A League of their Own: Females and Sports. Movie Review

A League of their Own: Females and Sports
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A League of their Own: Females and Sports
Introduction.
“Ballplayers. I don’t have ballplayers, I've got girls. Girls are what you sleep with after the game, not, what you coach during the game.” These are the touching words from Jimmy Dugan, the team coach in the “A League of their Own” film. This was a very incredible film of the times that saw women prove both their abilities and weaknesses at the same time. Women proved that they can do good in sports, and at the same time they proved that they can be good at becoming victims of gender misgivings ( Library of Congress,2012). The film attracted several interests and lately, in 2012, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. The Awakening of Female Strength is the typical understanding of the sphere of women as seen in the film: A League of their Own. It is a film where women are recruited to play baseball as an alternative to men. The main characters in this film are  Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Madonna, Rosie O'Donnell, and Lori Petty. This paper discusses the history of baseball, the times of the film, and the development of the baseball subculture. Based on the events of the film, A League of their Own, this paper will discuss three main themes: Lack of visibility/coverage of women's sports, sexualization of female athletes, and lack of respect for female athletic abilities.
Historical Background
In the early centuries, in the towns of the United States, people began to gather interest in what was known as townball or commonly baseball. This led to the formation of various baseball teams within the big towns and as a result, the first baseball competition was held in 1846 and the title was won by The New York baseball team ( SeanLahman.com, 2021). However, the world war affected America leading to the decline of baseball. This is what informed the inspiration for the movie, A League of their Own in the year 1992. According to the writer of this film, it depicts a period when the country is involved in a world war, and men, who were the athletes of baseball, joined the war leaving the league to collapse and to avoid this, women were called to form the female baseball teams.
During this time, several social issues were experienced in the United States. There were a lot of gender roles and labor divisions. Men were given priority in most sports and especially in baseball. Women on the other hand were regarded as a weak gender and were considered as sexual entertainers for men. When Hanks, goes to ask for a coaching career and is told that he will be coaching women, he gets shocked and wonders how women can play men's games (Derby, 2018). It is from the experiences of this movie that a baseball subculture emanate. Baseball is presented as an independent world that can only be understood by those who are involved in it. For instance, as one of the players cries, the coach, Hanks, tells her that " there is no crying in baseball (Juli, 2013).” This depicts the difference between baseball and other sports. Generally, baseball had its own, values, and taboos making it a subculture.
Lack of Visibility/Coverage of Women’s Sports
This is one of the themes that appear in the film, A League of their Own. Women's sports face this challenge even today where men's sports are more popular on media shows than women's sports. From the movie, most people were surprised with what they called, women playing men's sports. Before this movie, several other sports movies portrayed women as just housewives, baby sitters, and just spectators of men doing sports (Weiner, 2018). The film A League of their Ow...