squealed, pumping each other with a sugar high as if one of the actors from the movie was in our neighborhood, you know—cruising by the print shop and the crematorium on a dark Saturday night.

Now and Then wasn’t just a coming-of-age ‘90s girl movie. It was intersecting itself into my life as an 11-year-old fifth grader; I was same age as the characters in the film. And I felt we were all doing this “growing up” thing together. I cut out any clippings from magazines I could find on the movie, though it wasn’t hard because Devon Sawa, who played wormy Scott Wormer, was a common household name among girls my age. He was a teen heartthrob all over the pages of Tiger Beat and Bop and I instantly obtained both the movie soundtrack and the film score (and amassed a huge pile of pinup photos of Sawa). In 1995, there was a resurgence of the trippy hippie ‘60s style and I was obsessed with rock ‘n roll for the first time. The only thing my bedroom was missing was a lava lamp. You could say I didn’t care all that much about the boys in my class, just what my friends and I would do over the weekend at our upcoming sleepover. I savored this new art of forming real bonds with girlfriends.

Now and Then is a film about four friends: Samantha, Teeny, Roberta, and Chrissy, who are growing up in the Midwest in the ‘70s (though much of the film was shot in Savannah, Georgia). A couple of decades have passed and Chrissy (played by Rita Wilson) is pregnant, living in her parents’ old home, and married to a guy she once thought was a mega dork. Teeny (Melanie Griffith) is a blossoming actress in Hollywood, with, as Roberta puts it, “Long legs, a tiny waist, and large, perky breasts.”

“Roberta you know how I feel about swearing,” Chrissy says back.

“Chrissy, breast is not a dirty word,” Roberta insists.

Which leads me to Roberta (Rosie O’Donnell), who has become a doctor and according to Chrissy, “Lives in sin with her boyfriend.” But more on that in a moment. Last but never least is Samantha (Demi Moore), a writer, and the narrator of this film; she is sarcastic, jaded, and arguably depressed. She explains that she hasn’t been to the Gaslight Addition in years (the neighborhood where all the girls grew up, which looks like any other midcentury American neighborhood). Now the girls reunite at their familiar stomping grounds for the arrival of Chrissy’s baby—and boy is she ready to pop. Waddling around in the house in a bow-tied muumuu dress, Chrissy opens up her home to her old friends, who awkwardly situate on the plastic-covered couch as if nothing’s changed in 25 years. Roberta is helping Chrissy around the house and offers the girls a beer, Samantha slinks into the backyard in all-black threads perfect for a moody writer, and Teeny inches through the yard in her heels, wearing a pearly white skin-tight skirt and matching jacket. As they play catch-up, they stare up at the treehouse they spent so much of their time as kids saving up money for, and slowly that eternal summer of their youth begins to skim back to the surface…

In our own little ways, my friends and I were making our own pacts for the first time—Sara, me, and our friend Taylor, plus the new girls we’d just met at Sara’s birthday. We would ride our bicycles from Taylor’s to Sara’s house, singing and laughing, stopping downtown at an old diner in the hopes we might see Janeane Garofalo in character as Wiladene, diner waitress by day, clairvoyant mystic by night. You could say I was enamored by this new, untapped part of me that the film was bringing out. I had a mix of confidence and fear—to explore, not just on our bicycles, but also in our minds—through séances and tarot cards, music and making up stories. (We commenced our friendship that night at Sara’s birthday party when we snuck over to that crematorium and had our first-ever séance.) We were in search of Dear Johnny in our own ways. But as our knees bobbed against one another’s and we formed a circle that night, I simply felt that brief but blissful form of excitement you feel when you’re a kid.

Now, the line about Roberta and her boyfriend “living in sin” is somewhat of a discussion among fans of the film, because word has it that from the beginning, Roberta’s character was written to be gay. I. Marlene King, writer, producer and director of Pretty Little Liars, was the writer on Now and Then. In earlier versions of the script, Chrissy says, “Roberta, for example, has chosen to be alternative, but she is still normal. She hasn’t been married four times or gone through a series of monogamous relationships…or wear all black. She’s happy. Aren’t you Roberta?” When the girls flash back to that summer when they were kids, we meet young Roberta (played by Christina Ricci), binding her chest and stumbling over her macho brothers wrestling in the hallway. Her mom died when she was four, and she is deeply bothered by it, refusing to succumb to any bullshit standards set aside for girls and the ways girls are supposed to dress or act.

Instead, Roberta is the girl at the softball game who’s throwing punches at boys or pranking her friends in a not-so-funny incident where she fakes drowning. She’s constantly testing her limits and the trust she so craves with the people in her life. But what she doesn’t yet understanding is that she needs to give others a chance to get through to her, too. Samantha (played by Gaby Hoffmann) is next to kin when it comes to tough-girl stuff because she’s in the midst of her parents’ divorce, and she’s completely in favor of rebelling against her clueless mother—which also means punching out a boy at a softball field if the moment calls for it, especially if she’s standing up for a friend. (I bet Sam is a Libra.) I used to wonder if there wasn’t more to Roberta and Sam’s relationship, especially because I could totally see Rosie O’Donnell and Demi Moore’s grown-up versions getting together and living “alternatively” as Chrissy puts it. Whatever happened in post-production to cause anyone to add in that line about Roberta’s boyfriend is a terrible shame.

Young Teeny (played by Thora Birch) is the girl who sits on her roof and memorizes lines from old movies playing on the big drive-in screen. Her parents are always hosting lavish parties while she floats about in her room upstairs, obsessing over actresses from the Golden Hollywood heyday. Teeny is down for everything and anything, but we quickly get the sense that it’s all smoke and mirrors and in truth, she’s the least experienced, at least for right now. She stuffs her bra with vanilla pudding-filled balloons to bide her time before she reaches adolescence. (She got the idea from the Wormer boys after they surprise-attack the girls with water balloons.) Sex, dating, and romance—it’s all mysterious and lusty to her and she is rushing to grow up. In one of my favorite scenes in the movie, Teeny is making all the girls take a quiz and she discovers she’s a sexual magnet, “attracting men from all four corners of the world.” The look on her face as she reads her results say it all–she’s googly-eyed over all this possibility.

Sam is nothing like Teeny, but she doesn’t try to act prudish, she just prefers to focus on other things, like books, magic, science, and what really happened to Dear Johnny. She’s the one with the bag of candles and cards who’s happy to tote her wares to the cemetery. Sam has to look out for her little sister, but she also has to contend with her mom’s new dating life. Here, she’s expected to act mature and mind her manners, while she sees her mom dressing differently and gushing over a man who isn’t her father. Her only way to cope is to escape, and her friends support that; in their not-as-R-rated way, they’re basically saying, “Fuck that. We’re your family.” Sam and Teeny make great friends because they’re so out of each other’s way and they so easily understand this place their at in their lives—with Sam’s parents’ divorce and Teeny’s parents being nearly as absent under the same roof.

Roberta and Chrissy have a special bond that’s set to the side too, because they’re so opposite yet they balance each other’s personalities to a tee. Chrissy (played by Ashleigh Aston Moore) feels Roberta is her best friend. I can’t imagine what Chrissy’s mom must think of that—what if Roberta were to track mud into her pristine home? Chrissy’s bedroom is perfectly tidy and manicured pink. She is completely sheltered by her mother’s discussions about sex—and probably still believes a garden hose and a watering can are involved. She’s the last in line when the girls hit the road on their bicycles, and she’s the first one to say, “I’m not doing that,” when she feels uncomfortable or nervous. But a little mild giggling and convincing and the girls have Chrissy believing in herself and feeling connected to them in no time. Despite her doubts that she isn’t as pretty or skinny as the other girls, Chrissy manages to find her place in the group by just being Chrissy. That’s why Roberta makes such a great best friend. For her, friendship and acceptance isn’t about appearances. Chrissy has a heart of gold. A promise is a promise with her.

There is purpose to these friendships in Now and Then like there is purpose to Chrissy’s naivety about sex, Samantha’s imaginative curiosities, Teeny’s desires for passion in romance and career, and Roberta’s capacity for strength and weakness in equal measure. See, it was easy for all of us little girls who loved the film to attach ourselves to a character we related to or liked a lot because we too were on the verge of something—and being on the verge of anything is a beautiful and surreal feeling. When you’re 11, or 12, or 13, you are a part of this magical in-between moment that connects childhood with adolescence, and the friends you have during those few years may be some of the most important friends you will ever have—not because of how long they’ll be in your life, but because they’ll be the first people on board in your life journey who are up for the same adventures you are, and they’ll challenge you somehow—maybe to get in touch with your emotions when you’re embarrassed you cried in front of them, maybe to remind you that you’re all in this together. It’s the age where you’re searching for something, anything, and you’re old enough to find those things with your friends.

It wasn’t that long after Now and Then that I became the class scapegoat—they had decided I was weird. Instead of leaving it at that, they just had to hammer away at my self-esteem for good measure. What happened to riding our bikes, playing in our backyards, jumping into swimming pools and playing slumber party games? Now, friendship was considered by how much you impressed some queen bee, how far you’d go to stake your coolness. An eighth grade girl named Tara once saved me from a bathroom incident where a girl I once thought was my friend was mocking and making fun of me. I thought, “Here’s a true Roberta.”

I treasure the time around 1995 with an appreciation that goes soul deep. Those friends opened my eyes to the kinds of friends I would look for later on in my life, hoping to attract by weeding out the fair-weathered friendships, hardened, jealous-types, and egocentric bullies. Forget the thrill of being popular, well-liked, admired and noticed—those accolades are blips on the maps of our lives. Instead, relish in your weirdness, the glue that makes you who you are, and remember that embracing something weird is not a bad thing, it’s actually a wonderful thing; that’s the lesson I learned as a kid, when we snuck in to see Now and Then for the umpteenth time. Summer has always been a magical time where childhood lingers, and every time I get on a swingset again, or have a hankering for a push pop, or throw on my Now and Then soundtrack, I think of my childhood and feel invigorated with that rush of youth. I think of Taylor and Sara, and a time when we were so eager to make our own adventures. I also think of those four girls from the Gaslight Addition; somehow they affected my life by making me appreciate what it means to be and have a true friend in this wild world.

All for one and one for all.

Kim Hoffman is a writer for AfterEllen.com and Curve Magazine. She currently keeps things weird in Portland, Oregon. Follow her on Twitter: @the_hoff

We’re All for One, We’re One for All in ‘A League of Their Own’

At the end, many of the league’s players reunite to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Old friendships rekindle and emotions soar. After following these women through what must have been the best time they ever had in their youth it is refreshing to see authentic portrayals of them as older women. It feels like their lives are unfolding before my eyes.

This guest post by Rhianna Shaheen appears as part of our theme week on Female Friendship.

I’ve seen quite a few female friendships on screen that I’ve liked, but I never get tired of A League of Their Own (1992). As an alumna of a women’s college, this film especially hits home, making me nostalgic for my Bryn Mawr days. Each time I watch it I become homesick for that place and that community where we were all young pioneers in our own way. I often project myself onto older Dottie, imagining myself old and grey at my class reunion in a similar fashion to the film’s ending sequence. Instant tears!

While narratives about groups or duos of female friends are common to the “chick flick” genre, large and diverse casts of women seem to be a rarity in film and TV unless it’s high school rivalries or incarcerated women. Not only does this provide us with a limited scope of representation but it also perpetuates harmful stereotypes that affect young women as well as a society that equates women’s leadership to being “bossy” or “pushy.”

The media’s portrayal of women and female friendships is too often characterized by catfights and “bitchiness” toward each other in the competition for a man. These harmful images of girls and women have become so pervasive to our culture that large communities of women are often viewed as detrimental to progress or success. Male friendships and communities are encouraged at a young age through sports teams and Boy Scouts, while communities of women are stigmatized by the patriarchy as “bitchy,” “too emotional,” or “too much drama.”

I myself was under a similar delusion before I applied to three of the Seven Sisters Colleges. Most people who tried to dissuade me either pointed to the lack of male students as being a deficit to my happiness or some other gross sexist, homophobic stereotype. A League of Their Own celebrates so much of what makes largely female communities special and the bond between the individuals so powerful.

A story told about the founding of women’s professional baseball could have taken many directions. I am thankful that it did not fall into any of those ugly stereotypes in order to propel the narrative. The women in this film have relationships with each other that are put first over any relationships they may or may not have with men. As a result, we have a film that provides us with three-dimensional portraits of women and the intricacies of their friendships during a time of transition in the 1940s.

Dottie takes charge when Coach Dugan proves useless

When the Rockford Peaches first come together for their first ever game as a team they look to their manager and former baseball star Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks). To their surprise he treats the whole thing as a joke citing, “I don’t have ballplayers, I’ve got girls. Girls are what you sleep with after the game, not, not what you coach during the game.” He comes into the locker room drunk and completely useless. Without a lineup for the game, Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis) steps up and quickly assumes the role of coach for a good majority of the film. Despite a drunken manager and the sexist heckles from the empty stadium, these women pull together a lineup and easily win their first game.

Mae (Madonna) gives Shirley (Ann Cusack) reading lessons

As these women spend more time together they learn to grow as ballplayers and sisters. Many of my favorite scenes are the brief vignettes that occur throughout the film that give us a deeper glimpse into their lives and character. Early in the film, Dottie and her younger sister Kit (Lori Petty) stand up for Marla Hooch (Megan Cavanagh) when talent scout Ernie Capadino (Jon Lovitz) rejects her as possible player due to her plain looks. Both sisters refuse to go with him unless he accepts Marla, who is as good of a player as any of them. On the bus, Mae teaches her teammate Shirley how to read by having her sound out the words from a smutty novel. When asked about her choice of literature Mae responses: “What difference does it make? She’s reading, okay? That’s the important thing.” In the same sequence, Doris (Rosie O’Donnell) opens up about her abusive boyfriend back home to the other women. She discusses the importance of this league and the support of her teammates in shaping her own self-esteem: “I mean, look. There’s a lot of us. I think we’re all all right.” While these players may clash at times there is none of the cattiness or “girl hate” concocted by the patriarchy.

The Peaches garner more publicity to save the league

The next problem becomes the fact that the women’s league isn’t bringing enough fans into the stadium or profit to the owners of the league. When there’s talk of closing them down these women band together and “give them everything [they’ve] got” to save the league. A photo of Dottie doing the splits while catching a ball behind home plate hits the cover of Life magazine and the crowds soon follow. Even “All the Way” Mae brainstorms ways to help their publicity drive: “What if at a key moment in the game my, my uniform bursts open and, uh, oops…my bosoms come flying out? That, that might draw a crowd, right?” While the league’s owner, Mr. Harvey (Garry Marshall), is not convinced of its worth until after Kit has been traded off to another team, there’s no doubt that the camaraderie between these women singlehandedly kept morale high and saved major league baseball through World War II.

No matter what team they’re on... — No matter what team they’re on…

...the bond between sisters cannot be broken — …the bond between sisters cannot be broken

While A League of Their Own serves mostly as a “memory movie” in which Dottie relives the memory of something she thought “was never really important to [her],” the most satisfying part of the film has to be the fast-forward to the reunion. At the end, many of the league’s players reunite to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Old friendships rekindle and emotions soar. After following these women through what must have been the best time they ever had in their youth it is refreshing to see authentic portrayals of them as older women. It feels like their lives are unfolding before my eyes. As pioneers for women in sports, they become immortalized into history through an exhibit dedicated to them. However, it’s only when they sing their Victory Song that the unending power of their sisterly bond truly can be understood:

We are the members of the All-American League.

We come from cities near and far.

We’ve got Canadians, Irishmen and Swedes,

We’re all for one, we’re one for all.

We’re All-Americans!

While ALOTO is sometimes called the “ultimate chick flick of sports” I would challenge that notion.

1. That label is problematic in the larger scheme of film culture. “Chick flick” often suggests a plotline that centers on love and romance, which, excuse me, is extremely nebulous and could be any film. The way it is thrown around in “filmspeak” often implies frivolity and artlessness, making it taboo for film lovers to love or engage with these films. Even worse, is it argues that men and women are inherently different even though there is no equivalent for films geared toward male audiences, ostracizing the experiences of women or female lead stories.

ALOTO is rather a deconstruction of that very term, because it does not present the story of the first All-American Girls Professional Baseball League as the “male version” of x,y, or z movie but instead presents a true female experience in a little-known chapter of American sports history that all audiences can appreciate and find relatable.

2. A League of Their Own is an excellent film, with great direction by Penny Marshall, remarkable acting, and superb writing – it gave us some of the most memorable lines in film history. (“There’s no crying in baseball!”) My question is: how was this film not considered for ANY Academy Awards in 1993? The truth is that films about female friendships are still not taken seriously and condemned to the seemingly second-rate status of “chick flick.” Meanwhile, dude-friend movies (Good Will Hunting, The Shawshank Redemption, The Lord of the Rings) or dude-baseball movies (Field of Dreams, Moneyball) flourish and are considered universally hilarious (Dumb and Dumber, Anchorman, The Hangover) or Oscar-worthy.

While I could ruminate on this until my hair falls out, the truth is my energy would be better spent on the many stories still waiting to be told. I can only hope that A League of Their Own inspires others to believe as I do that the female bond is a powerful narrative arc worthy of being explored outside its current limited representation.

Rhianna Shaheen is a student filmmaker and artist with hopes of writing more in the future. She recently graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a BA in Fine Arts and Minor in Film Studies and Art History. She currently spends most of her time on an epic quest for a fulltime job. Check her out on twitter!

Women in Sports Week: Five Reasons Why ‘A League of Their Own’ is “Feminism: The Movie”

Dottie performs a catch while doing the splits.

Written by Myrna Waldron.

When one thinks of films featuring women in sports, A League of Their Own is probably the first title that comes to mind. It’s such a well known film that it has been preserved in the Library of Congress for being culturally significant, and “There’s no crying in baseball” is an oft-quoted line. The film stars Geena Davis, an outspoken feminist, and was directed by Penny Marshall, a well known comedienne/actress. ALOTO was a huge blockbuster, making $132 million in 1992 dollars. (Roughly $213 million in 2012 dollars) This film proves that a woman director can produce a blockbuster AND that films mostly about women (in a traditionally masculine field) can be successful.

It also beautifully illustrates a few of the core beliefs of feminist philosophy:

Freedom of choice is essential.

The film takes place during WWII, so it was not unusual for the members of the Rockford Peaches to be married with children. Although the men in the story are often contemptuous/sarcastic about the subject (including mentioning which players are married and which ones are single in newsreels), the women notably accept each other’s life choices wholeheartedly. Mae embraces her sexuality completely (Madonna’s basically playing herself with 40s hair), but no one condemns her for it. Marla chooses to leave the league early because she has fallen in love and gotten married. No one resents her; they are genuinely happy for her. Dottie chooses to leave the league to be a wife and mother, and the only one who objects is Jimmy, because he doesn’t want her to have any regrets. Each woman is free to choose how her life turns out, and they all accept and encourage each other.

The importance of female friendship, teamwork, and camaraderie.

The players of the Rockford Peaches have occasional moments of friction, but instantly come together when it’s time to play. They understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and are honest with each other when it counts. (Kit unfortunately doesn’t take brutal honesty and criticism very well.) Off the team, they help each other as well. Mae teaches the illiterate Shirley how to read by having her recite an erotic novel out loud. When Mae‘s choice of reading material is questioned, she points out that the important thing is that Shirley is reading. Dottie is also someone who stands up for others. She refuses to join the team unless Kit and Marla are included.

Women can do anything that men can do.

Much of the plot of the movie is concerned with the players of the Rockford Peaches proving what good athletes they are, and changing the minds of the skeptical men around them. Mr. Harvey sees the ‘girls’ as placeholders while many of the men’s major league players are overseas. On their first game, the audience jeers at and teases the players, only to be silenced by their talent. Mr. Lowenstein points out that the women will still play while nursing sprained ankles and broken fingers. The Rockford Peaches players demonstrate willpower, enthusiasm, and skill. Although they never reach the heights of popularity that the male teams get, they gain a devoted audience and respect amongst baseball fans.

Women are meant for more than just the domestic sphere.

Mr. Harvey, and many of the other men employing the women left behind while the men went off to war, failed to foresee the sociological implications of encouraging women to “get out of the kitchen” and fill her patriotic duty by working, and then expecting them to meekly go back into the kitchen once the men came home. This was an opportunity for women to prove that they had something to contribute to the world besides cooking, cleaning and birthing, and once they had a taste of ambition, they weren’t going to let that go. Dottie was perfectly happy being a wife and mother, and that was her choice to make. But for many of the others, they wanted more. Mae refused to return to her tawdry life as a taxi dancer, for instance. The All-American Girls’ Baseball League gave the players the opportunity to work for themselves, and many of them continued to do so well after the war ended.

Sexualization, objectification and gender roles suck.

Every single woman on the league was ticked off about the silly uniforms that they were forced to wear, with the frilly skirts instead of pants. They point out how impractical they are, and we see the results of the terrible uniforms when one player gets a severe bruise after taking a rough slide into a base. The newsreels, which constantly try to reaffirm the players’ femininity, come off as a total joke because of how little attention they pay to the players’ athletic abilities. Marla is constantly overlooked by others because she is plain, instead of being celebrated for being the best slugger in the league. One sequence involves a snooty middle-aged woman decrying the “masculinization” of women on the radio, complaining that things like the girls’ baseball team will have longstanding effects on home, children and country. She even calls the league “sexual confusion” and wonders what kind of girls the men overseas will come home to. Well, there WERE longstanding effects on home, children, and country…but hardly the destruction of life as we know it.

The Rockford Peaches

As for the type of girls waiting for their husbands, what the men came home to were independent women of free thought. There was enormous social upheaval in the decades following the war, and most of it devoted to getting women out of the constricting domestic sphere and out into the working world. The All-American Girls’ Baseball league is just one real-life example of the type of work women can do if only given the chance. Female athletes are hardly “sexual confusion.” Women are free to choose the homemaker life if they want, but this film’s story proves that women are capable of more than what society thinks they should be.

Myrna Waldron is a feminist writer/blogger with a particular emphasis on all things nerdy. She lives in Toronto and has studied English and Film at York University. Myrna has a particular interest in the animation medium, having written extensively on American, Canadian and Japanese animation. She also has a passion for Sci-Fi & Fantasy literature, pop culture literature such as cartoons/comics, and the gaming subculture. She maintains a personal collection of blog posts, rants, essays and musings at The Soapboxing Geek, and can be reached on Twitter under @SoapboxingGeek.