Roller derby girls. That was the subject I was given during a speech class back at Long Beach City College. The point of the assignment was to somehow incorporate the subject into a presentation.
I decided to create a fake movie poster starring Michael Jackson, Courtney Love and Madonna.
For my presentation, I pretended to be the movie’s director — I think I called it “The Crazies” and told my audience that the premise of the movie was that these particular roller derby girls were a bunch of blood-thirsty maniacs who killed people for fun.
Fast-forward to the year 2009 and a new Drew Barrymore-directed movie about, yes, roller derby girls, is about to hit movie theaters.
Thanks to my new connection to 97.1 AMP Radio — and by connection I mean a friend who just got a job answering phones for the Lady Gaga-friendly radio station — I got a pair of tickets for a free prescreening of “Whip It,” starring Ellen Page and a bunch of other gals, who I’m sure can beat the crap out of me.
Now, I’m currently taking a class on the history of Chicanas in the United States. For anybody who is part of a group that has certain privileges in society — I am a man, therefore I have male privileges — taking a class like this is quite the eye-opener when it comes to gender inequality.
So here I am with my feminist helmet on, watching a movie that I think is about empowering women who kick ass, when all of a sudden I’m slapped with the Hollywood cliché; girl meets boy, boy takes girl’s virginity, girl finds out he’s a cheater, girl still loves him, but lets him go.
Really?
Why couldn’t Ms. Barrymore go the more independent direction? She could have made Bliss — Page’s star character in the film — a butch lesbian who would rather skate and get bruised up than give in to her mother’s pageant dreams?
Or a Le Tigre fan who sometimes shaves her head for the heck of it. Or how about more shots of the girls actually roller derby-ing instead of following cute guys around?
Of course, these PG-13 movies must have a happy ending, or some sort of well thought out conclusion. God forbid you leave the audience thinking or pondering over the meaning of what it must be like to be a girl who must put up with crap in order to do the same things that boys take for granted.
It just wouldn’t sell.
Having The Breeders, Radiohead and the Ramones on the soundtrack doesn’t hurt, but if Hollywood wants to make a film about female empowerment — at least I hope this was Barrymore’s goal — they must stay away from popular clichés just to sell movies.
Having said that, will I let my nieces watch this movie? Sure. Despite its pseudo female-empowerment message, I would rather they watch this type of flick than a high school musical. Or, whatever.
— Julio Salgado