I'm pretty excited to say that I was a part of roller derby before it went mainstream, an idea which we have been preparing for since we got word over a year ago about the movie and its potential influx on our sport. That I'll get a front row seat to watch WFTDA grow leaps and bounds will be an added bonus to the benefits I get from playing.This weekend, our team (Dixie Derby Girls) teamed up with Rave Valley Bend to do some joint promoting of the movie out front of the theater. Though there wasn't enough room to set up a mini-oval, we did stick some cones out for some mock drills as people were coming up to the theater. Jumping, Blocking, Whips....
We all piled into the theater (on skates, mind you...) and gave a brief intro before the movie to let the movie goers know that Huntsville does indeed have a local team to support come April when our home season kicks back off.
Then it was onto the movie...The summary seems to be the go-to Hollywood coming of age flick. Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) is your average 17 year-old rebellious teen in small town Texas, driven by her beauty queen mother Brooke (Marcia Gay Harden) to compete in pageants in effort to mold Bliss into her ideal of a presentable woman. Joined by her best pal Pash (Alia Shawkat), a fellow waitress at the local BBQ joint, Bliss struggles to break free of her mother's 1950's inspired idea of womanhood and find her calling and ticket out of suburbia.
Enter nearby Austin, TX eccentric rollergirls, the Hurl Scouts, whose flashy and carefree personas entice Bliss into sneaking away and checking out her first TXRD bout, and ultimately taking her spot next to the hard-hitting ladies of roller derby as "Babe Ruthless", her derby alter-ego. Though some of the derby action was a bit misleading (Clothesline plays only qualify for ejections), the action and gameplay was overall realistic and well explained to the audience.
The movie did a great job of navigating the common misconception and stereotypes of a rollergirl, captured by Bliss' mother's beratting rebut of who would employ, marry, or otherwise condone the behavior of such a group of women. Without overly dramatizing the issue, Whip-IT delivers the counterpoint... that roller derby players can still be mothers and professionals, while embracing the fact that above all they are capable, strong beings, and proud adversarial competitors. The film does a wonderful job of portraying the women as strong and ruthless without diminishing women in general as overtly weak by nature. Though the girl-power chord rings strong, it is not watered down by sugar-sweet stereotypes.
Perhaps the most realistic aspect of the film to the current roller derby landscape is how all-encompassing derby life can be to its participants. Enter the very real conflict with the many non-derby people in her life, Bliss finds it hard to balance when Pash takes offense and just fails to understand the level of commitment Babe Ruthless displays in her new passion.
There is a small hollywood-esque love story to make the coming-of-age equation valid, but thankfully it plays a backseat to the storyline and doesn't detract from the flow and overall message of the film.
All derby bias aside, the flick was a great debut for Drew Barrymore, who not only directed, but also played a convincing Hurl Scout (Smashley Simpson).
Four Skates out of Five!
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