One Yard Shy of Empowerment: Cinematic Portrayals of Female Athletes
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ONE YARD SHY OF EMPOWERMENT: CINEMATIC PORTRAYALS OF FEMALE ATHLETES by Viridiana Lieberman A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, Florida May 2012 Copyright by Viridiana Lieberman 2012 ii iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to express her sincere thanks to Dr. Jane Caputi for igniting the passion that inspired this thesis and educating the knowledge to complete it. The author would also like to thank Dr. Christopher Robe and Dr. Christine Scodari for their support and encouragement into cinematic studies that fostered this work to be a direct stepping stone towards the author’s future film projects. Finally, the author would like to give special thanks to all of the phenomenal people that make the Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies what it is: a vital core of education, illumination and an invaluable contribution to humanity. iv ABSTRACT Author: Viridiana Lieberman Title: One Yard Shy of Empowerment: Cinematic Portrayals of Female Athletes Institution: Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: Dr. Jane Caputi Degree: Master of Arts Year: 2012 Sports are a primary zone of masculinity and sports films are a popular genre. One is hard pressed to find many leading female roles as athletes in male- dominated sports storylines. The cinematic portrayal of women athletes represents social attitudes and values and whether or not the women’s movement has been able to influence representations and, concomitantly, social understandings of women and athleticism. My discussion of films featuring female athletes begins with National Velvet (1944) and ends with Whip It (2008). By examining select sports films centered on all female teams, co-ed teams and individual female athletes, I show how their storylines and resolutions do or do not capitulate to patriarchal ideology. I find a general capitulation, with some concessions to women’s equality. I conclude with a call for a degendering of sports and a redefinition of strength, competitiveness and aggression as human, not masculine. v DEDICATION This manuscript is dedicated to my M.V.P., my partner Danielle, for being my captain of encouragement. To Lindsey for being my coach, teaching me the skills to be victorious. To my friends for being my supportive teammates, always reviving me to stay on course. To my parents for being my greatest fans, forever loyal and dedicated in their belief in me. And finally this is dedicated to my hometown Boston, the birthplace of my love of sports. ONE YARD SHY OF EMPOWERMENT: CINEMATIC PORTRAYALS OF FEMALE ATHLETES Introduction......................................................................................................................... 1 The Starting Line ............................................................................................................ 4 Throws like a Girl ........................................................................................................... 8 Controlling the Time of Possession .............................................................................. 12 Hitting Foul: Missed Opportunities of Progress in A League of Their Own and Whip It ............................................................................................................................ 18 A League of Her Own................................................................................................... 19 Being His Own Hero..................................................................................................... 38 M.V.P.: The Female Athlete as the Most Vulnerable Player in Children’s Co-Ed Team Sports Films ............................................................................................................ 50 The Cut-Off Man .......................................................................................................... 52 The Assist ..................................................................................................................... 60 Dismount: The Façade of Female Empowerment as Athlete in Sports Films.................. 74 The Dark Horse............................................................................................................. 75 The Glass Jaw ............................................................................................................... 85 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 102 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 111 vii I. INTRODUCTION The ball is on the one-yard line. There are four seconds left in the game. The music cues in as she turns in slow motion to signal the wide receiver into movement. As the music crescendos so does the suspense as the ball is set in motion. The audience is on the edge of their seats. She nestles the ball between her palms, placing her fingers directly on the stitches. A hand waves from the end zone and her eyes catch it. With one fluid movement her arm arcs over her body. The music drops, there is silence as the ball floats through the air. Just a moment later, hands reach up and grab it cueing the music and initiating pandemonium as the team celebrates the victory. It’s a scenario we’ve seen before, though usually it is only men playing these roles. But we could fill the lead role with woman because anything can happen in movies…right? Movies create a space where we can watch our imagination come to life, project ourselves inside and suspend our disbelief. But what are the societal influences that infiltrate her existence in this scenario and determine the plot lines outside of winning “the big game”? Sports films are a popular genre. In some ways, they are akin to highlight reels, conveying emotional climax in wins and losses, winners and losers, aggression and dominance. They are also the epitome of a kind of propaganda for male dominant culture, packaged for entertainment purposes. One is hard pressed to find many leading female roles as athletes in sports storylines. Using content analysis as a research method in her 1 article, “Bodies in Action: Female Athleticism on the Cinema Screen” Katharina Lindner observed that between the years of 1990 and 2006 (restricted to films produced within Western socio-cultural context) there had been “thirty-nine sports films with athletic female protagonists, while 164 films feature athletic male protagonists” (325). Lindner continues, “Overall, 80 percent of all sports films depict male athletic characters only, while 14 percent depict female characters only, and 6 percent depict both male and female characters” (325). These numbers reinforce a continued focus to associate athleticism with men through cinematic representation. Effectively, this lack of a female as the protagonist is symbolic of the very conflict these cinematic female athletes face in their storylines: struggling to be recognized as an athlete. The portrayal of women athletes in sports films represents social attitudes and values and, when looked through time, also shows how the women’s movement has been able to influence, or not influence, cinematic representations and, concomitantly, social understandings of women and athleticism. Before entering a discussion of women in sports films, it is worth considering the role film plays in influencing cultural understanding. It is important to recognize that cinema representations affect and refract the reality of our everyday lives. In America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality at the Movies, Harry M Benshoff and Sean Griffin definitively write, “images of people on film actively contribute to the ways in which people are understood and experienced in the ‘real world’” (3). Furthermore, films “are representational systems that show us reconstructed (or mediated) versions of life, not ‘real life’ itself”(Benshoff & Griffin 14). Their argument is 2 that should someone view a film about a certain topic, that ‘reconstruction’ will become a part of his or her education on that topic. Movies are often thought of as “mindless escapism” (16). Benshoff and Griffin point out that ideology is often most effective when it goes unnoticed (16). The problem is “the fact that Hollywood films are generally understood as mere entertainment (without political significance) is itself an ideological assumption, one that denies the importance of image studies and therefore represents white patriarchal capitalist film practice as neutral, natural, and inevitable” (Benshoff and Griffin 16-17). With cinema both educating and mediating our understanding of societal structures and groups, it is important to recognize movies as an influential medium in transmitting ideologies. In light of this understanding that film exerts an influence over societal thinking, an exploration into the nature of female representation becomes necessary. Specifically, I will be looking at films that are centered on women athletes participating in male dominated sports. While traditionally feminine sports – such as figure skating and gymnastics – require diligence, training, skill and talent, their focus remains encapsulated in the ideologies of feminine gender construction. In other words, these sports encourage practices relegated to the sphere of femininity – for example, gracefulness and beauty. Storylines