The Paradox of the Reel Female Athlete in Early American Women's Sport Cinema, 1924-1965 Stacy Lynn Tanner

Home , After Jimmy, Female bodybuilding, Lucia Rijker, Million Dollar Mermaid

Florida State University Libraries

Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School

2013 On the Replay: The Paradox of the Reel Female Athlete in Early American Women's Sport Cinema, 1924-1965 Stacy Lynn Tanner

Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

ON THE REPLAY: THE PARADOX OF THE REEL FEMALE ATHLETE IN EARLY AMERICAN WOMEN’S SPORT CINEMA, 1924-1965

STACY LYNN TANNER

A Dissertation submitted to the Program for Interdisciplinary Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2013 Stacy Lynn Tanner defended this dissertation on April 1, 2013. The members of the supervisory committee were:

William Cloonan Professor Directing Dissertation

Kathleen M. Erndl University Representative

Donna Marie Nudd Committee Member

B. Cecil Reynaud Committee Member

The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements.

I dedicate this work to my beloved grandfather, George Walter Armstrong, who asked me during our last visit, “You are going to go back and get that Ph.D., right?” Thank you, Granddad for always instilling in me the value of education and for encouraging me to play the game.

I also dedicate this work to my twin brother and built-in best friend, Scott. You continue to be source of inspiration.

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

When I began this journey, people often told me that writing is an isolating experience. Yet, I did not get to this point on my own. I am grateful for so many people’s support and assistance throughout this process. First, I would like to thank Dr. Bill Cloonan for asking the tough questions, forcing me to think beyond the page and screen, and encouraging me to pursue my interests. I would also like to thank my committee members, Dr. Donna Marie Nudd, Dr. Kathleen M. Erndl, and Dr. B. Cecile Reynaud for their guidance and patience. Also, I am appreciative of Dr. John Kelsay’s advice and support during the last few years. Words cannot express how helpful John Netter and Shannon Tucker have been through the many transitions in the department and program.

Throughout the research process, Rosemary Hanes in the Motion Picture Division at the Library of Congress was incredibly helpful in retrieving and digitizing film. Kelly Keith of the Strozier Library was ready and willing to lend a hand and steer me in the right direction. Thank you both for making the materials I needed accessible.

Johnathan O’Neill at Georgia Southern University made the research trip to Washington D.C. possible. Thank you Lisa L. Denmark, Chuck Thomas, and Don Rakestraw for many happy hours of insightful intellectual debate and discussion. Your company and support made my load “a little lighter”. Thank you to my mentors John Steinberg and Anastatia Sims at Georgia Southern University, for always listening and offering such helpful advice. Thanks to Fran Aultman for inviting me to the barbeque, the jokes, and for keeping me relatively sane and organized.

I am grateful to Robin Sellers for her unwavering support over the years and most recently for the coffee breaks. Thank you to Maricarmen Martinez for teaching me to think critically about film. And thank you, Will Benedicks for always scheduling my classes to ensure I could have a reasonable writing schedule.

Thank you, Sarah Fryett for the trips to the beach and for the words that let me forget the world for a bit. And thank you to my friends and colleagues for their enduring support: Jennifer Snitker, Hannah Morchen, Talia Magnani, Melissa Remy Redshaw, Brandy Wilson, Theresa Bullock, Christa Menninger, Kathryn Wright, Meghan Martinez, Kenaya Edgehill, Jenn Schwager, Denise Spivey, Joanna Winters, and Cathryn Lockey. I am particularly grateful for Suzanne Caldwell’s mechanical abilities and spatial understanding. Thanks to the Clarks for their kindness and for Mary’s willingness to copy edit this manuscript on such short notice. Thank you Doris Gilliam, Marie Patrick, and Maggie MacCarroll Ramrattan for being my writing buddies. We can do this!

Thank you to Cameron and Craig at Killer Coffee for keeping me caffeinated and for listening to my tirades about this, that, and the other thing.

And finally, I am thankful to my sister, who listened day after day, year after year. If I could only have one sister, I would choose you twice on Sunday- as long as it doesn’t interfere with watching football.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ...... vii

INTRODUCTION...... 1

1. SPINNING REELS AND SPINNING WHEELS: A REVIEW OF WOMEN’S SPORTS CINEMA SCHOLARSHIP...... 10

2. IN SLOW MOTION: NATURALIZING DIFFERENCE IN EARLY SPORTS CINEMA ...... 38

3. DELAY OF GAME: HEGEMONIC FEMININITY AND THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF DIFFERENCE ...... 61

4. MISFITTING THE FRAME: REDEFINING FEMININITY IN EARLY SPORTS FILMS...... 94

5. FAST FORWARD: SPORTS CINEMA AND THE PHYSICAL LIBERATION OF WOMEN ...... 130

APPENDIX ...... 144

A. FILM SUMMARIES...... 144

REFERENCES...... 152

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH...... 163

ABSTRACT

Sports and sports films mean a great deal to many Americans. Since the historic

Title IX legislation passed in 1972, opportunities for female athletes reached

unpredictably high numbers. Likewise, there was an increase in the number of female

protagonists within American sports films. Of the scholarly work regarding the female athlete in film, the focus is almost exclusively on the post-Title IX film. This makes the scholarly study of the reel female athlete in early American women’s sports cinema relevant and necessary.

In her work, Working Girls: Gender, Sexuality, in Popular Cinema (1998) Yvonne

Tasker stated, “Writing histories that chart women’s relationship to the institutions of film

production, like studies of the articulation of gender in the cinema, involve a work of

uncovering contributions which have not been spoken about, a process of rereading

texts, and challenging given assumptions” (198). I engage in this project to challenge

the assumptions of early sports film, to highlight the pioneers of early women’s sports

cinema, and to challenge pervasive notions about women’s sports. Specifically, I began

this project to better understand the relationship between women’s sports and women’s

sports films. I utilize a multidisciplinary theoretical approach and a social feminist

historical perspective in order to analyze the reel female athlete.

I posit that the image of this athlete in early American sports films is paradoxical.

Her representation is at once traditionally feminine and gender bending. In the long run, the female athlete was always a threat to the patriarchal order because she complicated

traditional notions of femininity. This limited, but did not erase, her representation on the

vii

silver screen. Female athletes serve as an important site of resistance in 20th century

American film, yet they receive little attention by scholars. I discuss the complex gendered nature of representations of women athletes in pre-Title IX American film. I propose that the paradoxical representation of this athlete mirrors the divisiveness of sports feminist agendas.

Most early sports feminists adopted policies of difference in accordance with the social and “scientific” values of early twentieth century America. Dissenting feminists interested in promoting equality of the sexes also complicate the image of the reel female athlete. The tension between these philosophies of gendered sport confused the central messages of women’s sports films and slowed the advance the sports feminist movement. Specifically, I examine feature length films with a female athlete and lead character created between 1924 and 1965 including Venus of the South Seas (1924),

Girls Can Play (1937), National Velvet (1944), Fiesta (1947), Pin Down Girls (1951),

Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) and the film, Billie (1965).

viii

INTRODUCTION

In their work, Hollywood’s America: United States History Through Its Films,

Steven Mintz and Randy Roberts articulate the connection between the history of a people and their cultural productions, “If you want to know the United States in the twentieth century, go to the movies. Films represent much more than mass entertainment . . . Like any other popular commercial art form, movies both reflect and influence public attitudes” (ix). I began this project to understand the relationship between American women’s sport and the American sport film. I wanted to understand how American women’s sports cinema both reflected and influenced conceptions of women’s sports in American society. It is generally understood that the American sport film primarily featured a male athlete as protagonist. I wanted to know how the female athlete fits within the history of American sport film. Surely, I thought, there must be a history of reel women athletes in American sport film. Through my research, I began to believe that the female athlete as protagonist in such films was lost to the American collective memory. Through my project, I desired to unearth the lost women pioneers of this genre of American cultural artifacts and to understand the change and/or lack of change in the depiction of women athletes over the course of the history of American film.

As a social feminist scholar, my primary focus for this project is feature sport film with a female lead.1 In other words, I do not limit this study to real athletes such as

1 As a social feminist historian, I utilize a women-centered historical approach to film criticism in an effort to recover women’s sports film history. I am concerned with the everyday actions of the individual woman and the collective actions of women that impact the feminist movement. Studying representations of 1

Annette Kellerman in Venus of the South Seas or Esther Williams in Million Dollar

Mermaid or to fictional characters in women’s sport films such as those within National

Velvet, Billie, and other such films. All of the on-screen or reel athletes had an impact on the sports feminist movement.

My study of women athletes in American sport film will be broken down into at least two chronological parts. This dissertation focuses exclusively on pre-Title IX film and serves as the first chronological component of a future comprehensive study of

American women’s sports cinema. I investigate Annette Kellerman’s impact on the developing role of the female athlete within sport film, Venus of the Seas (1924). I also study the cultural weight of the films, Girls Can Play (1937), National Velvet (1944),

Fiesta (1947), Pin Down Girls (1951), Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) and the film, Billie

(1965). I approach the discussion of the meaning of the female athlete in early

American film conceptually in that I analyze the ways in which the protagonists conform to or reject femininity and the ways in which the reel athletes challenged the ideology of gender and thus helped develop the sports feminist movement.

In the first chapter, “Women’s Sports Cinema: The State of the Playing Field,” I provide an historiography of women’s sports cinema. This chapter accounts for existing scholarly arguments primarily regarding the meaning of American women’s sports film.

There are few extensive scholarly works with a focus exclusively on sports film. There are fewer still extensive studies which focus on women athletes in said films. Not surprisingly, the central messages and sub-genres of the film(s) analyzed, as well as

gender in women’s sport film reveals that gender definitions are historically impermanent. The resistant performances studied here prove that these films had an influence on the movement. See Lisa Taylor, “From Psychoanalytic Feminism to Popular Feminism” in Hollows, Joanne, and Mark Jancovich. eds. Approaches to Popular Film: Inside Popular Film.1995, 159. 2

theoretical and methodological frameworks of the scholarly works included, vary

considerably. Yet, the scholars’ theses remained connected and consistent.

These scholars assert that women athletes are traditionally subordinate to the

men who are athletes, that the increased representation of the women athletes on

screen challenge the gender binary, and that the very recent changes to their

representation can work to end the marginalization of women in sport and sport film.

Notably, these academicians and sport feminists focus almost exclusively on the

modern sport film or the Post-Title IX film. I endeavor to uncover the story of pre-Title

IX sports films within their historical context and to shed light on the importance of

recovering this history.

In the second chapter, entitled “In Slow Motion: Naturalizing Difference,” I

discuss the influence of the biomedical model of sport as outlined by Y.L. Precilla Choi,

the frailty myth, according to Colette Dowling, on the performance of women athletes in early sports film.2 In Femininity and the Physically Active Woman, (2000), Choi states that until the latter part of the 20th century, proponents of the biomedical essentialist

model claimed that women’s only material purpose was reproduction and women

should avoid anything that could disrupt this function. During the late nineteenth and

early twentieth centuries it was common to believe that women’s physical exertion could

impact her ability to have children. Scientific research of the late twentieth and twenty-

first centuries largely disproved the myths surrounding women and physical activity (14,

16). But it is important to consider that this biomedical model was the structure that

filmmakers and athletes were working within during the period under study. Dowling

2 Admittedly, the theories, myths, and philosophies discussed primarily regard white middle class women. 3

cements the history of the social implications of the biomedical essentialist model Choi

articulated.

Dowling wrote, The Frailty Myth, (2000), wherein she states that this myth, “is about the social domination of women’s bodies. . . For centuries women have been shackled to the perception of themselves as weak and ineffectual.” (6) She says that at the turn of the twentieth century medical theories (such as the biomedical model) buttressed the myth that convinced most women that they were physically inept (14). As a result of the Industrial Revolution, women’s physical labor was in less demand.

Therefore, women’s physical strength became culturally (and economically) less valuable. As women’s physical strength held less and less economic value, it also slowly lost value as a characteristic of a feminine woman (12). Dowling claims that by the late Victorian Era women were systematically denied the physical development of their bodies (26). The frailty myth is incorporated into the depiction of the early reel female athlete in the films under study and certainly inhibited the expansion of the sports feminist movement.

In the third chapter, “Delay of Game: Hegemonic Femininity and the

Institutionalization of Difference,” I detail how filmmakers and characters in each of the selected films incorporated hegemonic femininity and the philosophy of difference in sport and thus slowed the progression of the sports feminist movement. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women formed and practiced this philosophy, which guided filmmakers, athletes, physical educators and laymen and laywomen alike.

Numerous sports historians and scholars outlined the philosophy of difference in sport. I utilize Ying Wushanley’s account of philosophy of difference to illustrate its impact on

the portrayal of women athletes in early film. The self-governing of women’s athletics

evolved in several stages during the 20th century. I consider the first three major phases, “Sports for All, the “Platform Program,” and the “Feminization of Competition” discussed in this scholar’s model of the philosophy of difference in order to evaluate the different roles portrayed in women’s sports cinema (8-18).3

Working within patriarchal constraints to carve a space for women’s athletics frequently means that these athletes perform the white middle class ideal of femininity.

The reel athlete’s performance of femininity in the films regularly fit this frame, which contemporary sports feminist theorists term hegemonic femininity.4 The filmmakers understood that a marketable film featuring a female athlete would portray the athlete’s character as necessarily feminine.

In this chapter, I also outline how Mimi Schippers’ concept of hegemonic femininity operates within each film and restricts progress within the sports feminist movement.5 Furthermore, I examine how the filmmakers frame the female athlete within each film in order for those characters to appear to fit within their socially expected gender. Schippers (2007) defines the concept of hegemonic femininity as necessarily heterosexual, and consequently the characteristics are connected to pleasing men. This concept puts an, “emphasis on vulnerability, fragility, acceptance of marriage, sexual

3 Wushanely is not the only scholar to write about the philosophy of difference in athletics and sports. I also incorporate the work of several other interdisciplinary sports scholars. 4 Vikki Krane, Catharine Mackinnon, Amanda Roth, Susan Barrow, and Mimi Schippers and Nancy J. Finley use a women’s centered conception of hegemonic femininity, which emphasizes that women have agency and can alter gender relations. R.W. Connell (1987) initially said you cannot use hegemonic femininity because women lack power and definition within the gendered order he outlined. Many feminist scholars disagree and assert that Connell’s emphasized femininity does not fully explain women’s roles in gendered society. These feminist scholars apply concepts such as hegemonic and alternative femininities in order to more inclusively articulate women’s ability to construct multiple femininities that disrupt the gendered order of society. 5 Jessica J. Finley and Vikki Krane also discuss hegemonic femininity in their work and I explore their ideas as well. 5

receptivity, and motherhood” (Schippers, 94-95, Finley 361, Connell 1987, 188).6 I explore how these concepts operated within early American women’s sports cinema and inhibited the expansion of the representation of the female athlete in film. Likewise, this helps explain the slow progress of the sports feminist movement.

In chapter four entitled, “Misfitting the Frame: Redefining Femininity in Early

Sports Films,” I illustrate the potential for change as understood through the counter- hegemonic forces of gender maneuvering, stealth feminism, physical feminism, and the

Artemis archetype. I assert that liminal spaces exist within each film in order to open up space for a reimagining of women athletes. Here, I explore the often-subtle moments within the films, which offer alternative ideas about what it means to be an athlete and a woman, thus expanding notions of gender and gendered sport.

Finley builds upon Mimi Schippers’ (2007) argument regarding the utility of hegemonic femininity for understanding the gender order of society. She agrees with

Schippers that it is the complimentary nature of hegemonic masculinity and hegemonic femininity that “supports the dominance of men” (361). But, Finley claims that

“alternative femininities” are most likely to challenge the patriarchal order when performed by women. These “alternative femininities” disrupt gender relations in specific and subtle recurring interactions between men and women. Women practicing alternative femininities reject the gender hierarchies and in doing so they open space for

6 I am not interrogating Susan Birrell (2000) and other scholars’ notion of the female apologetic or R.W. Connell’s theory of emphasized femininity. Some consider the concepts to be complements to hegemonic masculinity, yet women are not perceived to have any agency within these structures. I later argue that women have power and agency to promote and create change within the gendered order of society. Hence, I utilize the theory of hegemonic femininity. Later, I discuss how definitions of hegemonic femininity, or femininity itself, can change through the patterned use of gender maneuvering. The operation of hegemonic femininity has historically required what Adrienne Rich termed compulsory heterosexuality (Rich 23-75). For more on the female apologetic in sport see, Women and the Apologetic. 2 Vol. Westport, CT: ABC-Clio, 2009. 6

the reconfiguration of gender relations (362). Specifically, I structure my discussion of

gender maneuvering through the counter-hegemonic representations of gender characterized by liminal portrayals of physically strong and assertive women athletes and depictions of physical strength and sexual independence.

I argue that the filmmakers of the works under study were familiar with the practice of resistance because they obviously employed what we now think of as

Finley’s theory of gender maneuvering, Leslie Heywood’s theory of stealth feminism,

Martha McCaughey’s physical feminism, and Pamela Creedon and Annis Pratt’s ideas about the Artemis archetype. All of these concepts work as physical liberation theories when put to practice as outlined by Amanda Roth and Susan Basow in their article,

“Femininity, Sports, and Feminism: Developing a Theory of Physical Liberation” (2004).

The films explored in this study contain liminal celluloid spaces presented by the filmmakers as everyday occurrences. The patterns of resistant celluloid space emphasized the “normality” of reel women athletes’ actions and likewise worked to mainstream the reel female athlete’s image. The liminal moments are the very moments in which the sports feminist movement moves forward because they expose the spectator to the image of a physically liberated woman.

Proponents of the physical liberation theory suggest women must strengthen their bodies and simultaneously unify the mind/body chasm that is disrupted by the ideology of femininity. In doing so women move toward, and possibly can achieve, the ideal gender parity in political, economic, and social life (Roth 261-262). Moreover, supporters of the theory encourage women to seek parity through the construction of strong bodies and minds because they believe this will lessen or eliminate a women’s

7 rapeability. Lessening the rapeability of women opens space for the reconstruction of sexualities and gendered relations (Roth 256,259).

Mariah Burton Nelson states, “Feminism is rarely an individual’s motivating force but always the result” (30). This scholar asserts that it matters little if an athlete, actress, or filmmaker intends his or her action or creation as feminist in nature. Their intention or

“motivation” does not make the performance less feminist. Regardless of whether or not the filmmakers, actresses, or the reel athletes self-identified as feminists, their actions support a history of sports feminism alive and well and still debated among scholars and lay people alike. I argue that the reel athlete helped develop the sports feminist movement. They accomplished this when they put the physical liberation theory into practice. Promoting women’s physical strength is a core principle of practicing the physical liberation theory. I explore the ways the reel athlete achieves this on screen.

In my conclusion, “Fast forward: Sports Cinema and the Physically Liberated

Woman,” I consider the meaning of the reel female athlete’s representation. Filmmakers often simultaneously portray the reel athlete as conforming to hegemonic femininity and subversive or resistant to notions of gendered sport. Likewise, I offer an explanation of her potential to influence and advance the agenda of the sports feminist movement.

I explore the significance of reel athletes’ fitting and misfitting the frame of hegemonic femininity in order to recognize the complex heritage of the sports feminist movement. During much of the early twentieth century, Americans commonly believed women and men ought to be treated as separate classes. This was largely because people believed that women were physically “fragile” individuals in need of protection.

One way to protect women was to adopt policies of gender difference (Melnick 4-7;

Woloch Muller 74; Cott The Grounding of Feminism 38; Ware 75; Chafe 57). A majority of early sports feminist philosophies emphasized gender difference and dissenting viewpoints proposed an equality approach. I propose that both positions reflect a long and divisive history of sports feminism and help to explain the confused messages about women’s athletics in early sports films.

Featuring a female athlete on the silver screen was not often a blockbuster enterprise.7 Filmmakers who chose to create the films certainly had complex agendas.

A feminist component of this agenda visibly existed and is marked by the presence of celluloid space dedicated to creating the liminal moments necessary to challenge the then contemporary ideas regarding the gendered athlete’s place in society. Finally, I offer a vision for the depiction of a progressive reel female athlete and I suggest new directions for the research of women’s sports cinema.

7 See Ravid, S. Abraham .“What Makes Movies Tick: Ivory Tower Insights, Studio Views and Research Directions.” in The Economies of Creativity: Ideas, Firms, and Markets. New York: Routledge, 2013 and Moul, Charles C. A Concise Handbook of Movie Industry Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Limited financial data is available online at www.the-numbers.com. A film’s box office sales and overall profits are generally easy to find for the last twenty years. Therefore it is possible to recognize patterns of profit and loss. With few exceptions, women’s sports cinema was not a profitable enterprise for filmmakers and studios. 9

CHAPTER ONE

SPINNING REELS AND SPINNING WHEELS: A REVIEW OF WOMEN’S SPORTS CINEMA SCHOLARSHIP

Introduction There are few sport films that focus on the female athlete and likewise few critiques of said films (Caudwell “Girlfight” 256). What follows is a chronicle of scholarly work regarding the female athlete in sport film. Notably, these academicians and sport feminists focus almost exclusively on the modern sport film or the Post-Title IX film.

Other notable patterns within this scholarship are the rather consistent recognition of the subordination of the female athlete and the female in these films and the notion that the sports films that feature a female athlete are not progressive enough.

Jennifer Hargreaves points out that the theories that sport feminists use are of the same thread in that nearly all suggest that a reconfiguration of gender is possible within sport; they attempt to open opportunities for women and end the marginalization and oppression of women in sport. However, Hargreaves notes that the direction of the field of sport feminism splintered or frayed over the course of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries with many scholars taking a postmodern turn and focusing on discourses of inequality (Giulianotti, 187, 202-203). Hargreaves’ ideas regarding the interdisciplinarity of sport feminism are mirrored in the recent work of sport film scholars elaborated upon within this review.

Soccer and Boxing

The struggle to craft a multicultural Britain within the postcolonial reality is explored by Michael G. Giardina in his study, “Bending it Like Beckham’ in the Global

Popular: Stylish Hybridity, Performativity, and the Politics of Representation” (2003).

This scholar employs cultural studies theory as well as gender theory to explain the

main characters’ fight for acceptance. Jess, (Parminder Nagra), desires a future, which

does not align with her family’s conservative Punjabi culture. And Jules played by Kiera

Knightley wants to be accepted as a legitimate soccer player. The two girls “bend” the

rules of their culture to play for the local women’s club and accomplish their goals of

playing soccer in the United States (65, 68, 77).8

Giardina weaves scenes throughout his argument to prove that while director,

Gurinder Chadha, falls short of depicting the current reality of Britain’s tumultuously racialized and gendered society, the filmmaker should be commended for her effort to represent the sporting female as the multicultural future for the nation and contributing to the growth of women’s football in Britain (78). The strength of the scholar’s statements regarding the filmmaker’s representation of performed hybrid identities within the film are teased out through a few key scenes: when Jules confronts her mother’s assumptions about her sexuality and her father explains that Jules can be a football player and a heterosexual girl too, and when Jess is traveling to the championship game and kicking the penalty goal to win the game. In the former scenes, Chadha confronts the lesbian stereotype of sport, but is not convincing that being a lesbian is socially acceptable. After Jules tells her mother she is not a lesbian, but if she was, “It wouldn’t be a big deal,” her mother says, “On, no, sweetheart, of course it isn’t. No! I mean, I’ve got nothing against it. I was cheering for Martina

Navratilova as much as the next person.” Giaradina posits that Chadha intended to

8 Giardina’s article was subsequently published in Visual Economies In/Of Motion, in 2006. 11

highlight Jules’ mother’s reluctant acceptance of her daughter’s hybrid identity in order

to analogize this character’s reluctance with that of British society. To reinforce the

notion that heterosexual women can be feminine and athletes Chadha includes the scene where Jules’ father explains the offside rule of soccer to his wife. This scene alludes to the idea that it is okay for her to learn the game and for their daughter to play; a sporting female hybrid identity does not take away from being accepted in British society (75- 77).

The scene where Jess travels from her sister’s wedding to the championship game is also important in fleshing out Giardina’s main point about idealized hybrid identities. Giardina says that when Jess takes off her traditional wedding clothes and dons her soccer uniform she demonstrates her hybrid status as a present day Briton.

And when Jess is kicking the winning penalty goal she is transformed into a representation of the future British society Chadha desires to portray. This occurs because Jess makes the goal by bending the ball around (as she imagines it) her family members dressed in traditional garb, lined up to block the shot and her entrance into the multicultural world. These scenes suggest the potential for a multiplicity of acceptable hybrid British identities. Likewise, Chadha ‘bends’ the film to suggest an idealized future of truly multicultural British society (76-77).

Giardina and Jayne Caudwell agree that sports films often eliminate the lesbian sexual identity from the representation of the female athlete. In her article, “Girlfight and

Bend It Like Beckham: Screening Women, Sport, and Sexuality” (2009). Caudwell investigates the meaning of the female athlete on the silver screen through her analysis.

She considers how the female body is made politically visible in these films and how the

lesbian sexuality is made essentially invisible. Rightly so, Caudwell claims that sport

films serve to further marginalize “deviant” female sexualities because of the

heteronormative construction of these films. In other words, both films she analyzes

attempt to normalize the respective sports of boxing and soccer for female athletes.

They do so by providing alternative representations to the conceived notion that women’s entrance into these sports suggests a disruption of femininity and heterosexuality or by refuting the idea that only a lesbian would partake in such sports

(255-256).

Caudwell recognizes when filmmakers evade representations of sexual fluidity.

The sexuality of the main female athlete is very rarely questioned in the narrative of sport film. Instead, the films reinforce heterosexual hegemony (258). Also, this scholar posits that part of the reason why the lead characters’ in Girlfight (Diana’s) and Bend it

Like Beckham, (Jess’) sexuality is never questioned is due to the heterosexual romantic subplot and the fact that they are already read as the “other” because of their minority ethnicity and status as female athlete.

The strength of Caudwell’s argument lay in the filmmakers’ evasions of a lesbian sexuality in these sport films. She evidences scenes in which the filmmakers allude to the lesbian stereotype of the female athlete, but subsequently fail to comment.

Specifically and among other evidence, Caudwell cites the bus stop scene in Bend it

Like Beckham, where Jess and her teammate Jules hug and are mistaken for lesbians and when Diana makes the first move on Adrian, a male boxer in Girlfight. Jules’ short hair, her being occasionally mistaken for a boy, and Diana’s assertive heterosexuality illustrate Judith Halberstam’s notion of female masculinity, which expands notions of

gender. Likewise, Caudwell posits that filmmakers dismiss lesbianism within sport films

featuring female athletes. In return, however, they complicate the gender binary (261-

262).

As simply as Caudwell suggests that filmmakers dismiss the lesbian subjectivity

in female sport films, Camilla Fojas focuses her study, “Sports of Spectatorship: Boxing

Women of Color in ‘Girlfight’ and Beyond” (2009) on the gendered and racialized

representation of the female boxer in this film. While Fojas concentrates her argument

on the rise in popularity of women’s boxing and the history of the boxing film as well as

those which feature a female athlete, she misses an opportunity to question the

heteronormative nature of the film’s romantic subplot when highlighting scenes such as

the one where Diana’s boyfriend, Adrian mistakes Diana for a man from behind. In

failing to critically interrogate the representation of sexuality within this scene, she

affirms a transformation in Adrian’s desire for an overtly feminine partner to a female

who is confident and strong. A couple of characteristics of what scholars term female

masculinity are confidence and strength.9 Fojas does not cement a connection between

gender and sexuality in her discussion of this scene. Fojas states that Girlfight is an important film because it expands ideas about gender. But, as a matter of doing so this scholar missed the opportunity to interrogate the intersection of gender and sexuality

(113).

The value of Fojas’ claims resonates in her articulation of filmmakers’ ability to complicate the gaze of the spectator rather than maintain a male gaze. This transformation of the gaze within this film has subversive potential in sport and in the

9 See also, Judith Halberstam, Female Masculinity, 1988, 17. 14

future of sport film, according to this scholar. Fojas recognizes that the film and the

sport underscore the potential to expand our notions of gendered and racialized

identities because Diana changes the way other boxers including Adrian, coaches, and

spectators view her in the gym, inside, and outside of the ring (115). By the end of the

film Diana is more accepted in the gym, the ring, and on the screen. Nevertheless, women boxers and those of color still have a long way to go to achieve the ideal of gender parity as well as to deconstruct heteronormativity on the screen and in the ring

(114-115).

Monica J. Casper notes in her article, “Knockout Women,” (2001), that “Boxing films-like boxing itself-are often about difference, and we have seen black, brown, and white bodies represented. But we have rarely seen female bodies” (105). This scholar appropriately terms Diana, of Girlfight a “feminist raging bull” in reference to Scorcese’s masterpiece because of her underlying frustration with her lot in life. Casper states that this film has a lot to say about femininity and masculinity. Unfortunately, this scholar suggests that filmmakers depicted Diana’s brother, Tiny, as effeminate and that this characterization alludes to homosexuality, but not the potential for the fluidity of masculinity (106).

Casper confidently makes a valid point about the female athlete in sport film in that Diana does not “perform” femininity even while with her boyfriend. Yet, she remains gendered through the interactions with other mainly male characters, primarily her father, her trainer, and her boyfriend (106-107). For example, upon winning the final match, Hector, her trainer, tells her how proud he is of her and we are allowed to see her literally embrace his reverence for her (107). In this scene, we are made to believe

15 that Diana is still subordinated to males. In some sense, the filmmakers suggest that

Diana’s motivation for competing was to win the admiration of Hector. Therefore, the filmmakers fall short of suggesting that motivations for women’s competition could possibly be defined outside of the patriarchal structure.

Finally, Capser captures the essence of the film precisely by asserting, “girl boxers are not just boy boxers without penises. And women who box are not just men behaving badly. Boxing when women do it constitutes a different version of the feminine- indeed a serious challenge to the feminine-as well as the feminine politic”

(109). Casper suggests this film marks the transition to third wave feminist film because it allows for a sphere of gendered representations, not to mention it is a story of a girl who meets a boy and then beats a boy (109).

Katharina Lindner also investigates the meaning of the physicality of the character, Diana Rodriguez, in Karyn Kusama’s, Girlfight in her article entitled, “Fighting for Subjectivity: Articulations of Physicality in ‘Girlfight.’” (2009). Lindner describes this character’s body as an opposition to her subjectivity in order to understand the significance of the disjuncture between body and identity. She surmises that the boxing scenes in particular, which she terms “numbers” break the gender and sexuality binaries, but do not provide a solution. Rather, the boxing sequences analyzed by this scholar suggest that the female boxing body is elevated above subjectivity and likewise presents no solution or term for the “ambiguously gendered body” other than that of athlete or boxer. According to Lindner, this is not necessarily a good thing (1, 5, 8).

The boxer’s body is divided by performance in and outside of the ring. The director emphasizes this partition during the final boxing match sequence. The final

16 scene reveals Diana and Adrian embracing one another after the match. Because of this, Lindner posits, the film does not resolve the real social issues surrounding the female boxer and athlete. It simply compartmentalizes and likewise conforms to traditional heteronormative and cinematic structures. While many sports historians suggest that the struggle for women is to be seen as athletes first, and female second, this film actually accomplishes this in some sense (10, 12).

Lindner states that Diana develops a united and embodied sense of self through boxing and this is how individual women in sport and characters in sport film can work toward equality in sport. Diana moves from using the body as an object to her body as her being. But, outside of the ring she consistently cements the idea that a female is a female first (and necessarily heterosexual), and an athlete second. In this way according to Lindner, the film fails to form a progressive statement about gender, race, class, and sport because Diana’s sense of a united and embodied sense of self does not transcend the ring. Outside of the ring, Diana’s identity fragments and thus loses the

“athlete” and defaults to heterosexual, working class, Latina (9, 12).

Several other scholars comment on the female boxing film because many view it as a strictly male preserve. Ellexis Boyle, Brad Millington, and Patricia Vertinsky collaborated on the article, “Representing the Female Pugilist: Narratives of Race,

Gender, and Disability in ‘Million Dollar Baby’” (2006), in which their main thesis speaks to the controversy over the film and its seemingly contradictory critical acclaim. The authors propose that the film received the polarized response because the film challenges the masculinity of male boxers and their supposed former control over the sport (99).

Accordingly, the authors suggest that much more exists beneath the surface of

the film about a strong female athlete and viewers ought to stop to think about the

embedded hierarchies threaded through the film. On the one hand, the authors

acknowledge the filmmakers for depicting women boxers’ bodies accurately by including

the blood and bruising associated with the sport, as well as the filmmakers’ willingness

to produce the images of women’s involvement in this violent sport. On the other hand,

the authors argue that Million Dollar Baby fails in a number of areas because the filmmakers portray a false image of the sport (102-103).

These scholars contend that this failure is at the core of the tension between the critical and popular opinions of the film. First, the filmmakers depict boxing as a sport that has always excluded women. Yet, women boxers have fought since at least the eighteenth century and women have been training in gyms with men since the 1970s

(101-102). This focus on the male-centered gym and the antagonism between women in the sport illustrated in this sport film do not exist in reality. Maggie (Hilary Swank) does not really have any sort of relationship with the other women in the film. This contributes to the false portrayal of distance between female boxers.

The film is not about women boxers, but the maintenance of patriarchal control of the sport and the maintenance of a hierarchy of gender, race, class, and disability. The authors assert the message of the film is: women who transgress femininity are punished. Maggie (Hilary Swank) became a quadriplegic as a matter of her last fight.

The filmmakers suggest that the character, Maggie, embodies the ideal female by focusing on her physical transformation. This is also evidenced in the way the filmmakers compare Maggie’s body with the body of her competitor in the championship

fight, Blue Bear played by Dutch boxer and actress, Lucia Rijker. Maggie’s face is

revealed immediately and therefore her body is viewed as a tool to reach her goal. In

contrast, the filmmakers partially veil Blue Bear’s face when they introduce her.

Throughout the match filmmakers expose Blue Bear as, “masculine, violent, and

threatening” (104). These descriptions reinforce racial stereotypes and contribute to the

maintenance of racial and gendered hierarchies.

The authors invoke bell hooks’ idea of “doing it for daddy” to underscore how the

film conforms to hierarchies of race and gender. Consider that hooks’ concept explains

that men of color (and women and women of color) are subordinated to the white male and they are “content” with this order. The authors’ assertion of hooks’ theory explains the very typical Hollywood structure in Million Dollar Baby in that Eddie (Morgan

Freeman) and Maggie are subordinated to Frankie (Clint Eastwood) and they are content with this scenario (105-106).

Judith Halberstam’s theory of “female masculinity”10 is both reinforced and disavowed by the authors in regard to the film. Halberstam defined this concept as the adoption of masculine traits by females and through an exclusion of men (101,

Halberstam 17). Maggie does not avoid aggressive behavior. She reaches her goal of becoming a competitive boxer by disavowing feminine qualities and because her coach essentially tells her she must. She expresses female masculinity when she adopts masculine traits. Yet, Maggie also does not express female masculinity because her gender expression is not to the exclusion of men (103-104). The authors should have further developed their ideas about the relationship between the film and the concept of

10 See Judith Halberstam, Female Masculinity, 1988, 17. 19

female masculinity as described by Halberstam because Maggie’s gender expressions

do not quite fit the theorist’s definition.

Part of the strength of the scholars’ argument lay in their discussion of the

intersection of the discourses of gender and disability. They suggest that a hierarchy of

the female body is established when the filmmakers cover Maggie’s “disabled” and

injured body. According to the authors, the filmmakers go too far to suggest the

disabled body is devalued and subject to elimination (110). Clearly, the film is centered

on the white male figure because the film does not end with Maggie’s death. Instead,

the viewer returns to Frankie’s story reinforcing the idea that this film is more about men

than about a strong female athlete who is punished because she fought to break gender

barriers within sport (113-114). It is clear that the ending supports the intentions of the

filmmaker, Clint Eastwood, in telling a story about a broken man and a female athlete

who, at least somewhat, redeemed his masculinity. Many scholars and critics apparently sought a film centering on the female athlete and were disappointed by the realization that this film did not fit their frame (107, 113, 114).

Baseball

Carol Pierman discusses the disjuncture between the film, A League of Their

Own and the actual experiences of the All-American Girls’ Professional Baseball

League (AAGPBL) players in her article, “Baseball, Conduct, and True Womanhood”

(2005). Pierman uses oral histories of the surviving members of the AAGPBL to understand the value of their participation, management of their appearance as feminine, and the subsequent contributions to the future generations of female athletes.

She claims the film altered many truths of the players experience, but got at least one

thing right: the women who played in the League personify the “female-identified experience”11 (80). In other words, the players understood their actions challenged the male-dominated institutions and society in which they lived. They actively worked to challenge this system of domination when they played the sport and in many of the careers they chose following the disbanding of the league (such as physical educators)

(80-81).

Lisa Taylor also examines A League of Their Own as a matter of analyzing the

direction of feminist film studies. She maps a history of feminist film criticism in her

essay, “From Psychoanalytic Feminism to Popular Feminism” (1995), and explores

Penny Marshall’s film, A League of Their Own. This scholar treats the history of feminist

film criticism in a remarkably balanced manner and without dismissing the significance

of various definitions of what constitutes popular media. Taylor suggests that there is an

important ongoing debate within academia in regard to the direction of feminist film

criticism. One school of thought incorporates a reality that women’s daily lives are

structured through a patriarchal system of oppression, which they should fight to

eliminate. The other school of thought operates in a women-centered world with the

goal of redefining women’s experiences outside of the said system of oppression (156-

159).

Taylor emphasizes the need to move beyond the concentrations on and

arguments against Laura Mulvey’s psychoanalytic work and to present film within the

historical context of the period of creation, to understand that power relations are

changeable, and that women are not without power. Taylor does not exclusively write

11 See also Adrienne Rich, Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence 1986, 73 and Catharine Mackinnon, Feminism Unmodified 1987, 120‐121. 21 about Marshall’s film, but does so to suggest that scholars in the field embrace a woman-centered social feminist historical approach to film criticism (152, 154,157-158).

Taylor situates Marshall as a social feminist because she demonstrates that

Marshal utilizes the medium of film to recover this part of women’s sports history and encourage collective activism (167). By doing so, Taylor also situates herself as a social feminist. This scholar argues that Marshall constructs the film to provide an example of how these women supported and empowered one another. She evidences her claim through the relationships of the players. For example, Mae Mardabito (Madonna) tutors

Shirley Baker, (Ann Cusack) while the collective experience of playing in the league teaches individual players to value themselves and their contributions to the sport

(consider Doris Murphy, [Rosie O’Donnell] and others players’ transformations) (168-

169). The individual struggle is a part of the collective. A history of women’s struggle for equality in their everyday lives is a part of what Marshall is attempting to highlight from her position behind the camera, directing the actresses in front of the camera, and challenging the viewer in front of the screen. The most important points for Taylor are reclaiming feminist film history, recognizing a variety of feminine representations within film, which do not lack power, avoiding gender essentialist methods for critiquing film, and fostering collective political action (158-159, 167, 169).

Bodybuilding

Douglas Sadao Aoki wrote, “Posing the Subject: Sex, Illumination, and ‘Pumping

Iron II’: The Women” (1999), to illustrate how bodybuilding and this film, complicate the notions of sex and femininity. To construct his main points he subscribes to Kaja

Silverman’s ideas regarding the Lacanian visual field. In other words, Aoki is trying to

22 point out that female bodybuilding creates tension in a gendered society because the competitors work within but also between the expectations of gender performance and likewise bridge a gap between the real and the imaginary. The film itself bridges this gap because the filmmakers create a real bodybuilding event upon which to center the narrative. Aoki focuses on gender rather exclusively, admitting that a discussion of race and class are also necessary to reveal more holistic meaning for the representations within this landmark film and to highlight the space in between the real and imaginary in

Lacanian terms (24).

The author suggests that the bodybuilding contest itself creates a new standard of a “perfect woman”; one that is in constant flux, but has a starting point in the film.

According to Aoki, the director, George Butler constructed the film to complicate notions of gender by focusing on four female bodybuilders with varying expressions of femininity and masculinity. By including hyper-feminine and hyper-masculine female bodybuilders this scholar states that Butler intentionally muddles the competitors’ expressed gender to complicate the concept of the future or perfect woman while at the same suggesting the bodies lack difference. This is articulated through the establishing scene where the female competitors’ bodes are examined by the camera erasing their race and gender performance and cementing their bodies as subjects (27). Yet, the filmmakers reveal the central message within and through the results of the competition.

The most powerful part of this author’s work is his exploration of the polarity and interconnectedness of the real and imaginary in Lacanian terms and in relation to strength and the sport of bodybuilding. At once, the sport and the film mask the lack of strength of the female bodybuilder during competitions. In order to present their bodies

23 on stage as muscular as physically possible, bodybuilders deplete their bodies of fat and water concurrently, creating a danger to their health. This depletion substantiates the invisibility of the weakness of the bodybuilder thus creating a masked image of strength. Aoki rightly claims this creates a polarity and a juncture in Lacanian terms of the icon (image) and index (measurable) or of the real and imaginary body because the body presented only appears as a symbol of strength (32).

Aoki demonstrates the interconnectedness of the real and the imaginary by detailing the scenes of training and competition of the so–called least feminine yet physically strongest competitor, Beverly Francis. In the film, Francis is clearly depicted as the strongest of the females in the training scenes because she lifts more than the other females. However, she becomes incredibly weak as the competition approaches.

This scholar asserts,

…female bodybuilding, despite its semiotics, hinges on a different axis, that between the imaginary and the real of the body; the iconicity and the indexicality of strength; the image of a woman without real precedent; the bodybuilder getting smaller and weaker in order to look bigger and stronger; and the women growing in imaginary size through starving herself. One of the film’s strengths is that it documents how the particular illumination of Francis’s body is powerfully real because it is imaginary (34).

Aoki states that the sport “merges” and distances the performance and the performer and supports this notion with Silverman’s explication of Lacanian notions of the visual field (34, 35).

Unique to the sport of bodybuilding, according to Aoki, is the concept of the pose. The bodybuilding performance is epitomized by the pose of the subject on stage and light necessary to measure the image of (false) strength. The subject presents herself through the pose and likewise provides the image of

herself as the subject through this act. Therefore, the performance of posing by

the performer merges the two in the minds of the spectator. Alternatively, the

“distance” between the subject and the act of bodybuilding is broken down when

Francis dances onto the stage and alternates female and male poses during the

final competition, thus eliminating the potential for an un-gendered performance

(35).

A precedent was set in this film: femininity must be expressed to be

victorious (Aoki 37). The victor in this competition was Dunlap because she

concurrently occupied the marginal or middle space as a bodybuilder and a

feminine space that ultimately legitimize the sport and film (41). The body is

always posed and suggested through pose, but each bodybuilding pose in the

film opens space for the possibility of eliminating the polarity of the gendered

world primarily because it is not a male posing. Each body is posed and there is

a cultural expectation connected to each pose. This cultural expectation of the

body builder as male is problematized by female inclusion in the sport (34).

Aoki concludes by positing that female bodybuilding is not intrinsically

unfeminine, but the performance veils or unveils (sometimes both at the same time) the sex and gender of the subject. This (un)veiling of the subject has profound connections to many other forms of performance (41). Aoki is not the only scholar investigating the implications of bodybuilding films.

Chris Holmlund also investigates the meaning of gender in the bodybuilding films through her analysis of Pumping Iron and Pumping Iron II within her critical essay,

“Visible Difference and Flex Appeal: The Body, Sex, Sexuality, and Race in the

‘Pumping Iron’ Films” (1997). She discovers that the films are more similar in their “flex appeal” and use of advertising components in their construction than expected at first glance. Holmlund states that both films dismiss a history of the sport and likewise the films falsely suggest that bodybuilding is a modern sport. For this scholar, the filmmakers irresponsibly highlight the gender and sexuality of the competitors while simultaneously omitting racial difference and collapsing economic class. The similarity of the films convey the idea that female bodybuilding is becoming a legitimate sport.

And the competitors, Carla Dunlap and Bev Francis, offer alternative visions of femininity inherent to an athletic female body (152, 157).

This scholar concludes by saying that the fascinating part about the construction of the films is that they suppress visual difference and use visual difference to market the sport through their, “appeal to the body”. In other words, the future of the sport depends on the ability of marketers to successfully market the sexual aspects of the sport to a primarily heterosexual audience. In order for the film and sport to be successful, Holmlund contends that the competitors must at once appear sexually attractive and different from one another. Likewise, the author establishes a strong connection between the “natural” body and the capitalist economy of sport (157, 158).

Additional Focused Studies

The editors of Visual Economies In/Of Motion also direct the reader’s attention to the economy of sport films throughout their anthology. C. Richard King and David J.

Leonard compiled essays regarding the genre to explore the meaning of the,

“production and consumption” of sport films, but do not limit this study to feature or documentary films. Within this book, the authors are concerned with the

intersectionality of race, class, gender, and sexuality as well as the implications of

nationalism and globalization (9).

These scholars implement a variety of qualitative methodologies, utilizing critical

postcolonial, post-structuralist, psychoanalytic, racial theories and those of collective

memory in order to understand the significance of the modern sport film. However, the

focus is clearly on the contemporary relationship between sporting and screen

identities. The editors of this anthology concern themselves with the importance of this

genre in the screening of power relations and suggest the genre’s ability to socialize

outside of a theater (King and Leonard 3,4,7).

The editors admit the collective work does not engage in the quest to understand

the history of the genre (7-8). They do, however, dedicate a section about memory and

the modern sport film including the works of David J. Leonard, David Zirin, and Holly

Kruse, who are concerned with representations of the past within modern sport film.

These last contributions may be the most useful even if the scholars’ approaches vary

considerably. Leonard’s investigation uncovers the white supremist nature of Hoosiers

(1986) and Rudy (1993). He suggests that these films serve as nostalgic reflections on a supposedly better time in America unencumbered by multicultural politics. David

Zirin’s focus is the misrepresentation of Depression Era America in Cinderella Man

(2005) (King and Leonard 201). Kruse concerns herself less with film reception or production and more with the marketing of sport film and how people think about the past. This scholar turns to Seabiscuit (2003) as the lens through which to analyze how people think about the past in the present and how, ultimately, history presented on screen is fictionalized (King and Leonard 8).

Emily A. Dane’s intention in her work, “Gendered Images in Sport Film: What

Messages Are Being Sent?” (2007), was to uncover how the filmmakers portrayed male and female athletes. Using three films focusing on female athletes and three films featuring male athletes, Dane provides a quantitative analysis and comparison of the characterization of the athletes in Million Dollar Baby (2004), Miracle (2004), Bend it

Like Beckham (2002), Radio (2003), Girlfight (2000), and Remember the Titans (2000).

Dane’s focus regarded three variables, “One, the gender of the movie and its target audience, two the role of the athlete or non-athlete in the film, and three, the behavioral characteristics demonstrated by the movie characters” (52). It is important to note that

Dane did not choose to look at exclusively Hollywood or American film, but she focused on film created since 2000, which is very common for contemporary scholars of sports films.

This scholar employed a regression matrix to reveal a possible multicollinearlity among the portrayals of male and female athletes.

This is by no means a conclusive study nor does it seem to consider the historical context of the images. Moreover, there are many other films to consider from the same time frame of this scholar’s study. Dane makes the claim that the impact of Title IX is not likely to be visible in the chosen films because they depicted events that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s (57).

Dane’s most significant contribution is her conclusion that no one character exhibited a polarity of gender characteristics. Given the sample size, the scope of her study is small. But, there is an important point to be made here: both the female and male athlete expressed roughly the identical percentages of male and female

characteristics in the films studied. Supporting characters’ expressions varied

considerably. Yet, Dane concludes, “This study shows that there is still adherence to

traditional behavioral characteristics in sport films” (58). She does point out that the

contrast between the female athletes’ and other female characters’ expression of

gender in the film suggests that female athletes must act like men in order to be

considered, “in the same ballpark as the men” (63). Dane contributes to the discussion

of the meaning of athletic representations in sport film, and an expansion of the sample

size would strengthen her argument. This scholar suggests that future research about

the impact of the images of male and female athletes should regard the spectator (62-

63).

Leelannee K. Malin also conducted a quantitative analysis of several films

through her work entitled, Reel Women: Depictions of Females in the Sport Film Genre

(2007). Malin utilizes an “open, axial, selective coding procedure” along with genre

analysis to study Jerry Maguire (1996), He Got Game (1998) Any Given Sunday (1999),

Love and Basketball (2000), Remember the Titans (2000), Friday Night Lights (2004),

Coach Carter (2005), and Glory Road (2006). This researcher’s goal was to understand

the extent of the institutionalization of female stereotypes within modern sports films and

likewise within the Hollywood machine. While many of the films included several female

stereotypes, Malin uncovers that each of the eight films included at least one character

depicting a female stereotype. One of the most daunting revelations of this scholar’s

work is the recognition that the film with the highest number of portrayal of female

stereotypes was the only film written and directed by a female, Love and Basketball (v,

101).

Malin claims that the result of wide use of stereotypes in Hollywood sports films

serves to further marginalize women not only through their representations on screen,

but also behind the camera within the studio system. She admits that the female is

always already subordinated to the male in the sports drama and this is a definitive limit

to her analysis (107). Overall, the connections she makes between her results and the

male-dominated film industry point to the need for change behind the camera, in the writing room, and in the casting calls.

Demetrius Pearson, Russell Curtis, C. Allen Haney, and James J. Zhang collaborated on their article, “Sport Films: Social Dimensions over time, 1930-1995”

(2003). These scholars assert there exists a major shift in the content and number of sports films over the course of the 20th century. Moreover, physical contact sport films and sports films connected with the working class increased in number over the time period studied. They also discovered that filmmakers made fewer sport films in the

1960s in comparison with other decades (145, 154, 156-158). The authors’ major contribution to sport film history comes in the form of the historical explanations provided for the differences in the quantitative data collected for each decade examined.

Pearson et al. relate American political, economic, and sometimes social history with that of the history of sport film to articulate the changes in the genre. The exception to this is was the physical contact sport films, which saw a decline in number explained as a displacement as the total number of sport films increased. The authors explain patterns of increase in the type of sport depicted by the “democratization” of

postindustrial societies, which ideally create more opportunities. In other words, as

America entered into a postindustrial period, there was a change in the images and

kinds of sports stories portrayed in the sport film genre (159).

During difficult economic time periods, sports that require little to no equipment or

costly training were considered appealing. Therefore, elite sports, such as polo,

swimming, golf, tennis and horseracing saw less coverage over the course of the 20th century (156,158). Overall, there was a 27% drop in the number of sport films from what the authors term the “traditional period” from 1930-1959 and the “modern period” 1960-

1995, which the scholars find alarming (151). Curiously enough, these authors create a baseline study for future comparison. Yet, they do not tackle subjectivities beyond class except as an afterthought in their conclusion (159-160).

Demetrius Pearson also wrote, “Absence of Power: Sheroes in Sport Films Post

Title IX,” (2010) within which he asks why there is little change in women’s sport films following the implementation of the historic legislation. Pearson conducted a content analysis of thirty-four sports films specifically featuring women in leadership roles. This scholar concludes that women are seldom in positions of power or leadership. When they are, it is rarely portrayed as a merit-based appointment. The heterosexual attractiveness of the lead female character was more important than the film’s story.

The films were frequently of the comedy genre. And finally, Pearson remarks that there is a considerable lack of biographical films of women in sports (233, 243-244).

Although Pearson limited his study chronologically and by character position, he nonetheless contributes to the ongoing conversation regarding women’s sport film.

According to this scholar, Hollywood and genre itself are responsible for the slow advance of women in sport film, but there is hope for future advances as evidenced by

31 the recent and positive images of female athletes within Girlfight (2000) and Love and

Basketball (2000) (244).

Katharina Linder’s recent publication, “Bodies in Action: Female Athleticism on the Cinema Screen” (2011) explores a survey of modern sports films including a female protagonist. This author suggests the female athletic body challenges normative notions of race, class, age, and sexuality and likewise opens up space for a new vision of gender. This scholar posits that the female athletic body on the screen is a site of resistance and empowerment for women. In her study, Lindner focuses exclusively on sports film from the last two decades. Admittedly, she states that her work is foundational in that much further research should be completed regarding the meaning of the representation of the female body (321, 336-337). However, her definitions and general comments about sports films are useful in conceptualizing extended research on this topic.

Dayna B. Daniels contributed to the discussion of the female athlete in film with her article, “You Throw Like a Girl: Sport and Misogyny on the Silver Screen,” (2005), by illustrating the ways in which filmmakers historically portray female athletes. This scholar attempts to historicize American sport film through her discussion without respect to the sex of the protagonist (a focus unlike many of her peers). Daniels posits the misogynistic language used in Hollywood sports films evidences the subordination of the female athlete within this genre. Also, she notes that filmmakers rather consistently highlight the feminine aspects of a female athlete in the sport film over her

athletic ability, which undermines the acceptability of her identification as an athlete (29,

32, 34, 35).12

The strength of Daniels’ work is the outline of two misogynistic stereotypes that

pervade sport film: a female athlete simply wants to be a man and the female athlete is

a lesbian. She rightfully claims these stereotypes inhibit the female athlete’s

advancement in the world of sport. Finally, she suggests that the sport film concurrently

inhibits the full inclusion of women in sport and is likely a key to gender parity in sport

(36, 37).

Maud Lavin expands the study of women’s sport films in an chapter within her

book, Push Comes to Shove: New Images of Aggressive Women (2010), as a part of a larger statement regarding media representations of gendered aggression. This scholar examines the sibling relationships and sibling-like relationships within sport films to articulate the variety of aggressive expressions found within this film genre (18).

Lavin analyzes three recent Hollywood sport films, Blue Crush (2002), Stick It

(2006), and Bring It On (2000) in order to evidence the ways that representations of aggression are becoming less gendered, yet still confined by heteronormative models.

She claims that women (especially femme women) need not and do not simply “imitate” male forms of aggression, but help to create a “gender continuum” which is healthy for the individual and for a democratic society (65). Sport films featuring aggressive female characters contribute to the expansion of our ideas about gendered aggression and likewise contribute to our understanding of gendered social relations and the structure

12 Daniels also published this article in All Stars and Movie Stars: Sports in film and history. Briley, Ron et. al. eds. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2008, 105-128. And she published a very similar article entitled, “Gender Slurs: Motivation through misogyny in sports films” in Sexual Sports Rhetoric: Global and universal contexts. Linda K. Fuller. ed. New York: Peter Lang, 2010. 33

of power. Finally, Lavin states that the benefits of Title IX are not only seen on the court,

field, or track, but also in front of and behind the camera. The increased representation

of the female athlete on the screen has far-reaching social, political, and economic

effect on gender relations (64-67).

Molly Merryman wrote, “Gazing at Artemis: The Active Female Archetype in Film”

(1994) to highlight the development and lack of development in American sports films

featuring female athletes and action heroines. She notes the relationship between the

ancient Greek goddess, Artemis’ strength and physicality and the contemporary female

athlete. Specifically, she states that the Artemis archetype in film is evident when the

individual character’s strength, talents, and skill are highlighted and coupled with the

goal of winning and/or surviving (Creedon, Women Media and Sport 300-301).

This scholar claims that the Artemis archetype is inconsistently related in

American sports films featuring female athletes. Merryman examines the sports films,

Personal Best (1982), Heart Like a Wheel (1983), A League of Their Own (1992), and

Pumping Iron II (1984) to clarify her position. She excludes the characters in Personal

Best and those in A League of Their Own from her categorization not because there is a

lack of competitiveness, but because there is a lack of individual competitiveness.

Instead, you see collaboration and consideration. On the other hand, the characters in

Heart Like a Wheel and Pumping Iron II sought to win the competition and this drove the

main plot and action of both the films (304-306). Also, she critiques the character of

Sarah Connor in the Terminator series as a prototypical Artemis, an argument, which detracts from her main point about the female athlete and creates imbalance (309-312).

Nevertheless, Merryman proved that women’s cinema is still evolving and those

34 involved in filmmaking certainly began to acknowledge the female spectator through the seemingly intentional implementation of the Artemis archetype in modern action and sport film.

Full Length Works

In 1982, Ronald Bergan published Sports in the Movies in order to highlight the significance of this genre to the field of film studies and the importance of the films to society as a whole. Within his work, Bergan accurately suggested that there were few instances in which the female athlete is the focus of sport film as defined at that time

(11). The following scholars offer more recent perspectives on the sports film albeit with differing approaches. Generally, these authors agree with Bergen that there has been little change in the subordinate representation of the female athlete over the course of the history of the genre.

Mark C. Wallington wrote a thesis entitled, “Portrayal Changes of the American

Athlete in Popular Film,” in 1993, within which he primarily details a history of the male athlete in sport film. He includes a section on women in the sport film examining the female athlete, coach, and owner of sport teams. Wallington applies Linda K. Fuller’s stereotypes of women in baseball film to the majority of representations of women in sport film. Those stereotypes include “the Vamp, who causes the heroes downfall; the

Homebody, who suffers with the athlete and wants him to quit; and the Upstart, who desires to enter the world of sports and is ridiculed for her effort” (79).

Wallington’s work is more explanatory than analytical. He traces the history of the portrayal of women in sports films from 1970 to 1993, with few exceptions. He concludes that there are few serious treatments of women within sport film.

Nonetheless, the representations of the female athlete in sports films increased since

1970 and those that exist are encouraging positive images (78, 95).

Deborah Tudor wrote, Hollywood’s Vision of Team Sports: Heroes, Race and

Gender (1997), a scholarly work dedicated to exploring subjectivities within the

American sport film. Her analysis of gender, the family and the athletic hero partially focuses on the supportive role of women in sport films as mother, daughter, sister, or romantic interest in relation to the male athletic hero. She claims that the representations of women in sport film with male protagonists rarely challenge or trouble gender relations (79, 80). The positioning of women in sport films within the domestic sphere and within the reproduction of the family unit is not, according to Tudor, challenged in any real sense. She says, “This function of women has not been laid to rest by any feminist influence on sport films. Although there are some sports films inflected by post-feminist notions, the old stereotype still endures” (92). The scope of her work does not encourage an exploration of the sports films with a female athlete and heroine.

Aaron Baker dedicates a chapter of his book, Contesting Identities: Sports in

American Film, (2003) to a discussion of gender. Within this he posits that representations of women in film rarely extend beyond the dominant and traditional patriarchal “model,” which subordinates the female athlete to the male athlete. He articulates his thesis by examining four films, which feature a female athlete and protagonist (Hard, Fast, and Beautiful (1951), Pat and Mike (1952), Personal Best

(1982), and Pumping Iron II (1985). He suggests that although Halberstam’s ideas of female masculinity and Christine Holmlund’s notion of masquerade of femininity allow

36 for a wider variety of female representations, it is only with the recent films, Love and

Basketball (2001) and Girlfight (2000) that viewers see female athletes who can be successful in their own right and without social consequence to themselves. Baker concludes this section and his previous article, “A New Combination: Women and the boxing film,” (2000) by claiming it is difficult to determine the extent the role women’s physical strength plays in their reaching the ideal full equality (78, 84). He does not take a position and likewise calls for further research of the female athlete within sports films.

There are few extensive scholarly works with an exclusive focus on sports film. There are fewer still, extensive studies which focus on the female athlete in said films. The scholars reviewed here assert that the female athlete is subordinate to the male athlete, that the increased representation of the female athlete on screen challenges the gender binary, and that the very recent changes to her representation can work to end the marginalization of women in sport and sport film. Of these scholarly works, few mention the impact and significance of Pre-Title IX sports film featuring the reel female athlete. I endeavor through my work to uncover the story of the reel (and sometimes real athlete) in Pre-Title IX sports films within their historical context and to shed light on the importance of recovering this history.

CHAPTER TWO

IN SLOW MOTION: NATURALIZING DIFFERENCE IN EARLY SPORTS CINEMA

Introduction “As long as we remain physically oppressed, we can’t be free” – Colette Dowling, The

Frailty Myth, (41).

In the 1890s and well into the twentieth century, the founder of the modern

Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin contributed to the naturalization of athletics as a

male or masculine domain. He endorsed the frailty myth and likewise the biomedical

model of sport when he asserted that women’s athletics was unnatural and unaesthetic.

Coubertin consistently discouraged women’s competitions throughout his life and career

(Choi 13). Many people shared Coubertin’s ideas on women’s athletics and physical activity.13 Why did people work so diligently to exclude women from sports and athletic

competitions? What is the relationship between the reel female athlete in early women’s

sports cinema and notions of gender and sport? In this second chapter, I detail how

filmmakers and characters in each of the selected films incorporated the biomedical

model and frailty myth within each historical context and thus inhibited the progression

of the sports feminist movement. To do so, I discuss the “scientific” naturalization of

sport as a gendered domain and elements that contribute to the social conditioning of

this difference.

In Femininity and the Physically Active Woman, (2000) Prescilla Y.L. Choi states

that until the latter part of the 20th century, biomedical essentialists cited that women’s

13 See also, Hargreaves, Jennifer. Sporting Females: Critical Issues in the History and Sociology of Womens’ Sport. London: Routledge, 1994. 38

only material purpose was reproduction (14). The biomedical model outlines that

doctors’ and patients’ goals should be to preserve health. Therefore, women should

avoid anything that could disrupt this function (Mangan and Park 19). During the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was a commonly held belief that women’s physical exertion could impact her ability to have children. A woman who was unwilling or unable to reproduce was thought of as diseased and thus she was eligible for treatment. Scientific research of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries largely disproved these theories surrounding women and physical activity (Choi 16, 18).14 But, it is important to consider that this biomedical model was the structure that filmmakers and athletes were working within during much of the period under study. Dowling

cements the history of the social implications of the biomedical essentialist model Choi

and others articulate.

Dowling wrote The Frailty Myth, (2000), within which she states that this myth, “is about the social domination of women’s bodies. . . For centuries women have been shackled to the perception of themselves as weak and ineffectual” (6). She says that at the turn of the twentieth century, medical theories (such as the biomedical model) buttressed the myth that convinced most women that they were physically inferior (14).

As a result of the Industrial Revolution, women’s physical labor was in less demand.15

Women’s physical strength became culturally (and economically) less valuable and as such was no longer considered a feminine characteristic (12). Dowling claims that by

14 See also Gannon, L. “The Impact of Medical and Sexual Politics on Women’s Health, Feminism, and Psychology,” Feminism and Psychology. 1998, 8(3): 285-302. 15 See also, Mangan, J.A. and Roberta J. Park. From Fair Sex to Feminism: Sport and the Socialization of Women in the Industrial And Post-Industrial Eras. London: Frank Cass and Co. 1986. Goldin, Claudia D. Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. 39

the late Victorian Era women were systematically denied the physical development of

their bodies (26). Filmmakers and actresses alike incorporated the frailty myth into the portrayal of the early reel female athlete in the films under study and this certainly limited the expansion of the sports feminist movement.

Understanding that the biomedical model and the frailty myth enables the maintenance of the gender hierarchy of athletics helps explain the filmmakers’ careful and conventionalist portrayal of the early reel female athlete. It is important to have a reference point for analysis of the films in order to recognize patterns in sports films featuring female athletes. This second chapter forms a foundation for studying and understanding of the history of early women’s sports cinema.

The Biomedical Model

“The most vociferous biological position, which attempts to justify sport as the natural

order of things for men but not for women is women’s reproductive capacity.”- Prescilla

Y. L. Choi, in The Physically Active Woman (16).

Choi explains that sports were firmly naturalized along sex and gender lines within the medical community in the late 19th and early 20th centuries without research

or data to back up the claims. Women were reduced to their biological function long

before the sports revolution of the late 19th century. People believed medical authorities

because of the discriminatory attitudes regarding the naturalness of sport that did not

emerge in during this timeframe, but were well-entrenched ideological constructs that

evolved over previous centuries (14).

Likewise, it is unreasonable to suggest that filmmakers purposefully integrated

the biomedical model into their stories. Regardless of the conscious or subconscious

nature of the obligatory infusion of this model into the films, it surfaces consistently in

early women’s sports cinema.16 Here, I evidence how filmmakers of early women’s sports cinema consistently reduce the female athlete to her biological function and employ medical doctors’ opinions and advice as unquestionable authority. As a result these films reinforce the idea that sports and athletics are naturally a male domain.

Many of the filmmakers present the idea that a female could not possibly perform in a physical capacity as common knowledge. Even in this most seemingly progressive genre filmmakers reduce the female athlete to her reproductive function.

The filmmakers present the biomedical model of sport as self-evident. This concept is not discussed or visually represented with clear connection to sport in a palpable manner. Nevertheless, the message is clear: if you are female, it is impossible to know anything about athletics or sport. Likewise, it is not natural for women or girls to perform in any physical way. Females are to look good, attract a husband and bear children, preferably male children.

Within the film, National Velvet the biomedical model is demonstrated through subtle comments within the narrative of the family. For example, Mr. Brown articulates the standard that the biological sex of a person defines the function of the person. He implies that women have a distinct function as wife and mother through his comments at the dinner table. Early in the film, Mr. Brown tells his daughters, “How many times must

I tell you young girls, that you only have your faces for your fortunes.” In other words, he wishes his daughters to primarily concern themselves with their appearances. The implication of this very matter-of-fact statement confirms the perspective that the

16 This could be said about any of the models discussed here. I am not suggesting there was a completely intentionally use of the concepts and theories discussed here. Instead, I am suggesting that filmmakers internalized these ideas and as a result the ideas materialize in the films. 41 primary function of the female is as wife and mother. In addition, there are many scenes when Velvet is reminded to put her braces back in her mouth, which reinforce her father’s dinner table commentary about his daughter’s position in society. Of course other films under study reflect the embedded but clearly caustic nature of the biomedical model on women’s sport.

Within the film, Fiesta, the characters also firmly subscribe to the reductionist perspective of biomedical model and the idea that biology cements destiny in sport. The establishing scene validates the idea that a female’s function is to bear children and that the medical community affirms the perspective. Fiesta begins with the birth of the twins,

Maria and Mario Morales. Antonio Morales, the father and great Mexican matador announces the birth of his daughter without much enthusiasm in comparison with that of his son. When Antonio’s second child is born he asks the doctor to confirm the child is male. The doctor exclaims, “ This is a boy. Take my word for it.” At once, the viewer witnesses a transformation on the part of Antonio, who announces Mario’s birth with great pride, “Meet my son, Mario Morales, the future greatest matador.” The medical authority is the doctor and his confirmation of a male child authorizes Antonio to proclaim that this second child can be the greatest matador.

Take also the fact that Antonio does not introduce or name his daughter to the crowd waiting in the courtyard of his home because it is self-evident to him that she could not have a function in the goals of his sport. The other obvious point made in the establishing scene of this film is the lack of a significant presence of Antonio’s wife.

Senora Morales fulfilled her role in bearing children and particularly well in bearing a

42 male child. Her and her daughter’s lack of significant space within the sequence only further cements the hierarchy of the biomedical model of sport.

In the film, Billie, Mike, Billie’s father, Howard, and her track coach corroborate the biology as destiny perspective of the biomedical model. Take for example that

Billie’s friend, Mike, does not believe she could know anything about track simply because of her sex. After watching Mike’s unsuccessful effort at the high jump, Billie approaches Mike on the track and introduces herself. Then she describes what he is doing incorrectly. He asks, “Are you the coach?” When she says that she is not the coach he exclaims, “that’s good!” and turns his back to her. His body movements and his dismissive tone suggest he believes she could not possibly be of any help to him since she is a girl. Consider that even Billie’s coach initially mistakes her for a boy, falsely insinuating that only males can compete at an elite level. Her father also does not believe that she can make the team. He actually says that the very idea of her making the track team was, “ridiculous.”

Director, Don Weis casts Billie first and foremost as a female, which prioritizes her identity through her biological function. The male track team members most clearly reduce Billie to her “natural” function in the first locker room scene. After the time trials the male track team members are changing in the locker room. Instead of discussing

Billie’s stellar performance they are commenting on the fact that she is a girl. They make sexist comments such as, “watching her from behind makes losing a pleasure,”

“she’s liable to put Harding on the map…,” “the only school in the country with its own built in date,” and “I saw her first.” The coach’s entrance into the locker room breaks up the talk among the team members, yet their perspective is clear: She is a girl and could

be a girlfriend. There is no discussion suggesting that her presence could serve any

other function like winning a meet. Instead, the discussion reduces Billie to her

biological function.

Another basic reductionist reflection of the biomedical model is referenced in Pin

Down Girls through the Ms. Ruby’s, the gym manager’s, discussion with Scalli, the gym

owner. Ms. Ruby walks in on Scalli and Peaches kissing and pointedly remarks, “Am I

intruding? … That’s alright; I guess I am old enough to take a hint… it doesn’t seem so

long ago that I too believed your lies. But, I guess it won’t be long until I am not even

wanted around here. . . Take your hands off me. I can still remember your lies about all

the wonderful things you were going to do for me. Sure, look at me now, picking up

towels in a gym locker room.” The director, Robert C. Dertano shot this sequence in a

medium shot giving credence to Ms. Ruby’s diatribe and Scalli’s lack of a significant

retort. Scalli replaced Ms. Ruby with Peaches the new, younger wrestler as his star and

girlfriend. In this sequence the central message is that each woman has a shelf life not

in regard to her peak athletic performance or potential per se, but in regard to her

biological function.

Perspectives relating to the biomedical model of sport were not limited to

reductionist or ‘biology as destiny’ perspectives, but also included those related to medical opinions (taken as fact) that stated women were not physiologically constructed to endure rigorous and sustained exercises. Medical authorities in the late 19th and early

20th century often suggested women limit the amount and intensity of exercise in order to preserve the female’s reproductive potential. Thus, protecting women and girls from the “effects” of exertion through exercise was a popular campaign among doctors during

this time period. Doctors touted the notion that exertion of one part of the body caused

exertion of the whole, including reproductive organs. (Choi 16; Dowling 14; Lenskyj, Out of Bounds 18-20, 25-28).17

Take for example the film, Girls Can Play. Because many people still bought into the idea that women were highly susceptible to over-exertion, Foy Harris will use this as his defense when he murders Sue Collins. Although the viewer is aware of Foy Harris’s poisoning Sue Collins, the writers of this story and screenplay still exploited the susceptibility of the American public to believe the medical authorities initial reaction to her death. In the scene following Sue’s collapse and death, the coroner makes a blanket statement regarding the cause of death. The coroner states, “I’d say it was heart failure due to over exertion. I think the autopsy will verify that” And Foy says, “I was afraid of her health, but she wouldn’t quit playing.” To which the coroner validates his contention, “I know exactly how you feel.” At the time of this film’s release the idea that a woman could over-exert herself was not farfetched.

Detective Flannigan thinks otherwise and ask the coroner if it was possible that there was another cause of death. The coroner, with certainty responds, “Now, the girl had a weak heart. She persisted in violent exercises. You can’t make a mystery out of this, Flannigan!” This series of questions and answers suggest that the doctor’s certainty is borne out of experience since he obviously has years on the other men in the room. Even if the viewer knows that Sue was murdered by poison, this sequence

17 See also, Lenskyj, Helen. Out of Bounds: Women, Sport and Sexuality. Toronto: Women’s Press, 1986, 17-19 and Mangan, J.A. and Roberta J. Park. From Fair Sex to Feminism: Sport and the Socialization of Women in the Industrial And Post-Industrial Eras. London: Frank Cass and Co. 1986, 15, 19. 45 endorses the (supposed) physically disastrous consequences of over exertion on the female body, professed by the medical community during this time frame.

The last scene in which we see women playing softball is during the scene when

Sue collapses. Taking into account this last scene and the coroner’s subsequent comments regarding exertion, the filmmakers leave the impression that the medical opinion is unquestionably the truth; women cannot persist in “violent exercises” without physical consequence. Thus, there exist limits to the extent to which filmmakers can or will portray a physically talented female. The female characters in Girls Can Play often demonstrate a decisive connection to the biomedical model.

Creating an enduring heroine for the audience was virtually impossible for filmmakers. Considering that early 20th century consciousness of the biomedical model included the belief that women’s energy should only be used for reproduction, filmmakers necessarily walked a fine line in order for the heroine to accomplish any personal physical goals. What then was the purpose of exhibiting women’s physical capabilities within the context of a film?

In several of the films studied here, the filmmakers’ agenda (beyond the financial) are confused and complex. Clearly, several films were supposed to be considered within a fantasy context, apart from a real world. Hence, there was no purpose for the demonstration of female physical prowess beyond the fantastical and/or less threatening dream world. Many times, this is demonstrated through a binary of the reality and fantasy signified in some obvious manner. Within the films, Venus of the

South Seas and Million Dollar Mermaid, reality and fantasy are established through the duality of the land (reality) and sea (fantasy). By using this model, I posit that these

filmmakers conformed to the biomedical model in that the sole biological purpose of the

female was found on land and in reality was her reproductive function.

By the time her last film, Venus of the South Seas, released, Annette Kellerman

was commonly referred to as a mermaid because of her history of aquatic films and

vaudeville performances (Gibson 51, 112-133).18 Not surprisingly then, Kellerman plays

Shona, the princess named Gwytha, and the mermaid during the fairytale hour

sequence in this film. It is this fairytale sequence that illuminates Kellerman’s

competence in the water. Describing her as a mermaid seems harmless.

Yet a mermaid is, in effect, a woman with bound legs. A mermaid on land is

misplaced. Kellerman as Shona, the princess, and the mermaid may be the most

powerful in the water, but the plot of the film proves that those skills do not have a

significant role outside of the water. In other words, a mermaid’s fin won’t get her very

far on dry land where she will marry Robert (and presumably have children). Moreover,

we do not see Gwytha or the mermaid again which isolates the performance to the

water. On the other hand, Shona’s swimming and diving skills had an equally isolated

place on the island working with her father in the pearl trade. As the film ends, Shona

and Robert leave the island and ostensibly the region. Without her role as a great diver

and swimmer one can conclude her function will be reduced to that of creating and

maintaining the family.

Esther Williams plays vaudeville and film star Annette Kellerman in the film,

Million Dollar Mermaid. The filmmakers incorporate the binary of the real and unreal or

land and sea in this film as well. A clear example of this binary is found in the closing

18 See also Erdman, Andrew L. Blue Vaudeville: Sex, Morals and the Mass Marketing of Amusement, 1895-1915. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co, 2004, 94-99. 47

scene when Jimmy visits Annette in the hospital after she was injured on a film shoot.

He encourages her to get well quickly and says, “. . . I once told you, wet you’re terrific.

Dry you ought to marry some guy and settle down.” Not long after his comment,

Kellerman accepts Jimmy’s offer of marriage and they embrace. The director, Mervyn

LeRoy leads the audience to believe that Kellerman might not be the fantastic diver and swimmer she once was because of the accident, but her role as wife and potential mother was left intact. This filmmaker subtly disrupts the happily ever after message in the last frames wherein Kellerman looks out the window and the camera pans to reveal

the ocean. Once again, the notion of the land and sea defines the function of the female

athlete. This last frame points to the idea that she must give up the ocean for the land or

the career for the family.19

Each of the films under study evinces the biomedical model of sport in some way or another. Filmmakers demonstrate this model through scenes that focus on a reductionist perspective, biology cements destiny in sport, or creates an unsubstantiated hierarchy of sport based in biology diminishing any potential value of a female’s physical performance. Also, many of the filmmakers incorporated scenes where doctors deliver medical advice or other characters speculate on what will preserve the health of the female athlete. Either way, the medical statements are taken as indisputable truth. Hence, the embedded presence of the biomedical model as well as the frailty myth within women’s sports cinema serve only to inhibit the sports feminist movement because they contributed to the maintenance of the idea that sports are naturally a male or masculine space.

19 This is not at all how things went for Annette Kellerman in her actual life. She married, continued to work, recovered from the accident and never had children. See Gibson, Emily. The Original Million Dollar Mermaid, Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, 2005.159-164. 48

The Frailty Myth

“The big lie perpetrated on Western society is the idea of women’s inferiority, a lie so

deeply ingrained in our social behavior that merely to recognize it is to risk unraveling

the entire fabric of civilization” –Molly Haskell in From Reverence to Rape: The

Treatment of Women in the Movies, (1).

Molly Haskell writes about the “big lie” regarding women’s inferiority in her work on the relation to the historical representation of women on the silver screen. In The

Frailty Myth, Colette Dowling recognizes and expands Haskell’s “big lie” concept

through her discussion of women’s physical strength. If the biomedical model explains

the “scientific” naturalization of sport, then the frailty myth describes the social

conditioning, which resulted in the limiting women’s physical development. Dowling

highlights the idea that physical weakness is learned and therefore it can be unlearned

(40). The myth is supported by the biomedical model of sport, which as previously

articulated was flimsy at best, and by women’s fear of rape (252-253).

Filmmakers of the works under study unintentionally thread this concept through

the films because this notion is deeply entrenched. It is most commonly exposed

through scenes wherein there is a specific connection to the health of the female athlete

and/or where the female must be protected because the filmmakers portray her as not

being physically capable of fending for herself. Upon close viewing, the message

becomes clear; women need protection because they are the weaker sex. In addition,

the frailty myth is reinforced in many of the films when filmmakers introduce a

consequence for the female athlete when she does not conform to the myth. In other

words, the frailty myth is bolstered through the materialized or threatened consequence

of the female athlete’s action in the film (251).20

The large-scale adoption and maintenance of this myth was possible because people believed it was based in the “authority” of biomedical model of sport. Likewise, people maintained the frailty myth in the name of preserving women’s reproductive health. Dowling explains that women learned to be the “weaker” sex. Thus women developed a “false perception of physical incompetence” (77).21

In several of the films studied, the mother of the athlete is absent. In the cases

where she is present, she is often the bastion of social propriety. The mother figure in

Fiesta is a fine example of such a mother. She is removed from the action, often in the

home and often doing a whole lot of nothing when it comes to physical activity. Señora

Morales is literally framed by the home and kept from the matador ring. If she is doing

anything other than communicating with her family, she is often sewing. Her interest in

her children is acceptable and her desire to remain in the home demonstrates that she

chooses not to participate in the family matador experience. She retains her health as a

result of her conformity with the frailty myth. Her presence in the frame of the home

provides a baseline for comparison.

Contrast this with the lack of a matronly presence in the film, Million Dollar

Mermaid. The focus of the frailty myth turns exclusively to the character of Annette

Kellerman. In the early scenes Annette (as a child) is seen wearing braces on her legs

20 Dowling calls this fear of rape, the “rape mystique”. She says, “What I am suggesting is that rape’s power to hold women captive, to keep them constricted and fearful in their lives, grows in proportion to the depth of the belief that women are incapable of standing up to rapists” (251). Here she gives a term for the fear and threat of rape that guides the actions of women and as I argue, the action of the reel

female athlete in early women’s sports films. 21 Most of the films under study confirm the presence of the frailty myth in one way or another. 50

in order to “help” her to walk. These braces inform the viewer of her frailty. In an

establishing scene, Annette, as a little girl, decided to swim in a nearby lake in order to

try to strengthen her seemingly crippled legs. When her father discovers her in the lake,

he runs to her “rescue” from what he views as a potential drowning scenario. She is

viewed as physically incapable of walking, never mind swimming, for the first part of the

film. She was not supposed to be able to walk because of an unknown abnormality in

her legs. The concern is palpable; if she is not able to walk then she certainly should not

try to swim. Long story short, the viewer initially sees a frail girl who will challenge her

body and the frailty myth and ultimately will incur a consequence for her actions.

The term frailty myth describes the learned collective subordination of women’s bodies for the purposes of maintaining the patriarchal order of society. Specifically it socially normalized women’s physical inferiority to men. The frailty myth utilizes the biomedical model and thus convinced women that they would lose their ability to have children if they did not take up less space than men, move more slowly than men, and limit their physical development (Dowling 3-4, 40).

Patty Duke plays Billie in the film of the same name within which she rather accidently becomes a member of the high school track team. After being recruited by the coach for a tryout, her parents get wind of the revelation when the principal pays a house visit to express his discontent. In the scene when her parents confront Billie about her tryout, her mother, Agnes discourages her daughter from such an exercise.

Agnes says to Billie, “Well, it is a strenuous sport for a girl,” which serves as a warning that women should not participate in such rigorous physical activities. Dad later sees

Billie attempting the pole vault, to which he exclaims, “She’ll kill herself!”22 The viewer learns through these scenes that women and girls should not compete because they will injure themselves and this could be detrimental to her health.

The medical community often suggested rest cures for female “ailments” and

“illnesses” which included lying down and doing nothing, receiving no guests, and avoiding all reading and writing. Therefore, the medical prescription for woman’s health inhibited the development of her mind and body. A woman’s compliance with the medical community was learned from an early age and expected throughout her life

(Dowling 19, 22).

A perfect example of this idea is found in National Velvet. First of all, Velvet

Brown is the main character whose first name suggests a soft material. Second, there is

a consistent focus on Velvet’s health through the film. Comments such as, “Velvet is so

upset she must be ill,” are common. Within the sequence when the horse recovers from

his physical ailment, Mrs. Brown tells her daughter, “He is up and you will be down!”

Mrs. Brown is proof that if you do the right things you can have a family too. Moreover,

this scene reinforces Velvet’s frailty and her mother instilling in her a sense to take care

of her health.

Historically, a woman’s breasts represent her frailty. The idea that a woman’s

breasts signified her vulnerability originates with the stories of the Amazons who

supposedly cut off a breast to make shooting an arrow easier. The medical community

in the late 19th and early 20th centuries claimed that playing “rough” physical sports such

22 This exclamation is very commonly stated when an athlete is competing or athletically performing in early sports films. 52

as field hockey, basketball, or boxing could inhibit a woman’s ability to breastfeed.

People believed this even though the claim had no scientific merit (Dowling 28-29).23

If breasts signify frailty, then it is best translated in the reveal scene in National

Velvet. Velvet wins the Grand National horse race, but faints just after passing the finish

line. She is rushed to the medical area at the track, where the doctor begins to undress

her in order to examine her. As he does this there is a female nurse looking on. As the

camera zooms closer to their faces and their look of shock, the examination ends. Upon

close consideration of this scene, the medical examination ended because her sex

explains her fainting and likewise her frail nature. This immediately creates controversy

because she won the race.

The doctor instructs the nurse to put the screens up because she is a girl. One of

the officials accepts that the jockey was indeed a young girl when the doctor tells him, “I

am a doctor, sir and believe me that is a girl!” Ultimately officials disqualified her and her

horse as a consequence of her sex as this is related to her frailty as revealed through

her fainting before getting to the “enclosure”. Velvet disregards the rules of her sex and

gender by competing in the race. As a result, she must accept her disqualification.

Filmmakers ensure that the officials base the disqualification firmly upon her weak

nature as symbolized by her fainting.24

According to the frailty myth women and men learn then internalize that females

are physically inferior to males. Women therefore cannot defend themselves and must

be protected. Filmmakers substantiated this idea consistently throughout the films under

23 The idea that women’s breasts could be damaged or cease to function as a matter of athletic compeittion has been disproven (Dowling 29). See also Lenskyj, Helen. Out of Bounds: Women, Sport, and Sexuality, Toronto: Women’s Press, 1986, 20. 24 Velvet’s fainting conforms to the frailty myth, but her ability to complete the race contradicts that women cannot compete because they are physically weak. 53

study. Here I examine several scenes to validate the claim that filmmakers portray

women as in need of protection by men even in sports cinema featuring female athletes.

In the swimming films, in particular, there are a plethora of scenes which depict a

man protecting a woman athlete because her skills are not seen as useful on land.

When the pearl trader, Captain Drake, pays a visit in Venus of the South Seas, Shona’s

father protects her from this man who had an unreciprocated affection for his daughter.

As Drake bids farewell, Shona’s father has his arm tightly around Shona’s body,

restricting her movements to awkward gesturing. Later, it is Robert who must protect

her from the other crewmembers aboard the trading vessel for the same reasons. Also,

in Million Dollar Mermaid, Annette’s father, Frederick Kellerman and her love interest,

Jimmy Sullivan, protect her in numerous scenes, most of which are on dry land. Aboard the ship from Sidney, Australia her father shields her from the loose kangaroo.

One exception exists of a male protecting the female swimmer while she is in the water. In a publicity stunt, Jimmy suggests Annette swim the Thames. Near the end of her marathon swim the tide turns against Annette. Jimmy thinks she is beat and calls her into the boat, “That’s enough, honey. Come on aboard! You’ll kill yourself fighting this tide!” This scene signifies that Annette does not know what is good for her and she cannot make the correct decisions to protect herself. Therefore, someone else must make these decisions in order to protect her health. But, in this instance she finished the race since they discover she is not far from the landing.

Once they are on land and reporters show up to interview Annette, there is a significant transference of the role of protector from her father to Jimmy. Frederick tells

Jimmy, “Sullivan, you will have to get them out of there. The child is exhausted!”

Annette is purposefully not present in this scene. Thus the message is clear: she is not

capable of defending herself.

Foy Harris, the gangster in Girls can Play, was for a time attempting to protect his girlfriend and softball team captain, Sue Collins, from perceived danger from nemesis gangsters out to get him. He tells her to go out one night so that his enemies would not find her at the apartment alone. Later when Jimmy Jones finds out that Foy murdered

Sue he tries to protect Ann Casey. He says to Casey on the phone, “Listen Casey, you stay right where you are! . . No, no, don’t do that! This is dangerous.” The assumption is that the men can protect the women and must do so because they lack the ability to do so for themselves.

Dowling states, “The frailty myth is deeply supportive of women’s fear of rape”

(241).25 Overall, she suggests that women underestimate their ability to defend themselves because they learn to believe that “any effort they might make to defend themselves would be futile” (252). The under-utilization of physical strength is grounded in the threat of rape. Until recently, women were not taught to resist rape.26 Instead of

learning how to build and use strength to protect themselves, women learned to seek

protection through other men (251-252).

The consequence of a woman refusing physical protection is not represented as

clearly as it might in early film because the consequence is often the potential for or

threat of rape. Especially after the Production Code went into effect in 1933, rape was

25 There exist few moments in American history that suggest the myth is not collectively accepted. But, she says that support or negation of the myth can occur and is often based in national need or interests. Consider World War II self-defense training manuals encouraged assertive behaviors among women needed for the war effort. This type of talk was replaced by non-aggressive non-violent advice in the 1960s and especially the 1970s (241-243). 26 It can be argued this is still true. See McCaughey, Martha. Real Knockouts: The Physical Feminism of Women's Self-Defense. New York: New York University Press, 1997. 55 not something represented in film because the Code censored the on screen depictions of immorality to include those relating to sexuality and crime (Haskell 91, 117-118).

Although rape is not represented in early sports films focusing on the female athlete, there are moments when filmmakers suggest the threat.

Following the time trials in Billie, her father goes into the locker room to meet with the coach. He is allowed in the locker room because he is a male. Howard asks the coach where his daughter’s facilities will be located. The coach responds that she will be in the star’s dressing room because that she is a special athlete. This statement is a passive way of commenting on the locker room concern. If she was in the locker room with the male members of the team, she would shower and change clothes with the boys and the concern for her rapeability would be ever-present. The coach alleviates

Billie’s father’s concern because Billie is separate from the boys. Billie is not the only film in which the threat of rape is clearly portrayed.27

When Shona’s father dies in Venus of the South Seas, she packs her bag as her father instructed and moves to leave the island. While doing so, there is a native man tracking her movements. This is not discussed (not even through dialogue cards) and there is no altercation between Shona and the native man. Yet, it is abundantly clear that his actions pose the threat of rape. If she could protect herself, she would not need to leave the island. The lesson is clear: find someone to protect you or your physical safety is in jeopardy.

27 Some may consider separate dressing facilities as common sensical. A closer reading of this scene requires careful consideration of at least a couple of key elements. The urgency with which her father looks for his daughter to ensure she is not in a locker room with several young men, insists that filmmakers intention to highlight the present or potential threat of rape for Howard and Agnes’ daughter. The realization that the coach assigned Billie a janitor’s closet reflects the filmmakers’ desire to capture the issue of the lack of facilities for women and girls in this situation. 56

In Girls Can Play, Foy instructs Sue to meet up with Casey in order to avoid being left alone in the apartment. The fear for Foy was that his enemies might get a hold of her. Because there is an underlying threat of rape, Sue leaves the apartment as she is told. The concept that females should not be alone or that they must be chaperoned is also present in National Velvet. Take as evidence that Mi, a young man working for the Browns, travels to London to pay the entry fee for the Grand National race.28 But, when it is time for the race, Mi escorts Velvet. The director, Clarence Brown does not present an alternative scenario. Therefore it is certainly suggested that she is not capable of taking care of or protecting herself.

What is not represented is just as reinforcing as what is presented to the viewer.

The threat of rape is represented, which elicits the filmmakers’ depictions of the female athlete’s conformity to the frailty myth. Filmmakers portray the threat of rape on screen

(in place of an actual rape) as a consequence of sex role and/or gender nonconformity.

Filmmakers relate the consequences of a female athlete’s nonconformity to gender and sex roles through that athlete’s subsequent injury or death. When a female athlete breaks a rule of gendered sport, she is punished, thus reestablish order in the world.

This sort of conclusion provides a sense of propriety within the central message in many of the films. Even if there are moments when the female athlete disrupts the gendered order of sport, it will not last. The gendered order of the world will persist.

Presumably in Venus of the South Seas, Million Dollar Mermaid, and Pin Down

Girls the female athlete ultimately conforms to her notions of her gender as defined by

28 Presumably, Mi travels to London. This detail is not clear. 57

the frailty myth. The result of conformity is apparent; the female body remains intact and

available. Viewers learn the correct behavior as that of the surviving female.29

In National Velvet, Girls Can Play, Fiesta, and Billie, the consequence of

nonconformity resonates. In National Velvet, Velvet and the Pi are disqualified from the

horse race. In Fiesta, Maria is injured in the last tauromachian contest. In Million Dollar

Mermaid, Annette suffered a spinal hematoma. While Velvet’s, Maria’s, and Annette’s

consequences were rather clear, the consequences for the female athletes in other

films are far less clear. Sometimes the consequence materializes as a warning.

A warning echoes in Girls Can Play and is reinforced in the conclusion of the film when Sue Collins dies. The other team members presumably settle down and have a family. We do not know this for sure, but this is understood because Casey marries and settles down with Jimmy. If you don’t stop playing, you could end up like Sue. In Venus of the South Seas and Million Dollar Mermaid there is a sense that the female athlete can continue to swim and dive, but chooses not to perform. Another important warning is found in Billie’s decision to quit the track team. She decides she would rather be a girl. The message is clear: you cannot be a girl and an athlete.

The frailty myth is not just about the discrimination of women in the world of sport, not just about the right to compete, nor is it just about being excluded from sport in some way. The frailty myth is the concept that describes the systematic colonization of women’s minds in order to control their bodies. “It is about women actually being kept from using their bodies- and for a reason” (Dowling 161). According to Dowling, this

29 For a conversation about the final girl and surviving in film, see, Carol J. Clover. “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film.” Representations No. 20, Special Issue: Misogyny, Misandry, and Misanthropy (Autumn, 1987), 202-220. See also Clover, Carol J. Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1992. 58

reason is the maintenance of the patriarchy; the maintenance of the power of men at

the expense of women.30 The frailty myth is learned. People learn that the female is

physically weak and in need of protection because of the fear of rape.

This myth is sometimes readily apparent and sometimes embedded in the films

under study. In any case, the myth has implications in sports and sports films. The frailty

myth was clearly a part of the construction of early women’s sports cinema.31 The films under study demonstrate the synthesis of the model and struggle to create a heroine within this constraint. Likewise, a reason that early women’s sports films were not progressive was because of the (likely unknowing) integration of this biomedical essentialist model of “health” and the internalization of the frailty myth. At least to some extent, the sports feminist movement was slow to progress because of the caustic nature of the scenes relaying these essentialist theories and unsubstantiated concepts.

Within the next chapter I explore the impact of the philosophy of difference in sport and its relationship with hegemonic femininity. Because filmmakers projected these ideas on the silver screen, they also limited the progression of the sports feminist movement.32 The institutionalization of the biomedical model of sport and the frailty

30 Dowling does not suggest that the frailty myth is consciously and deliberately maintained in any patriarchal society. She stated, “When physically weakened, women become socially and politically weakened. It is not so much that men want women to be frail and incompetent, and certainly individual men have no consciousness of such a wish. What men want, simply, is to keep on being the ones with the power to make the big decisions, and this is easier to pull off when the other – the other race or the other gender-is economically weakened, intellectually weakened, or physically weakened, or ideally all three.” (161). 31 The frailty myth does not operate in the same way within Pin Down Girls partly because the wrestlers were not all that breakable. At that time, the sport of wrestling was considered a low class sport for women. Thus the women held less cultural value because of this class issue. They were not the girls next door, not the marrying kind and so somehow this was more acceptable. 32 I am not suggesting that filmmakers intentionally reflected or projected hegemonic femininity or the philosophy of difference. This is another debate unto itself. I am asserting that there is evidence to support that the films include these concepts and further reinforce a gendered hierarchy of sports and athletics. Moreover, I am not disavowing physical difference of the sexes. For a succinct discussion of the 59

myth occurred through the implementation of the philosophy of difference beginning

with the creation of women’s physical education programs. Physical educators at

women’s higher educational institutions during the late 19th and early 20th centuries

were often women. Those educators worked to craft programs for women and girls that

both met their own goals and also worked within the gender logic and constraints of the

fallacious theories widely accepted during this timeframe (Wushanley 8-10).33

impact of the debate regarding sex difference and sameness see, Catherine A. MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1987, p. 32-45. 33 The physical educators likely were unaware the medical opinions of their time were incorrect, nor did they have a specific term like frailty myth, to describe the social conditioning of women’s physical weakness. 60

CHAPTER THREE

DELAY OF GAME: HEGEMONIC FEMININITY AND THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF DIFFERENCE

Introduction The philosophy of difference in sport contributes to a gendered hierarchy by institutionalizing notions of naturalness in performing athletic endeavors. This philosophy explains that women and girls should not undertake athletic activities in the same ways as men and boys because they must maintain a sense of femininity that competition supposedly did not allow. It was never really a question about whether girls and boys or men and women could compete. It was understood that this was generally not possible given women’s weaker condition and the social inappropriateness of such an undertaking (Wushanley 7; Lenskyj, Out of Bounds 7-29, 35; Mangan and Park 15-

17).

The internalization of the biomedical model and the frailty myth meant that physical educators crafted exercise programs for women and girls, which were rarely physically rigorous and often discouraged expressions of competitiveness. Women physical educators believed that their actions were necessary to maintain control of women’s athletic programs.34 The philosophy changed several times during the first half

34 Early women physical educators thought of the programs they established as progressive. Considering the time period, their actions would be considered liberal. Sports feminists differed considerably and still do today. There is a more conservative and a more liberal faction. The major difference between the first half of the 20th century and today is that the conservative factions discouraged a commercial model of athletics for women. The more liberal group desired to incorporate competition into programs, but did not accomplish this in a formal way until after World War II. It is important to recognize the solidarity of women physical educators in maintaining control over the physical education of women and girls throughout much of the 20th century. For more information see Gavora, Jessica. Tilting the Playing Field: Schools, Sports, Sex, and Title IX. 1st ed. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002; Birrell, Susan, and Cheryl L. Cole. Women, Sport, and Culture. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1994; Nelson, Mariah 61

of the 20th century and there was considerable disagreement regarding the guiding

principles during each phase. Yet, all of the films studied incorporate this philosophy of

difference and thus explain the slow progression of the sports feminist movement during

this timeframe (Wushanley 7-9).

In this chapter, I examine the extent that the philosophy of difference in sport was

incorporated into the sports films in this study. During the late nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries, women formed and maintained this philosophy, which guided

physical educators, filmmakers, athletes, and laymen and laywomen alike.35 The

female leadership of women’s sports and physical education created philosophies,

organizations, and programs that emphasized femininity in order to gain and maintain

autonomy over women’s athletics. Essentially, the formation of the philosophy and

subsequent programs constructed an alternative frame of reference for women’s sports.

Although early on this frame of reference pointed to biological differences and the

physical inferiority of women, the undercurrent of these philosophies was also always

about the social appropriateness of performing one’s gender (Wushanley 14-16;

Mangan and Park 284-286, 294-295; Melnick 4, 23). The self-governing of women’s

athletics evolved in several stages during the 20th century. Therefore, I outline the

“Sports For All,” “the Platform years” and the “The Feminization of Competition” phases

Burton. The Stronger Women Get, the More Men Love Football: Sexism and the American Culture of Sports. 1st ed. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994; Brake, Deborah L. Getting in the Game: Title IX and the Women's Sports Revolution. New York: New York University Press, 2010; Suggs, Welch. A Place on the Team: The Triumph and Tragedy of Title IX. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006; McDonagh, Eileen L., and Laura Pappano. Playing With the Boys: Why Separate is Not Equal in Sports. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. 35 Numerous sports historians outlined what I term the philosophy of difference in sport. I primarily utilize Ying Wushanley’s account of this philosophy to illustrate its impact on the portrayal of female athletes in early women’s sports cinema. Wushanely is certainly not the only scholar to write about the philosophy of difference in athletics and sports. 62

of the philosophy and how filmmakers reflected the principles of each phase within the

films under study.

Justifications for adopting the policies of the philosophy of difference are also

rooted in the notion of femininity. Working within patriarchal constraints to carve a space

for women’s athletics frequently means that female athletes perform the white middle

class ideal of femininity. The reel female athlete’s performance of femininity in the films regularly fit this frame, which contemporary sports feminist theorists term hegemonic femininity.36 The filmmakers understood that a marketable film featuring a female athlete would portray the athlete’s character as necessarily feminine.

Mimi Schippers (2007) defines the concept of hegemonic femininity as necessarily heterosexual, and consequently the characteristics are connected to pleasing men. Schippers stated, “Hegemonic femininity consists of the characteristics defined as womanly that establish and legitimate a hierarchical and complementary relationship to hegemonic masculinity and that, by doing so, guarantee the dominant position of men and the subordination of women” (Schippers, 94). This scholar contends that womanly features that define hegemonic femininity include sexual availability and compulsory heterosexuality, her acceptance of marriage and motherhood and vulnerability and fragility. (Schippers, 94-95; Finley 361; Connell 1987,188).37 I utilize

36 Vikki Krane, Catharine Mackinnon, Amanda Roth, Susan Barrow, and Mimi Schippers and Nancy J. Finley use a women’s centered conception of hegemonic femininity, which emphasizes that women have agency and can alter gender relations. Connell initially said no scholar should use hegemonic femininity to explain gendered power relations because women lack power and definition within the gendered order he outlined. Many feminist scholars disagree and assert that Connell’s emphasized femininity does not fully explain women’s roles in gendered society. These feminist scholars apply concepts such as hegemonic and alternative femininities in order to more inclusively articulate women’s ability to construct multiple femininities that disrupt the gendered order of society. 37 The operation of hegemonic femininity historically requires what Adrienne Rich (1986) termed compulsory heterosexuality (73). I am not interrogating Susan Birrell and other scholars’ notion of the female apologetic or R.W. Connell’s theory of emphasized femininity. Some consider the concepts to be 63

Schippers model to explore how hegemonic femininity influenced the crafting of the

philosophy of difference in sport and equally shaped the portrayal of the female athlete

within early American women’s sports cinema. The representations of the female

athlete within this model of hegemonic femininity clearly influence the construction of

the philosophy of difference and help to explain why these films did not present a

progressive perspective of women’s sports. The consistent presentation of categorically

feminine features of female athletes limits the expansion and progression of the sports

feminist movement.

Sports For All

The philosophy of difference in sports evolved as physical education and sports programs emerged in colleges and universities across the nation during the late 19th

and early 20th century. It was not the creation of one person, but of a number of people

involved in the education of young women. These physical educators generally

buttressed the beliefs regarding societal gender roles of the time period. The first female

physical educators were a product of programs established for their training such as

those at the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics and the Sargent Normal School.

Senda Berenson studied at Boston Normal School, taught at Smith College,

developed the game of basketball for women, and is credited with the creation of the

“Sports for All” program, which subsequently outlined the principles of the first phase of

the philosophy of difference (Wushanley 9). This sports for all principle suggested that

complements to hegemonic masculinity, yet women are not perceived to have any agency within these structures. I later argue that women have power and agency to promote and create change within the gendered order of society. Connell later writes (2005) that new theories inclusive of women ought to be considered. Hence, I utilize the theory of hegemonic femininity. In the next chapter, I discuss how definitions of hegemonic femininity, or femininity itself, can change through the patterned use of gender maneuvering. For more on the female apologetic in sport see, Women and the Apologetic. 2 Vol. Westport, CT: ABC-Clio, 2009. 64 physical educators build programs to emphasize “the concept of equal opportunity in play and enjoyment for every participant regardless of one’s skill and ability”

(Wushanley 10). Such statements ignored the competitive nature of athletics. This participatory model encourages everyone to play and be active, but ignores the clear structure of athletics that creates clear winners and losers (Smith, 295).38

Berenson epitomized Victorian Era ideals of womanhood in that she proclaimed that women should engage in athletic pursuits for their physical and moral health. She believed that there was no place for aggressive expression on the part of women and girls. Berenson’s method for ensuring that women took their “appropriate” place in sports was to create different rules for women. For example, one such rule Berenson created, was that women could only dribble the ball once and then she must pass the ball to a teammate. This rule was meant to provide every girl or woman a chance to participate. The men’s game did not have this rule and thus it allowed for far more freedom of movement. (Smith 295).

While at Smith College she created basketball rules for women to prevent women from becoming too “manly”. The Women’s Basketball Committee, formed in

1899 legitimized Berenson’s rules of play for women and girls. Berenson’s method for adapting sport for women and girls’ programs formed the foundation for the philosophy of difference for women and girls’ sport programs.

Biological differences played a major role in the development of early women’s sports and physical education programs, but the social appropriateness of such

38 I am not disavowing physical difference. I am not suggesting that pioneers of the women’s sports movement were not progressive. I contend that changing the games and adopting the play day to make sports more feminine, disavows the competitive nature of the activity and contributed to the institutionalization of sex-based discrimination in sports because it created two separate systems for athletics. 65

undertakings was also a major factor the leaders of such programs were forced to

contend with when they outlined and implemented the policies (Wushanley 6-18).

Senda Berenson truly believed she was building the character of a collective of women

who could affect change in athletics for women and girls. She said regarding her

reasoning for adapting the rules for basketball for women, “[basketball teaches

students] to give up ones own honors for the good of the whole, self-control and good

manners . . .[it was certain to form] a great part in the development of character and true

womanhood” (Melnick 4). Berenson promoted programs that encouraged women and

girls to develop “true womanhood” but this did not mean that the programs she created

were not progressive for the time. On the contrary, Berenson’s adaptation of basketball

meant that women and girls were moving more than they had in the past.

But, these revised rules translated into less physical movement on the part of the

female athlete than the rules for the original game intended and this subsequently

inhibited the physical development of women and girls, and paradoxically inhibited the

sports movement that Berenson was so heavily invested in (Wushanley 11-12).39

The female athletes in early women’s sports cinema often employed the

philosophy of difference and, specifically, the notion of sports for all. The democratic

notion of sports for all regardless of one’s ability implies less cultural value in women’s

ability to compete. Filmmakers rarely credited excellence, or failure for that matter, to

the female athlete because she was either not truly competing or because filmmakers

attributed her performance to some greater moral purpose. The latter is found most

39 I am not suggesting that Berenson’s actions were not progressive for her time. I am however, suggesting that it is in this moment that difference is institutionalized. Because women were prevented from fulfilling their physical potential, the sports feminist movement progresses slowly. See also Melnick, Ralph. Senda Berenson: The Unlikely Founder of Women's Basketball. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007) 66 covertly in scenes specifically comparing a female to a male and also in scenes where the female athlete is allowed to know how to compete, but should not actually compete.

When the emphasis of a woman’s athleticism is placed on knowing how to play, the performative aspects of play, or playing for their health, this prioritizes their femininity over their athleticism and this further emphasizes the sports for all concept at the foundation of the philosophy of difference.

Mimi Schippers and many other feminist scholars posit that traditionally to be truly feminine you must be available as an object of desire for men (96). Filmmakers symbolize the sexual availability of the female athlete in a variety of ways. Regardless of the symbolism used, filmmakers present the female athlete as available to a male and unquestionably heterosexual. These characteristics of femininity integrated within the philosophy of difference are readily evident in early women’s sports films.

In Venus of the South Seas, the filmmakers make a distinction between men and women when they reveal that men seek the “Wonder Pearl” and women seek the

“Flower of Love.” In other words, men seek fortune and women seek love. There is a material purpose for men, but not for women.40 The “Wonder Pearl” can be compared to the commercial and competitive model sport. Director, James Sullivan consistently emphasizes the financial value of pearls within the film. Women should not entangle themselves in the commercial or competitive world because it is hostile and dangerous to their nature. The “Wonder Pearl” is consistently represented as the motivation for men’s actions. Sullivan injects the “Flower of Love” symbol into the plot of the film

40 I will elaborate on the notion of material motivations/purposes for competition later in this chapter through the discussion of the feminization of competition. 67

during fairy tale hour to demonstrate the appropriateness of women’s non-material

motivations, which regularly draw attention to Shona’s femininity.

In order to push the romantic plot forward, Shona tells a story to the children on

the island. The story is about Gwytha, a princess who searches for the “Flower of Love.”

The subsequent water scene that highlights Gywtha’s (Kellerman) unique underwater

abilities suggests that the purpose of her athletic prowess was not competition, but

performance or entertainment and the fulfillment of her feminine role.41 The “Flower of

Love” also symbolizes Gwytha’s (and Shona’s) sexual availability. While Gwytha is in

search for the “Flower of Love,” she takes a moment to primp when she finds a mirror in

the underwater cavern. There is no comment on the mermaid’s performance because it

does not serve a competitive or material purpose. Instead, the performance serves the

socially acceptable purpose of symbolizing her sexual availability and her femininity,

helping the princess find the “Flower of Love” (her great love and future husband),

entertaining the children, and the moviegoer.

The training scenes in National Velvet relay a message equivalent to that in

Venus of the South Seas. Mr. and Mrs. Brown approve of Velvet riding her horse, The

Pi, during training. Yet, there is no expectation that she would actually enter a

competition. There is a difference between knowing how to compete or practicing and

actually doing or competing. This has much to do with the space in which the athletic

exercise occurs. Consider that Velvet and Mi presumably train in the Browns private

fields. She would not make a living as a jockey, but she could learn how to be a jockey.

41 There is a contradictory component to Annette Kellerman and Esther Williams’ swimming in films. They were both real athletes who made a living out of their swimming and diving talents. In these cases, there was a material purpose in their athletic endeavors. This contradicts the philosophy of difference in its third phase (discussed later in the chapter), which discourages the commercial model or material model of sport for women. This was the men’s model of sport. 68

It is okay for her to exercise her skills and prepare her horse for the race, but not for her

to use her skills in competition or for financial benefit. She should not enter the

commercial sports world or become aggressive. Instead, she should train to know.

For Velvet, and for Maria in Fiesta, the role of the daughter is not to be a champion, but to be a woman. In Fiesta, in particular, this equates to being available to men. This also means Maria’s athletic performances have less cultural value since she is supposed to concern herself with becoming a feminine woman. A feminine woman’s cultural space cannot overlap that of a man’s if hegemonic femininity and gender difference are maintained. Hence, competition and femininity were mutually exclusive concepts. Without overlap and because men’s competition was socially sanctioned, this produced a hierarchy that valued men’s athletic performance over women’s.

Within the film, Fiesta director, Richard Thorpe also makes the point that there is a difference between knowing and doing or exercising your skills and actually using those skills. At the family’s ranch, Señor Morales and his assistant, Chato, train the young Mario to become a great matador. Meanwhile, Maria is training with Chato because she also has interest in the sport. Initially her father, Antonio Morales, disapproves when he discovers that his daughter is training. This kind of competitive sport is very dangerous. Chato suggests to Señor Morales that she is the daughter of a great matador and hence she should know about the sport. Never was there any suggestion that she would ever enter into the competitive and physically dangerous matador ring. Thus, this training scene reveals the sports for all principle of the philosophy of difference because the scene encourages the female athlete’s participation and training and concurrently discourages the hostile and dangerous public

69 world of official competition. This creates a hierarchy for performance. There is value in

Mario’s training and performance, but not in Maria’s. Antonio’s daughter is to become a woman. This scene emphasizes that tauromachian competition was clearly not a part of becoming a woman.

In the establishing scene of Billie, director Don Weis wastes no time contrasting

Billie, the female athlete with Mike, the male athlete. Billie runs because she enjoys running. When Billie asks Mike what he is doing, he tells her he is practicing to try out for the track team. He is training in order to compete. Like many of the other women’s sports films, the female athlete’s purpose for exercising is not competition. Women and girls were to exercise to sustain their health. They were not supposed to be training or practicing for actual competition or for the spoils of victory that are relegated to the male athlete. The “sports for all” message is at the foundation of the philosophy of difference.

Sports and athletics for women should enhance women and girls’ physical and moral health and they should perform athletic activities for non-material purposes. The second phase of the philosophy of difference more specifically discourages competition and filmmakers present this concept in early women’s sports cinema.

Anti-competition and the “Platform” Program

The philosophy of difference becomes further institutionalized in 1922 and the subsequent policies form the basis for the second phase of the philosophy of difference.

Harry Seward formed an American women’s track team for the Olympic Games held in

Paris, France. This was considered the first “Women’s Olympic Games.” Seward’s actions caused quite a stir because at almost the same moment, the male-run National

Amateur Athletic Union took control of the women’s track team. Women physical

70 educators went up in arms over both revelations. As a result of their clamor, Lou Henry

Hoover, wife of Herbert Hoover, who was already involved in the National Amateur

Athletic Federation (NAAF), became the head of the newly created Women’s Division

(Wushanley 12).

In doing so, Hoover developed what became known as the Platform Program for women’s athletic programs. Not surprisingly, Hoover’s aim was not only to separate women from men, but also to suggest that the moral elevation for women’s athletics could only occur through an official anti-competition policy. This Platform Program further defined the principles of the philosophy of difference. Hoover’s philosophy of women’s sports disapproved of varsity, Olympic, and international competition. The philosophy valued participation over competition and emphasized sports for women, by women (Wushanley 12; See also, Mangan and Park 86-87; Lenskyj, Out of Bounds 17).

Concentrating on the democratic nature of women’s athletic participation under the Platform philosophy, physical educators created the play day as a method through which to exercise this theory of women’s athletics. The play day was a day when women from three or more schools got together to play primarily team sports for “social interaction and learning of social values” not for competition not for the glory or honor of winning. This was accomplished by mixing all the teams with students from each of the schools so that no one school could win. The focus of the day for educators was

Berenson’s “sports for all”, Hoover’s “anti-varsity or noncompetitive” play and the commonly known slogan at that time, “a team for every girl and a girl on every team.” At this point the focus was more clearly anticompetitive athletic exercise, a contradiction in terms (Wushanley 13).

The physical educators who implemented the play day felt that their actions increased opportunities for women and girls to build strength and become physically fit.

There actions were important to the advancing the major goals of the sports feminist movement. Margaret M. Duncan and Velda P. Cundiff outlined in their book, Play Days for Girls and Women (1929), the method for physical education aimed at increasing opportunities for women and girls. They wrote,

For the first time athletics for girls were on a basis of their own. The trend of educational leadership, as a result, has swung farther and farther toward a program of ‘play for play sake,’ which includes not only the girl who, through training, interest and physical ability, has made possible a specialized sport competition, but the great group of girls who have never before had the opportunity of playing . . . . The play day type of athletic competition is an outgrowth of a search for a play contact for girls, which is socially sound as well as physically wholesome (v).

Here, these physical educators emphasize the democratic nature of women’s sports policies as well as the emphasis on a sort of physical activity meant to preserve femininity and differentiate itself from that of men’s athletic programs. Yet, this was a very progressive position for the timeframe considering that this play day offered an opportunity to girls and women to compete in increasing numbers when they simply had not been able to before the evolution “play day” competition. This created a more level playing field for women, but not for men and women. Ultimately, this contributed to the belief that women were not able to compete with men. This type of policy would hinder the efforts to achieve gender parity in sports.

The participatory nature of the anti-competitive policies of the second phase of the philosophy of difference is readily evident in early women’s sports cinema. The anti- competitive principles of the Platform Program were to morally elevate women’s athletics from their male counterparts’ programs that reflected corrupt, aggressive and

hostile behavior. Women and girls should not compete since women physical educators

believed this meant they would definitively take on aggressive characteristics of men

(Dowling 32; Mangan and Park 84-86).

The principles of this phase of the philosophy unmistakably connect with the role

of the women in society because women were to be the bastions of morality and social

appropriateness. There was no cultural value for a woman to become an elite female athlete since this was defined as inappropriate behavior. Thus, competition was declared inherently unfeminine. If a woman or girl were to compete it was with a higher moral purpose and it was short lived. Instead of as a part of the aggressive world of commercial and competitive sports, a woman’s place in society is as wife and mother.

According to R.W. Connell and Nancy J. Finley, hegemonic femininity is partially defined by a woman’s acceptance of marriage and motherhood (Connell, 1987 188;

Finley, 361; Lenskyj, Out of Bounds 29-33).42

Likewise, filmmakers portray this phase of the philosophy of difference by highlighting the performative aspects of the athletic experience as well as the social appropriateness of the short-lived nature of competition when it exists. The play day was supposed to emphasize that competition was the exception, not the rule, for women and girls. In the rare occurrence when women competed they were to hold themselves to higher standards than men and avoid aggressive and corrupt behavior.

Female athletes should enjoy competition while it lasts because this was not supposed to be a regular occurrence for fear they would not fulfill their duties as a woman. A central motif of early women’s sports cinema is the consistent emphasis on the woman athlete’s acceptance of marriage and motherhood. Clearly, the message of the second

42 For a discussion of the myth of the mannish woman see, Dowling, 198-204. 73 phase of the philosophy of difference in sport was this: choose to become a woman, not an athlete. At this time, these identities were mutually exclusive.

Filmmakers frequently focused on the performative aspects of female athleticism within early women’s sports cinema. For example, within Fiesta, director, Richard

Thorpe contrasts the anticipation that Mario will become a great matador with his sister’s position in sport via Maria’s swimming session. Regardless of their content or plot, Esther Williams’ films included a swimming scene because this is what people expected and paid to see at the theater. Such swim scenes reinforce women’s place in sports and athletics. The message in this swim scene, as in many other Esther Williams’ films is that women are consigned to the more performative, less competitive spaces of sport. When the swimming scene concludes, this filmmaker wastes no time or space cutting to Maria’s fiancé, Pepe who has met her at the lake. The two discuss Mario’s career and then he reminds her of their engagement. Thus, this scene becomes less about Maria’s swimming abilities and more about her obligations as a woman and future wife. Mario’s position is less clear since he is absent from the scene, but is presumed to be in the more competitive bullfight ring.

Director Mervyn LeRoy of Million Dollar Mermaid also emphasizes the performative aspects of women’s sport. Instead of embracing her talent, Kellerman’s father essentially tells his young daughter that swimming should be a hobby. She should make a career of music and ballet. Moreover, the character of Annette

Kellerman is described as the “aquatic marvel” and “perfect woman.” She is not described as an athlete, but a performer. This reinforces a gendered hierarchy in sport because it relays the message that women ought to perform, not compete.

Another thing that physical educators concentrated on in the early 20th century was women’s bodily measurements. In accordance with the timeframe, within physical education programs the measuring of women and girls’ bodies was a method for ensuring women’s reproductive health. This was largely because of Professor Dudley

Sargent’s research study and quest to find the perfect woman, whom he described as having the same measurements of Venus de Milo (Gibson 60-64).43 Filmmakers of

Million Dollar Mermaid incorporated signage including the terms, “Perfect Woman” and

“Diving Venus” and others to suggest that competition was not the most important component of women’s physical education and athletics programs. Athletics programs existed to improve the physical health of women, maintain the feminine figure, ensure their reproductive health, and cultivate and preserve their femininity.

During the years when physical educators implemented Hoover’s policies, the occasional play day was the appropriate time and space for competition. Again, the infrequency implied that competition should be the exception, not the rule for women.

Director Clarence Brown of National Velvet relays the message that there is an appropriate time and place for competition. They also highlight that this competition will be short lived.

Instead of asking her father, Velvet asked her mother for permission to enter The

Pi in the Grand National. Mrs. Brown took Velvet to the attic to discuss the issue. During this scene, this filmmaker uses point of view shots to emphasize the characters’ individuality and narrative to realize their homogeneity. Mrs. Brown said to Velvet,

I was twenty when they said a woman couldn’t swim the Channel. You are twelve. You think a horse of yours can win the Grand National. Your

43 For a more extensive discussion of anthropometrics in physical education see Mangan and Park 39-40, 75-76. 75

dream has come early. But, remember Velvet, it’ll have to last you all the rest of your life. . . . Win or lose, it’s all the same. It’s how you take it that counts. It’s knowing when to let go, knowing when it’s over and time to go on to the next thing.

Velvet asks, “The next thing?” Mrs. Brown responds, “Things come suitable to the time

Velvet. Enjoy each thing, forget it and go on to the next. There is a time for everything.”

Most importantly, the tone of the narrative in this sequence supports the idea that the

opportunity for females to compete is rare and short lived. Velvet ought to enjoy the

opportunity and embrace that her chance to compete was the exception, not the rule.

Mrs. Brown understood this and passes the lesson on to her daughter. Mrs. Brown

swam the English Channel, but knew that it was not acceptable for her to make

swimming her career. She accepted her “duty” to marry and have children. This

message buttresses the play day and the anti-competitive policies of the philosophy of

difference and stresses the importance for girls and women to accept marriage and

motherhood as central to their femininity and role in society.

The first part of the twentieth century was the timeframe when sanctioned

competition was declared unfeminine and woman and athlete became incompatible

concepts (Nelson 1; Gavora 1; Cahn 140-163). Physical education programs emphasizing the philosophy of difference taught young women and girls that they must choose to be a woman over being an athlete; you could not be both. Moreover, one should always choose to be a woman. This is a major theme in early women’s sports cinema. Take for example nearly all of the conclusions to early women’s sports films.

Five of the seven films under study end with the female athlete marrying or ending up with the male lead character. This focus on the women athletes’ sexual availability, heterosexuality, acceptance of marriage and motherhood as central tenants

76 of hegemonic femininity underscore the representation of the concept of the philosophy of difference. In Venus of the South Seas, Shona leaves the South Pacific, and presumably swimming and diving, to marry Robert. In Girls Can Play, the final scene reveals that Casey and Jimmy married. The same goes for Maria and Pepe in Fiesta.

They married and thus Maria traded the spotlight of bullfighting ring for that of the wedding ring. We leave Billie dancing with Mike at her father’s victory party. There are also specific moments in the films that further highlight the theme that women should not choose to be an athlete over becoming a woman.

In an early scene within Girls Can Play Casey tells Jimmy, “I want to be a girl!”

Within Billie, there are several statements meant to emphasize that a woman cannot be an athlete and a woman or girl simultaneously. After Billie receives the athlete of the day award, her father congratulates her and says, “You were great today, son!” Billie and her family are shocked. The statement here is complex, but certainly suggests that being a female and an athlete is incompatible. Later in the film, Mike and Billie are talking after the school day. Mike tells Billie he decided she must quit the track team because he has a romantic interest in her. He says if there wasn’t any difference between women and men he would go out on a date with Eddie Davis. Mike states that he thinks of Billie as a girl first. Subtle as it may be, the message is that Billie should also think of herself as a girl first.

The most offensive scene in Billie that advances the philosophy of difference and the notion that a female must choose to be a girl or woman is the concluding scene.

She tells her father enthusiastically, “Being a girl is so much fun I have decided to give up track!” This statement insinuates that she was not a girl while she was an athlete and

only recently became a girl because she terminated her athletic pursuits. Preposterous

as it seems, the lyrics of the closing song of the film begin, “I am a girl that’s a girl and

I’m proud as I can be. Just to be glad I’m a girl is my greatest victory.” While the central

message of Billie is confused at best, the point made with this last song resonates; a girl cannot and should not choose to be a competitive athlete.

The Feminization of Competition.

In the 1930s, the voices of dissention to the anti-competitive policies of physical education for women began to be heard. Ina E. Gittings from the University of Arizona felt that the “play day” was an irrational method for both students and physical educators. Thus, she incorporated the “sports day,” which slowly contributed to the return to officially sanctioned intercollegiate sports programs for women. The sports day allowed for the acknowledgement and organization of the play day by institution.

Gittings efforts led to the integration of organized competition (Wushanley 14).

Gladys Palmer of Ohio State University would argue for and be denied permission to organize a national college level competition for women. Despite opposition from the nation’s top agencies, Palmer administered the National Collegiate

Golf Tournament in 1941, the first of its kind in decades. Her battle to move toward a competitive model of women’s sport does not mark the end of the philosophy of difference but a shift in its principles. Palmer and Gittings both believed that women could greatly benefit from competitive sports programs, but they had to balance their interests with the interests of those women in charge of the policies of women’s national sports and physical education agencies (Wushanley 14-18).

After the successful tournament, the same board, the National Section on

Women’s Athletic (NSWA), who declined Palmer’s requests for official recognition, complimented her on her management of a successful tournament. Yet, the leadership of the NSWA requested that Palmer call what was clearly a competition an “invitational” or something less overtly aggressive than tournament. Nonetheless, Palmer was answering the call for a return of and an increase to intercollegiate competitions for women (Wushanely 15).

At least three important things occurred after Palmer’s tournament. First, this golf tournament and its well-behaved young women participants became the measuring stick for the growth of competitive women’s sports. Second, when the United States entered into World War II, Gittings’, Palmer’s, and many others’ desire to return to competitive athletic programs were bolstered by national interest in women’s physical fitness. Competition was socially appropriate for women during World War II because it was in the national interest for all women to be fit in order to be able to serve the nation in any capacity necessary. Competition continued to be acceptable for women during the Cold War. It was especially supported during the late 1950s and 1960s, since

American women competed with Russian women at the international level. Third, with the return of competition came the feminization of women’s competition. During this period conflict continued over who would lead and control women’s athletics and how women ought to compete. There was an increasing consensus that women ought to compete, but the question of how to differentiate women’s athletic competitions from men’s continued to be discussed and debated (Wushanley 15-16, 23-25).

Women physical educators long feared the adoption of any semblance of the male model of sport because this was associated with a loss of femininity for women and girls, not to mention a loss of leadership. The male model of sport was aggressive and commercial. Permitting the adoption of the male model was linked to men taking control over women’s sports programs. Likewise, women physical educators further distanced themselves and their programs from the male model and held tight to the principles of the previous phases of the philosophy in order to protect their own position of power and to ensure women and girls’ athletic endeavors noticeably produced a feminine image.

Physical educators and leaders of women’s sports programs emphasized that women should only compete against women. This position was increasingly defined during this phase as competing for non-material purposes i.e., avoiding aggressive expressions or behaviors and likewise avoiding the corrupt nature of men’s commercial or material model of sport. When women compete they must present themselves as feminine first and foremost (Nelson 1, 52-79; Gavora 1; Cahn 140-163). Moreover, the male model of sports was corrupt and dangerous for women. According to Finley, expressions of hegemonic femininity include the demonstration of vulnerability and fragility (361). These principles of the third phase of the philosophy of difference and the emphasis placed on these characteristics of hegemonic femininity are readily present in the sports films under study.

Filmmakers consistently depict the female athlete as in danger or breakable. As a matter of doing so, they ensure that this athlete would be viewed as feminine and the film as non-threatening to the gendered social order. Within Venus of the South Seas,

80 when Shona is not in the water she is vulnerable. On land, she runs from Robert and her running informs the viewer that she is fearful of him. On Captain Drake’s merchant ship, she is vulnerable to the attacks of the crewmembers and looks to Robert to guard her. While she is Gwytha, in the fairy tale, she only meets her goals by swimming away from the “horrible monster” which was an octopus. Whether or not it is real threat or imagined by Gwytha, the octopus symbolizes her physical vulnerability. The octopus / monster also symbolizes her sexual vulnerability as a single woman because it can be compared to other males’ desire for Kellerman’s characters. Director James Sullivan most often, but not exclusively, portrays Annette Kellerman’s characters as vulnerable when this fish is out of water.

In Girls Can Play, Sue Collins is the character most often depicted as fragile and vulnerable. As the crooked businessman, Foy Harris’ girlfriend, Sue, becomes the target of the opposing gangster, Phil Boulder’s, revenge. As a matter of being a potential target and of the perceived need to protect Sue, Harris tells her she must not be alone in the apartment in case Boulder decides to try to find her. Later, when Harris decides that covering his own tracks means eliminating Sue, he claims that she has poor health and needs to take a break. Even to Sue’s best friend, Anne Casey, there is nothing suspicious about this revelation. Sue’s character becomes the primary symbol of the feminine characteristics of vulnerability and fragility.

In Girls Can Play, there is a multitude of evidence to support that people believed that women ought to only compete with women.44 For example, Harris asks Sue how

44 Fiesta and Venus of the South Seas do not apply in this discussion because competition is still not acceptable outside of competition in support of restoring the patriarchal order. There is no return to competition in many of the films in Million Dollar Mermaid since Kellerman was not portrayed as

she thought the team would fair this season. She says, “They‘ll do a lot of winning unless we have to play the Yankees!” If people believed that women were physically capable of competing with men such statements would not be included. These kinds of statements are subtly included in the dialogue in many of the films. It is important to note that it is often a woman or a girl who makes this kind of statement. These statements also point out that athletes internalized the frailty myth and embraced the frailty myth and characteristics of hegemonic femininity.

The director of Girls Can Play, Lambert Hillyer also endorses the non-material model of the philosophy of difference for women and girls sport. Foy Harris sponsors the team for his own financial gain. This takes away any sense that the women players were playing for monetary purposes. Also, Foy wanted the women to look good on the field. He says, “I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes. Now, naturally, I‘d like a winning team. The thing I want most is the best looking bunch in the league and I think you kids qualify on that score. Some people put their ads on the back cover of a magazine. I am putting mine on a baseball diamond.” Peanuts Murphy said Harris wanted “nine Miss

Americas” and a pitcher, [who can] “throw curves and have them too.” This implies that

Harris believes that people will go the game to look at the women, instead of watch a ball game.

Detective Flannigan reiterates the same idea when he arrives at a game.

Jimmy’s assistant mentions that they should pay attention, “Casey is up with Peanuts

competing against men after she left Australia. In reality, Kellerman continued to compete against men and women for quite some time. The film does not depict this competition.

on first.” Jimmy responds by suggesting that Flannigan also watch Casey hit because

“she is terrific.” Instead of commenting on the game, Flannigan comments about

Casey’s appearance, “Looks pretty good. Can’t say I blame you.” This scene confirms

Harris’s and the male model of sport. Moreover, this gives credence to women physical

educators’ fears of men taking over women’s athletics. If men were in charge, they

would corrupt women’s programs by applying the commercial male model of sport.45

At the end of the film it is assumed that the New Deal softball team disbands.

The team disbands because Harris is arrested for murder, not to mention that surely

Jimmy uncovered his crooked business practices. The message here becomes that women should not be involved in a commercial model of competition organized by men because women are vulnerable and fragile.

In National Velvet the filmmaker, Clarence Brown demonstrates Velvet’s vulnerability and fragility primarily through her parents’ and Mi’s expressed concern over frequent fainting. This filmmaker unmistakably exposes their concerns in the sequence portraying the raffle for the horse. Upon the realization that the townspeople were in fact, bringing the horse, The Pi to her home, Velvet faints. In the next scene she is upstairs in her bed flanked by her mother, her father, and Mi Taylor. When Velvet comes to, they tell her that it is true that she won the horse in the raffle. Before the sequence ends, both Mrs. Brown and Mi express concern for the potential for Velvet to faint again. Mrs, Brown says, as she ushers Mr. Brown and MI out of the room, “Better sleep now. You’re all lighted up.” When Mi moves to leave the room, Velvet asks in a whisper about the Beecher’s Brooke, the height of which The Pi leapt over days before.

45 During the late 19th century and through the early part of the twentieth century, men were not allowed to observe women’s competitions. Generally the only exception was the school principal. See, Mangan and Park 86-87; Wushanley 11. 83

Mi responds to her inquiry, but then abruptly suggests to Velvet, “don’t go floating

around now, just lay down” And when she asks him to walk The Pi up and down under

the windows, he tells her, “What and have you crawl out of bed and have you faint

again? Humph!” Both Mrs. Brown and Mi emphasize Velvet’s susceptibility to fainting and her fragile state after the excitement of the horse raffle. This scene suggests that

Velvet is too vulnerable to compete in a “man’s” sport.

The filmmaker of National Velvet adeptly utilizes a balance of both audio and visual cues in order reinforce notions of gendered difference. It is clear at the close of

National Velvet that difference must be maintained and that women and men should not

compete. The judges of the Grand National race use Rule 144 to disqualify Velvet from

winning. When the radio announcer describes the rule, he does so with male pronouns

further naturalizing the sport for men. The announcer says as the red flag signifying an

objection is raised, “The question is now whether the objection will be sustained.” The

red flag is an alarming cue for the audience. Yet, the announcer let the viewers believe

that Velvet might win if the judges decide not to displace her as victor over this rule.

In the meantime, the doctor discovers that Velvet is a girl. This news spreads

quickly to the officials. Viewers are led to believe that her presence in the competition

disqualifies her as a rider since her disqualification occurs after the reveal sequence.

Just after the same radio announcer emphatically confirms to his audience that a girl

wins the Grand National, a green flag goes up the flagpole signifying a challenge. The

green flag symbolizes the maintenance of the rules of the sport, which did not include

women and men competing against one another. Velvet’s number is almost

simultaneously removed from the results board. Through the construction of this

sequence, the filmmaker conveys that difference must be maintained; men and women

must not compete.

The filmmaker of National Velvet reflects the model for women and girls’ sport

under this third phase of the philosophy of difference. Throughout the majority of the film

and leading up to the race, the filmmaker portrays Velvet as a girl who has a dream for her horse. She does not suggest that she will ride The Pi in the race. She does not ride

The Pi for the money, but for the thrill of it and of course, to prove his greatness. Velvet consistently epitomizes the philosophy of difference in this third phase in that women and girls should only compete for non-material purposes. For women and girls, competition should be for fun and thrill, not for the financial result.

Once she has successfully completed the horse race, the crowd at the track and the crowd of people welcoming her home laud her performance. Mr. Brown suggests to

Mrs. Brown that they respond to the media offers requesting appearances of the girl jockey. Mr. Brown tells his wife, “there is fortunes of money in this!” Mrs. Brown suggests that there is no need to respond to the telegrams and wires even if it means an influx of money for the family. When Mr. Brown tells Velvet of the opportunities, she informs her father that the family and the horse are more important to her that the fame and fortune the media requests could bring her and the family. She doesn’t want to put the horse in the spotlight for money. Here again, Velvet demonstrates that women and girls should only compete for non-material purposes. Clearly the filmmaker subscribes to the idea that the model for women and girls’ sport should not mimic that of the men and boys’ commercial model of sport.

Although this third phase of the philosophy of difference sanctions women’s

competition, there was an expectation that women would behave differently than men

as competitive athletes. Likewise, the goal of women’s physical and moral fitness

cemented during the second phase would also carry over into this third phase

(Wushanley 16). This is especially emphasized in the wrestling film under study since

wrestling wasn’t considered a particularly feminine sport. Hence, it was especially

important for the athletes in Pin Down Girls to appear feminine. They could do so by

adhering to the rules and not participating in the corrupt commercial nature of the male

model of sport. The gym manager, Mr. Scalli, even says of women’s wrestling, “It’s a

clean sport. That’s why there is no big money in it.” This statement portends the

financial gain found in men’s sports and maintains a gendered hierarchy of sport. The

statement also supposes that women’s sport is not corrupt since it is not based on a

commercial model.

For Scalli, the sport and the gym he runs in support of the matches serves as a

cover for his racketing business. The women wrestlers in this film take a back seat to

much of racketeering plot led by Scalli. However, the wrestlers are at the center of the

action and appear virtuous when Scalli tries to get the wrestlers to throw a match. This

sequence of events is supposed to be contrasted with the stereotype of the corrupt commercial model of men’s sport. When Scalli proposes his plan to Clara Mortenson,

(as herself and a real world champion) she retorts, “Women will keep their sport clean.”

Afterwards, Scalli approaches Mortenson’s opponent, Rita Martinez (as herself a

Mexican wrestling champion) who also rejects Scalli’s payoff. She advises that women’s wrestling was a sport, not a performance, and she could not be bought. Mortenson’s

and Martinez’s statements proclaim that women wrestlers are athletes and their

competitions are legitimate, if different from their male counterparts. Through their

denunciation of the material approach to competition, a primary principle of the

philosophy of difference in sport, their statements hold considerable weight. Their

declarations clearly confirm the shift from women’s athletics as performative and

participatory to a competitive and feminine model of sport.

People who believe that there are fundamental physiological and/or

psychological differences between women and men support the philosophy of

difference in sport. Director Don Weis of Billie underscores this concept through a variety of visual and audible cues. Billie is nearly always set apart from other competitors. For example, she wears green during the time trials scene while the boys

were blue. This filmmaker could have distinguished her through her actions and only

with the camera. Instead she is visually different. This is important because this color

places her outside the team. There is assumption that if she were a part of the team she

would wear the same color as the other competitors. Her difference is emphasized in

this scene during the period within the film when everyone is discussing whether or not

girls and boys should compete with one another.

In the film Billie, it is also important to recognize that men primarily proclaim that

men and women should not compete against one another. Billie’s father, Howard, is the

first to state that Billie should not try out for the track team. He says quite fervently,

“Billie, I want you to stop competing with boys!” Later in the film, when Billie and Mike

are discussing Billie’s involvement with track, Mike tells Billie that he believes that men

and women are equal, but they are different. This is his argument for asking her to quit

the track team. He embraces the philosophy of difference in sport. Howard and Mike

demonstrate that men and women internalize the philosophy of difference. Billie

successfully competed against men, which necessitated this conversation. This

discussion of difference in the context of sport reinforces and naturalizes competition as

a male domain. The unintended result of embracing a competitive model of sport for

women was the perceived necessity of repeatedly making the distinction that women

should only compete with women because otherwise they would become involved in the

corrupt and dangerous commercial model of men’s sports. Moreover, a feminine

woman’s vulnerable and fragile constitution meant that she could not possibly compete

with men.

Conclusions

The biomedical model, the frailty myth, and the philosophy of difference changed over the course of the twentieth century, but they did not disappear. Definitions of hegemonic femininity, sexual availability, heterosexuality, the acceptance of marriage and motherhood, fragility and vulnerability, changed little during this same timeframe.

Thus, characteristics of hegemonic femininity not only thread through expressions of the philosophy of difference, but also served as a major part of the foundation for the justifications for the gendered segregation of athletic programs and competitions as well as sex-discriminatory practices in other aspects of social life.46 It is readily apparent the people involved in the films under study internalized these ideas. The filmmakers of the works under study demonstrated the consistent synthesis of the biomedical model, frailty myth, hegemonic femininity and struggled to create a withstanding heroine within

46 Early on difference policies pointed to biological differences and physical inferiority of women, the undercurrent of these philosophies was also always and continue to be about the social appropriateness of performing one’s gender (Mangan and Park 284-285, also Lenskyj, Out of Bounds 17-24). 88 this constraint. These concepts are the pillars that maintain the philosophy of difference.

The model, the myth, and dominant conceptions of gender are not completely eradicated from the collective consciousness and so the philosophy upon which the pillars rest remains.

Female leadership of women’s sports and physical education created philosophies, organizations, and programs in order to gain and maintain autonomy over women’s athletics. Leaders on the national level such as Senda Berenson, Lou Henry

Hoover, Ina E. Gittings, and Gladys Palmer shaped the philosophy that enabled women’s sovereignty at the very critical time in the expansion of the physical education of women and girls.

Essentially, the formation of the philosophy and subsequent programs constructed an alternative frame of reference for women’s sports. The philosophy of difference in athletics initially called for the physical education of women in a participatory manner to the exclusion of competition primarily because competitiveness was considered unfeminine. Likewise, it worked within the patriarchal structure of the biomedical model, frailty myth, and relational hegemonic femininity that oppress women and inhibit men and women from reaching or even moving toward the ideal of equality.

This philosophy mirrors the split in the feminist movement occurring during the same timeframe and is the same split that exists today regarding whether or not men and women should be treated equally or differently under the law and government policy. The social construction of gender difference is the obstacle to achieving social, political and economic equality. In other words, those who believe that there is a fundamental difference that must be underscored, institutionalized, and maintained, are

inhibiting the progression of the sports feminist and feminist movements. Those who

pronounced difference between genders may sincerely have believed in the difference.

However, it is plausible to contend that these differences were also used to justify

control over women and girls’ physical education and athletic programs. Women

physical educators clearly feared a loss of autonomy over the women’s sports programs

and so they fought with everything in their arsenal to retain command.

This philosophy governed public and private institutions of education and

recreation across the United States and contributed to the near stagnant progress of the

sports feminist movement during much of the twentieth century. This self-governing of

women’s athletics evolved in several stages during the 20th century. In the decades

following 1930, women physical educators increasingly disagreed with the philosophy of

difference at the institutional level. Dissent for the noncompetitive sports philosophy

grew significantly during World War II. By the fifties many American colleges and

universities transitioned to coed and educators sought permanent means to administer

women’s intercollegiate competition. Co-education changed sports and the physical

education of women because it created the environment through which women’s

competition became more socially acceptable (Wushanley 14-16).

The organizations that governed women’s competitions that survived the changes of the 1940s and 1950s maintained the philosophy of difference. The women leaders believed that they needed to maintain that women’s competition was different from the male model. The principles of this phase of the philosophy unmistakably connect with the role of the women in society because women were to be the bastions of morality and social appropriateness. Female physical education leaders sought to

feminize competition by maintaining that women’s motivations for competition were non-

material. They suggested that this addressed sex differences between the men and

women (Wushanley 15).47

During a presentation for the NCAA in 1964, Marguerite Clifton, Vice President of

American Association for Health, Physical Education, and Recreation (AAHPER) and leader of the Division of Girls and Women’s Sports (DGWS) discussed why women should continue to lead women and girls’ sports programs. She asserted that women and men were different and men did not hold the capacity to understand and manage women’s programs the way women could and had in the past. Men were welcome to learn and assist women in the administration of women’s athletics, but they should not try to manage the programs directly (Wushanley 36).

Clifton emphasized that women should continue to lead women’s programs and that the women’s organizations should not be absorbed into the established men’s organizations. The principles of feminized competition under this phase of the philosophy reinforced principles from previous phases and emphasized that women should only enter into competition with other women. This phase further reinforced sex- discrimination in sports and athletic programs (Wushanley 16-18).

The Cold War years encompass a timeframe when women and girls’ competition was more accepted in American society. As a result, however, women physical educators would fight to retain control over sports programs. They would continue to institutionalize the philosophy of difference in sport by emphasizing a fundamental

47 I am not suggesting that there are no differences between men and women. Physical difference is real. I am suggesting that women and men are more similar than dissimilar. I do suggest that we leave the social baggage of difference on the sideline or bench and allow all athletes of comparable ability the opportunity to compete on the field, court, or track regardless of gender. For more on this thread of the discussion in the early 20th century, see, Mangan and Park, 76-77. 91

difference between men and women, focusing on fitness as the goal of women and

girls’ programs and competition for non-material purposes. Until the implementation of

Title IX, women leaders focused on the non-material model, also termed the educational

model of women’s sports. However, after the enforcement of Title IX, most colleges and

universities moved to the commercial model of sports for women in order to avoid the

legal ramifications of treating gender segregated sport discriminately. Even when

founding principles and the educational model were abandoned, tenets of the third

phase of philosophy of difference remained. The feminization of competition continued

after the transition to the commercial model of sport and it continues to this day (Cahn

80-82; Wushanley 34-37,155).48

Understanding that the biomedical model, the frailty myth, and dominant notions

of femininity influenced the crafting of the philosophy of difference in athletics helps

explain the filmmakers’ careful and conventionalist portrayal of the early reel female

athlete. It is important to have a reference point for analysis of the films in order to

recognize patterns in sports films featuring female athletes. This forms a foundation for

studying and understanding the history of early women’s sports cinema.

The connection between the physical educators, the female athletes, and the film

stars are paradoxical. Consider that the filmmakers and most importantly the female

athletes in the films studied, like the physical educators who crafted and supported this

philosophy, represented independence from the male-dominated society. Yet, they too

conformed to societal ideals of “true womanhood.” The female athletes on screen and

physical educators subscribed to the biomedical model, the frailty myth, and hegemonic

48 A discussion of the legal ramifications of choosing a method and practice of sanctioning women’s competitions is outside the scope of this particular project, but important to recognize this in the next part of my project. 92

femininity, tenets of the philosophy of difference, which inhibited women’s rights in this

patriarchal society (Wushanley 9).

Feminists did not agree on the method through which to achieve increased

opportunities for women and girls. The philosophy of difference represented one way to

build programs and increase opportunities. This method was certainly critiqued by

feminists promoting the equality approach. Throughout the history of the women’s rights

movement, feminists meant to ensure the erasure of all barriers of opportunity based in

sex discrimination. Henrietta Rodman of the Feminist Alliance emphasized in a

statement in 1916, that evaluation of the individual based upon merit and ability would

be the best practice to eradicate sex-based discrimination. This radical position

represented the dissenting voice in the early modern feminist movement. (Cott The

Grounding of Feminism 38). The female athlete in early women’s sports cinema is paradoxical in that her image is at once conventional and progressive. In the next chapter, I discuss how filmmakers and the actresses in these films advanced the sports feminist movement by encouraging a dismissal of the strict culture of gender difference and emphasizing equality.

CHAPTER FOUR

MISFITTING THE FRAME: REDEFINING FEMININITY IN EARLY SPORTS FILMS

Introduction The paradox of women’s sports cinema is that athletes in this genre

simultaneously adhere to society’s ideal of femininity and misfit this frame. There exist

many subtle moments within the films, which offer alternative ideas about what it means

to be an athlete and a woman thus expanding notions of gender and gendered sport.

Here, I illustrate the potential for change as understood through the reel female athletes’

counter-hegemonic performance of relational gender maneuvering (Schippers 98, 100;

Finley 366; 371-372; Krane 123-125). I assert that each film opens up space for

reimagining women athletes.

Mimi Schippers theorizes gender through the lens of hegemony.49 Intrinsically,

this suggests that characteristics that define gender are alterable. She states,

If hegemonic gender relations depend on the symbolic construction of desire for the feminine object, physical strength, and authority as the characteristics that differentiate men from women AND define and legitimate their superiority and social dominance over women, then these characteristics must remain unavailable to women (94).

When women embody masculine traits those women must be contained. If they are not

contained then they chip away at the hegemonic order of gender. If women are sexually

autonomous and/or have a desire for other women, if they are physically strong and

49 Among many scholars of gender and society, R.W. Connell relates notions of cultural hegemony to gender.. In the contribution to the discourse, coauthored by Connell and James Messerschmidt, “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the concept,” (2005) they suggest that scholars expand upon women’s agency within the discourse on gender hegemony. Mimi Schippers, Viki Krane, Nancy J. Finley and many others responded to his call. See also, Connell, Raewyn. Gender and Power: Society, the Person, and Sexual Politics. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, B. Blackwell, 1987 and Connell, Raewyn. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. 94

aggressive, and/or express authority, they are creating alternative femininities and

challenging the legitimacy of the ideal hegemonic femininity. Thus, alternative

femininities have the agency to redefine gender hierarchies (95). I will focus on what

Schippers defines as socially constructed masculine traits of physical strength,

authoritativeness, and sexual autonomy in order to articulate how reel female athletes

embody these traits and redefine femininity. In particular, I place emphasis on the

athlete’s physical strength since, in many cases, it predisposes the other two traits.50

Finley built upon Schippers (2007) argument regarding the utility of hegemonic

femininity for understanding the gender order of society. She agrees with Schippers that

it is the complimentary nature of hegemonic masculinity and hegemonic femininity that,

“supports the dominance of men” (361). But, Finley claims that it is alternative

femininities that are most likely to challenge the patriarchal order when performed by

women. These “alternative femininities” disrupt gender relations in specific and subtle

recurring interactions between men and women. Women practicing alternative

femininities reject the gender hierarchies and in doing so they open space for the

reconfiguration of gender relations (362).

Finley calls this resistant performance “gender maneuvering,” She states,

“Gender maneuvering is a collective effort to negotiate actively the meaning and rules of

gender to redefine the hegemonic relationship between masculinity and femininity in the

normative structure of a specific context.” (362). In other words when men and women

do not perform within their respective gender frame, the men and women involved are

50 These are not the only traits Schippers and other suggest are reserved for the masculine gender, but the ones I use to focus this study. Relational gender maneuvering suggests that there are different situations with different gender performance expectations. I suggest that these characteristics/expectations adapted from recent scholarship fit this study of early women’s cinema. 95

creating alternative genders and transforming those relations. The reel athletes involved

in the films under study implement patterned gender maneuvering through the athletic

use of their bodies and likewise expand definitions of femininity. Repetitively

representing physically strong female bodies exposes the spectator to an image of alternative femininities and a glimpse of the physically liberated woman and thus progresses the sports feminist movement.

The central tenet of Amanda Roth and Susan Basow’s argument in “Femininity,

Sports, and Feminism: Developing a theory of physical liberation” (2004) is that the key to gender parity is the action of building of strong female bodies. There are many other theorists within this school of sports feminist thought.51 Leslie Heywood and Shari

Dworkin’s theory of stealth feminism, Martha McCaughey’s physical feminism, and

Pamela Creedon and Annis Pratt’s ideas about the Artemis archetype, all operate as physical liberation theories because, with admittedly varying focus, they encourage women to strengthen their bodies in order to eliminate patriarchal dominance in society.

In doing so, women move toward the ideal of gender parity in political, economic, and social life (Roth 261-262). Moreover, supporters of the theory encourage women to seek parity through the construction of strong bodies and minds. The building of strong female bodies consequently often unifies the mind/body chasm disrupted by the ideology of femininity. These scholars believe this will lessen or eliminate a women’s rapeability and level the proverbial gendered social, economic, and political playing field. (Roth 256, 259).

51 Those scholars include Leslie Heywood and Shari Dworkin, Pamela Creedon, Viki Krane, as well as Mariah Burton Nelson, Catherine MacKinnon’s, and Martha McCaughey. Scholars who support or purport the physical liberation theories are part of the more liberal faction of sports feminists. I am suggesting that even if filmmakers, actresses, or their contemporaries did not call their performances gender bending or gender maneuvering, this was the practice employed. 96

Exhibiting Physical Strength and Authority

Leslie Heywood and Shari Dworkin’s concept of stealth feminism operates in the films to push the sports feminist agenda forward. They outline the meaning of stealth feminism in their work, Built to Win: The Female athlete as cultural icon (2003). They claim that women who consistently build physical strength are not only unifying their mind and body, but are using their bodies as sites of resistance and a means through which women can achieve political, economic and social parity. They posit, “Everyday feminists are advancing their causes in a kind of stealth feminism that draws attention to key feminist issues and goals without provoking the knee-jerk social stigmas attached to the word, feminist, which has been so maligned and discredited in the popular imagination” (51). Heywood and Dworkin believe that the strength women build through athletic endeavors traverse political, social and economic aspects of life and help to bridge the mind/body gap. Women not only see their bodies as powerful, but their entire selves as powerful and bring this assertiveness with them to work and in other social settings. Collectively, the repetitive resistant efforts of physically active women advance the feminist movement (54). Many of the reel female athletes practiced stealth feminism through their own physical activities.52

Within Venus of the South Seas, Shona consistently displays her physical

strength and authority while in the water. Director, James R. Sullivan highlights her

swimming and diving skills early in the film. When she and her father oversee natives

conducting a pearl diving expedition on behalf of the business, Shona observes one of

the divers stealing pearls. In a title card, Shona tells her father, “Beni is stealing pearls

52 Several reel athletes were competitive athletes off screen and they consistently endorsed physical fitness for women. I wish to explore the real and the reel athlete in my future research. 97

again. I’m going after him” She dives and briefly fights the thief underwater in order to

reestablish order. Her exceptional athleticism and physical strength permits her to take

command of the situation and reprimand the pearl thief. But, Shona makes a splash in

and outside of the water; she is an effectual authority both under and above water.

Early on, Sullivan frames Shona’s physicality as a part of her typical daily world

and position in the family business. Later in the film, once Shona escapes the island,

she is confronted with a storm. Sullivan shoots her in a long shot to demonstrate that

Shona capably maneuvers the sailboat through the rough seas. This is no easy task. It

requires strength to hold the boat steady enough to withstand the winds and rain. There

are a multitude of scenes that portray the protagonist’s physical strength and assertive

action most of which are constructed as an everyday occurrence in her world.

Another such scene in Venus of the South Seas establishes Shona as the

heroine and mastermind of the great escape from the schooner, the Southern Cross, and Captain Drake’s grasp. Shona’s actions toward the end of the film further prove that the building of a woman’s physical strength transcends the action of building that body.

Visual clues show that Shona slowly reveals her plan to leave the boat with Robert and her pearls. She has an accomplice acquire a file for her and release a boat she will use to escape, but it is Shona who is at the center of the action. She uses the file to cut the tiller rope or chain of the schooner, effectively disabling the vessel. Meanwhile, when

Captain Drake becomes aware she is in possession of pearls, she throws them overboard with the knowledge that she is the only expert diver who can retrieve the pearls. She knows that her physical prowess will sustain her independence. She accomplishes her goals because of her physical and mental cunning. Sullivan makes

98 evident that the authority Shona displays in her swimming and diving feats does not end when she leaves the water.

Lambert Hillyer, director of Girls Can Play hit the proverbial homerun in their depiction of “Peanuts” Murphy, Anne Casey, and Sue Collins, female athletes who demonstrate physical strength and authority. These women communicate strength and authoritativeness both on and off the field. They introduce “Peanuts” Murphy as a self- reliant, active member of the New Deal softball team. When the newspaperman, Jimmy, is concluding his interview with Anne Casey, the team comes bustling into the diner from practice. Jimmy introduces Murphy to Casey and they have an excited exchange.

Before Peanuts takes off, she reminds Jimmy that she wants him to put her photo in the paper. Then at a game, Peanuts antagonizes the umpire. First, she kicks dirt on the home plate that the umpire is brushing off. When he has a hard time getting his words out she firmly tells him, “Try whistling, slugger. It will come out easier!” Then she gets a base hit. Peanuts aggressively plays ball and she insistently converses with Jimmy in the diner. s

The director introduces Anne Casey as a stellar athlete recently migrated to

California in order to avoid marriage and make a life for herself. Casey is a strong woman on and off the field and she will ensure others, including Jimmy Jones acknowledge this strength several times before the film ends. Casey becomes the pitcher for the New Deal pharmacy’s team. As such, she is the leader of the team. Other players look up to her as a pitcher and a talented ball player. In the practice scene,

Jimmy comes to the field to interview players for an article he is writing. Before he knows it, Casey hits him in the back of the head with a softball on “accident” in order to

99 let him know she has not forgotten his own “accident” which led to her missing her interview. Also, during a game, Casey slides into home.53 As she returns to the dugout, the manager and coach tells her not to slide, “Pitchers have to be careful!” To which she says, “I know how to slide!” Here, Casey claims she knows at least as much or more about the game than the coach and Jimmy as a sports reporter. She is the authority on and off the diamond. Both her actions and her words prove this point on and off the diamond.

Casey is not the only player able to transfer her assertiveness and skills off the diamond. Sue Collins is also going to take action. Sue Collins was the captain of the softball team and the catcher. She encourages the team members and communicates with her pitcher consistently on the field of play. She also acts and authoritatively speaks with her boyfriend and sponsor of the team, Foy Harris. In a number of scenes,

Harris tells her what to do.

Early on, Harris says Sue should befriend Casey in order to stay close to Jimmy

Jones, the reporter that he does not trust. She follows his suggestions. Her position changes considerably toward the end of the film when Foy informs her that she is leaving the team and taking a trip. She refuses to leave the team and take the trip he intends. When Sue tells Foy she will not leave, she literally stands up and faces him head on, “I’m not going, Foy! I am staying right here!” When she proclaims her position

53 This game was against a team called the Amazons. We are supposed to cheer for the New Deal team since they are more feminine by default or simply because they are not called Amazons. However, the Amazon team members look and act similarly to those on the New Deal team. Helen Lenskyj states that using the term Amazon to describe a female athlete was meant to have a negative connotation. It was supposed to imply that the athletes were “freakish” (Out of Bounds 79). The filmmakers suggest that the New Deal Team and the “Nine Miss Americas” is the way women’s softball and sports generally, ought to be configured. Women athletes must look good first, and play well second. This is one of the most subtle comments on the part of the filmmakers. On the other hand, because the players of both teams act and look so similar, this seems like a successful attempt to fail to define a feminine athlete. In other words, it is possible the filmmakers meant to confuse the “perfect” image of a female and feminine athlete. . 100

the camera angle shifts putting them both on the same plane and thus reflecting her

assertiveness. Instead of leaving the team and town, she plans to go to the police as an

informant of Foy’s illegal practices. Sue is self-assured and forceful on the field and she

translates this into other aspects of her life. Unfortunately, the filmmaker stops short of

elaborating the full transformation of Sue’s character because Harris murders Sue

before she is able to testify against him. Yet, the notion that Sue would go to this kind of length to protect herself is important in recognizing that physical strength translates into other forms of strength in situations off the field.

The softball team is called the “New Deal” after the drugstore sponsor but also because it also symbolizes a new deal for the women. They are paid to play a sport, which was almost unheard of during the 1930s (Smith 33-44).54 And the women on this team, Peanuts, Casey, and Sue are a force to be reckoned with for the men in the film.

Just as the reel athletes in the previously discussed films, Velvet, in National

Velvet is also the authority on the screen. In fact, the narrative of the story is dependent

upon her will. Velvet tells everyone she is sure she will win the horse, the Pi in the

raffle. Mr. Hallam, a member of the community, claims that Mr. Brown arranged for

Velvet to win the horse because Velvet is going around telling everyone that she will win

the horse. When Mr. Hallum makes his claim public, Mr. Brown makes him pick the

winning ticket number from the bowl. Velvet wins the raffle and townspeople bring the

54 There were baseball teams called “Bloomer Girls” who from the 1890s to the 1920s traveled the country playing games in the bigger cities. But, by the 1930s most teams had folded because of the weak economy and changing public perspectives on women playing baseball. Americans generally began to feel that softball was a more appropriate and safer sport for women, but then many Americans also felt that women should not compete professionally. The team in the film seems to be a smaller scale reflection of the “Bloomer Girls” in many ways. And Americans likely still remembered them in 1937 when this film released. See also Ardell, Jean Hastings. Breaking into Baseball: Women and the National Pastime. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 2005. Berlage, Gail Ingham, Women in Baseball: The Forgotten History. Westport: Praeger, 1994, and Gregorich, Barbara. Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993. 101

horse to his new home. Her approach can be interpreted in at least a couple of ways. It

can be dismissed as a young child’s dream or the innocence of youth or that her actions and words represent a strong female character taking action to accomplish her goals.

Shortly after she wins the horse, Velvet rides him around the countryside and independently decides that the horse is good enough to race in the Grand National. She writes letters to inquire about the rules of the race and discusses the matter with Mi

Taylor. She subtly works to convince Mi that he can and will train the horse. She begins by asking if the Pi could win the Grand National. When he states that kings can only win that race. She tells Mi that her horse is a king and he can win the race. He declares that her horse is “a king in tatters, a king without money, without a jockey, or a trainer.” She counters his comment with, ““Mi, Could the Pi win if he had the money, the jockey and the trainer?” To which Mi answers, “He could fly to the moon if he had wings!” Velvet then says, “But If he had the money and you were the trainer, would you know where to find a jockey?”

At this point, Mi slows the conversation by explaining the time and effort required to train the horse and entertain her proposition, a proposition he is already considering.

Velvet lets him rant since doing so convinces him that the Pi is capable of winning and he is capable of training the horse. She stands and visually counters Mi’s statements regarding the obstacles inherent to entering a horse race providing credence that Violet is the authority through which the plot moves forward. Just after she stands to counter

Mi, he agrees with her assessment that The Pi could win the race. She leaves him with a statement that connects her and The Pi’s fate with his own. She says, “It is his chance to be great and yours too, Mi!” Velvet will accomplish her goals and get the necessary

102

people to assist her without being abrasive or forceful, but through subtle confident and

considered words. She applies the confidence she learns riding the horse to convincing

Mi to train the horse and to other situations. She does so with tact and grace and

convinces others to become cooperative. Velvet is the authoritative force through which

the narrative moves forward when she is both on and off the horse.

Within the each of films studied, there exist many moments when the female athlete exhibits authoritativeness or assertiveness. As Heywood and Dworkin suggest, this authoritativeness is learned through and related to the building of physically strong bodies. The scholars theorize that athletes apply the assertiveness they learn in sporting activities to situations outside the gym, the field, the court, or the track etc. (54).

In Fiesta, Maria shows incomparable strength and assertiveness in her decision to enter the tauromachian competition in her brother’s stead.

When Mario uncovers his father’s deception, he leaves the matador ring, his home, and his town. In the aftermath, Maria stands up to her father. She defiantly tells him that she will find her brother, Mario. Maria decides to bull fight in her brother’s place in order to find him and restore his reputation. Although she trained alongside Mario and is physically fit and capable, she cannot do this on her own. She will need accomplices to successfully pull this off.

She convinces Chato and Conchita to help her in the venture. When she is dressing for her first bullfight, Conchita and Chato both try to dissuade Maria from fighting. Chato says, “In Monterey, I have many relatives. We could go right away and get them to start looking all over for Mario.” To which Maria firmly exclaims, “Chato, if you are in a hurry to see your relatives, you can leave right now.” Chato laments, “I

103

made a mistake. I should have never let you talk me into this.” She turns her attention to

putting the last touches on her uniform, representing her unyielding position and then

letting Chat off the hook. She tells Chato that he does not share the responsibility of her

decision to fight. As a matter of her taking responsibility, Chato will assist her with the

bullfight and her plan to accomplish her goal of finding Mario. She is the benevolent

authority in this matter. Maria is confident of her bullfighting capabilities and her plan to

bring her brother home. She will successfully use this confidence to encourage Chato

and Conchita to continue to assist her.

Early women’s sports films reliably present the female athlete’s physical strength

and authority.55 Within Million Dollar Mermaid, Annette Kellerman swims the Thames

River as a publicity stunt. When Jimmy suggests a six-mile swim, Annette corrects him.

She is the authority in this scenario and will take action that reinforces this position. She says, “If you are going to stage a swim, why don’t you make it a real one? Well that six mile wont impress anyone, but twenty-six miles might.” The assertiveness of her statement is rooted in her physical strength and ability. When she is in the last leg of this marathon swim, the tide becomes rough and she becomes very tired. Unwilling to give up even after Jimmy’s suggestions Annette utters, “I can’t give up now. I just can’t!” and “I will make it. I know I can!” This performance of physical strength foreshadows the strength of character she shows in the later courtroom scene.56

55 Admittedly, not every films offer a consistently clear image of a strong and authoritative athlete. The filmmakers of Pin Down Girls simply do not reliably present characters who demonstrate strength and authoritativeness. With the exception of the scenes where Scalli asks Rita Martinez and Clara Mortenson to throw their matches, the female athletes are filmed to highlight their bodies. The gym scenes prove this point because the athletes are seen in skimpy clothes and smiling while working out in a relaxed manner. The objectifying poses produced do not display physical strength or authoritativeness. Instead they suggest the female athlete’s sexual availability. 56 Many of the events depicted in Million Dollar Mermaid were actual events in this swimmer’s life. In the scene preceding the courtroom scene filmmakers insert a glimpse of manipulated, but actual newspaper 104

Her decision to finish swimming the Thames and her decision to argue in court

for the dismissal of the charges of indecent exposure come from the same place within

this athlete. She is assertive in her proclamation that she will finish the swim and she is

authoritative when convincing the court that her swimwear is practical not indecent as

the charges brought against her proclaim.

In the courtroom scene, Kellerman argues the impracticality and consequences

of adhering to societal ideas of appropriately gendered bathing suits. In her article, “We

Can Be Athletic and Feminine, But Do We Want To? Challenging Hegemonic Femininity

in Women’s Sport” (2001) Vikki Krane asserts that, “Female participation in activities

that require strength and assertiveness challenge existing social norms”; Kellerman

certainly resisted hegemonic femininity (125). She wasted no time challenging American

laws and gender norms thus creating space for alternative femininities. Her arrest at

Revere Beach in 1907 and her successful argument depicted within the film are

arguably the most significant contributions she made to the physical liberation of

American women.57

Through rather covert methods, Kellerman creates an alternative femininity

through relational gender maneuvering since she embodies the characteristics of

physical strength and authority usually reserved for masculine genders while

maintaining a sense of femininity (Schippers 94-95, 100; Finley 361-362, 383). She is

articles sensationalizing Annette’s arrest and position on the charges. Within this, whirlwind of a transition and the subsequent courtroom scene, filmmakers exposed the athlete’s position and introduced to Kellerman’s concerns for the physical fitness of women and girls. In doing so, they reveal the alternative femininity Kellerman espoused in both real life and on the screen. 57 Although this was the publicized arrest and hearing, Kellerman was arrested numerous times at beaches across the U.S. for her “impropriety.” The Revere Beach case and the many subsequent cases contributed to the change in laws regarding swimwear for women. The legalization of sensible swimwear created the opportunity for women to swim for their health (as she encouraged in her interviews and publications) instead of drowning in “bathing suits” (Gibson 60).

105 an athlete, a competitor, and a feminine woman. She confidently argues the irrationality of a woman’s “bathing suit” and the practicality of her appropriate and safe swimming suit. She explains in to the judge, the prosecutor, and those in the courtroom, that her swimsuit would cover her skin and likewise conform to socially appropriate feminine attire and provide for the safety of the swimmer in the water. She adapts her male swimsuit to one that would be considered feminine and appropriate. This swimsuit symbolizes relational gender maneuvering in that it is neither exactly masculine nor exactly feminine in that moment in time. Thus, Kellerman’s successful argument opens up space for a redefinition of feminine attire and behavior because this swimsuit meant women could swim with less fear of drowning in cumbersome clothing. Kellerman described modern sports feminist theories in the statements she provided for the

American media and filmmakers carefully provide a glimpse of this within the film.

Within the film Billie, there are two specific moments that establish Billie as an athletic authority: the scene when Mike explains to Howard her exceptional athletic abilities and when Coach Jones asks Billie to train the other (male) track team members. Billie applies the confidence she learns on the track to other scenarios off the track. Examples of this application occur in the scene when she is asked to coach track team members, debates the principal of Harding High School, and when Mike confronts her about quitting the track team.

Coach Jones asked Billie to try out for the team, but Billie’s self-confidence does not come from the coach or her parents. Instead, it comes from her experience running.

In fact, she is asked by Mike and then the coach to teach the track team how to improve their event times. Billie tells them she finds a beat and then runs to this rhythm. Mike is

106

instantly interested in mastering this technique since it means he might make the

school’s track team.

Mike comes to the house to talk to Billie about her teaching him about the beat.

He tells Howard, “I know what you are thinking, sir and I was thinking the same thing too until she beat me at the 100 yard dash, the high jump, the long jump, the 220, the 440.”

When Billie enters the room Howard tells Billie that she must stop competing with boys.

Billie corrects him and says, “I wasn’t competing with Mike, Daddy. I was trying to help him.” Mike concurs, but Howard creates more out of the situation. Billie’s statement is only half true. They were racing one another, but it wasn’t officially sanctioned. Howard tells Mike and Billie that it is inappropriate for women to be teaching men. Billie has proven her authority in respect to track and field events but it is Howard who takes it a step further and extends the application of her authority and expertise off the track. He says, “It is bad enough that we are ruled from cradle to grave by women. But if they are going to start becoming sports managers and coaches for men, well that is the last straw!” Mike establishes Billie as the authority in this scene. Billie does not confirm or reject any notion that she is an authority or that she is trying to take over the “male” domain of sport.

It is the principle of equality that Billie tests in the scene where the principal of the high school makes a home visit to the Carol’s house. Principal Arnold Wilson of Harding

High school gets right to the point of his visit. He tells Howard and Agnes that Billie went out for the track team. At once, Billie is called down to account for the principal’s claims.

The way she responds to her father and debates the principle of equality quite clearly reflects Heywood and Dworkin’s concept of stealth feminism. Billie is subtle in her

107 questioning of her father’s instruction in order to avoid a hostile environment and to effectively make the point that his request was illogical.

Howard tells Billie that she is not going to try out for the track team. To which

Billie responds, “I am not?” in such a tone that implies an innocent misunderstanding.

Principal Wilson says he will have to pass a regulation prohibiting all girls from trying out for any sport. Billie flatly says, “Mr. Wilson, if I am denied my athletic rights, I will refuse to attend classes.” She is authoritative in her argument to try out for the track team and provides constitutional evidence to prove her point. Because she does not raise her voice and her tone is firm her argument comes across as logical and rational. Neither the principal nor her father has a definitive response for her claims. She exposes the contradiction of regulations regarding gender and organization of athletics and likewise gets to the heart of the principle of equality. In this sequence, Billie applies the authoritativeness she learns on the track and uses it fight for her rights as a student and athlete.

Another example that emphasizes Billie’s authority is the scene when her coach asks her to teach the other track team members. Coach Jones wants Billie to teach her running technique, “the beat” to the other team members because it could result in a more effective team. The coach enters Billie’s changing room to talk to her about her technique. She agrees to teach the other team members if they want to learn. Her coach sets the time for later that evening and assures her that they will agree to learn.

She is the authority on this running technique and this is directly related to her successful athletic performance.

108

She integrates the confidence that she learns in her success on the track to other parts of her life. When confronted with Mike’s proposition that she quit the track team, she stands up for herself and argues her position on the matter. They sit on the same step of the stairway after school and converse while the clock chimes in the background. This mise-en-scene positions the characters outside of school, not on the track field, and not at Billie’s house which places them on an equivalent plane, the same step.58 With the bell ringing in the background the filmmakers signal a time for action and a shift in the story. The bell also symbolizes the limited time athletes perform at an elite level or the duration of any athlete’s career.

Mike: “I’ve decided you ‘ve got to do something because everyone is making jokes and laughing at me . . .I’ve decided you shouldn’t only give up the track team but you’ve got to stop dancing with other boys.”

Billie: “That’s what you decided? . . . In other words you don’t believe in equality. Like my father?”

Mike: “Sure I believe in equality, but I think you should compete as a girl not as a boy. Well if everybody is equal what difference does it make how I compete?” It makes a difference because men and women are equal but they are not the same. If there wasn’t a difference I would go out on a date with Eddie Davis.”

Billie: “What for? I can run faster than he can!”

Mike: “Billie, that’s not why I like you!”

Billie: Why do you like me?

Mike: Because you are a girl.

Billie: And that’s why you don’t want me to compete against men?

Mike: Yes!

58 Mike and Billie’s interactions occur primarily on the track where there is a clear hierarchy of winners and losers or at Billie’s house where her father often structures the narrative (or attempts to). We don’t see them in school frequently, which makes this scene even more poignant. It creates a more level playing field. 109

Billie: then you don’t think of me as an equal!

Mike: Sure I do, but I think of you as a girl first.

Billie: I want you to think of me as an equal first.

Mike: Oh go ahead, do what you want. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

Billie: You don’t want to talk about it because you know you are wrong!”

Mike: “I am not wrong!”

Billie: Okay. You’ll find out tomorrow when I run you into the ground!”

Mike: Now, Billie wait!”

Don Weis zooms into a medium close up of both Billie and Mike at the start of the scene. The director carefully shoots most of the scene in the medium close up but also incorporates the shot reverse shot method to highlight their increasingly opposing viewpoints. Their standing up and subsequent walking down the steps signifies the splitting of the couple. After they descend the steps in order to leave the area, Billie runs away from Mike. He is unable to catch up to Billie. Her physicality allows her to outrun him. This suggests that Billie’s argument carries more weight than Mike’s claim. Her physical competence bolsters the confidence she expresses in her position on the matter of equality between the genders on the track and field. The close of the scene further demonstrates that the confidence she brings to her argument comes from her athletic experience.

Exhibiting Physical Strength and Sexual Autonomy

Eliminating the rapeablilty of women through the building of physically strong female bodies is fundamental to Lisa Heywood and Shari Dworkin’s theory of stealth

110

feminism as well as Martha McCaughey’s theory of physical feminism. McCaughey‘s

sports feminist theory is closely tied to that of Heywood and Dworkin’s notion of stealth

feminism in that they both theorize that gender parity can occur through the physical

liberation of women. While Heywood and Dworkin suggest that the physically strong

female body is a site of resistance they suggest that this resistance often materializes in

a covert manner, McCaughey claims that the resistance ought to materialize in an overt

and conscious manner (201). Once recognized on the screen, both concepts offer a

lens through which to consider the significance of the reel female athlete’s use of her

body as a site of resistance and likewise those moments when she redefines femininity

by creating alternative femininities.

In McCaughey‘s work, Real Knockouts: The Physical Feminism of Women’s Self- defense (1997), she states, “Feminists all agree that systematic power relations can be changed; that’s what makes feminism a theory as well as a social movement” (200).

She goes on to proclaim that feminism, as a theory and a movement, should be physical in the same way that the patriarchy operates (at least partially) through the physical oppression of women. McCaughey says that if women can learn to build strong bodies and reclaim their bodies as themselves, as agents, then women can generate social, economic, and political parity (201-202).

She terms the unification of the mind and body of the female subject the “new bodily comportment” and calls for this to be the norm. In other words, the new bodily comportment disrupts the patriarchal notions of sexuality because the transgressive nature of the physically strong female subject breaks down ideologically naturalized gender differences. According to McCaughey, this strong female subject should be the

111

norm and therefore would no longer need to be considered “transgressive” (202). This

scholar’s ideas are important for interrogating the images of the female athlete in early

sports films because the female athletes’ bodies are often “transgressive” and as a

result evidence the long history of the sports feminist movement in theory and practice.

In other words, the physical liberation of women occurs through the conscious and

deliberate building of physically strong female bodies and minds, which inherently resist

the patriarchal order. In doing so, they are not less feminine or more masculine per se,

but are embodying a holistic self. –a key or goal of gender parity. A characteristic of this

new bodily comportment is sexual autonomy; the subject is possession and control of

their individual sexuality and sexual choices (201-203).

Sexual independence does not equate with virginity or lesbianism. For

McCaughey, it is about lessening and ultimately eliminating the rapeability of women

and likewise concurrently securing women’s sexual independence.59 The female athletes in early sports films display this characteristic, which is rooted in her physical strength. Within Venus of the South Seas, Shona exhibits this characteristic in two keys scenes and constructs an alternative femininity as a matter of doing so.

After Shona leaves the island, she sails into the ocean where she happens upon

Captain Drake’s vessel, The Southern Cross. Her great love, Robert, chose to work as

a deck hand in order to secure his passage back to the island to be with Shona. Shortly

after Shona boards The Southern Cross, Captain Drake makes an advance. Shona

59 Regarding sexual autonomy and gender and/or gendered sport, see also: Cahn, Susan K. Coming on Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Women's Sport. New York: Free Press, 1994; Fuller, Linda K. ed. Sexual Sports Rhetoric: Global and Universal Contexts. New York: Peter Lang 2010; Hargreaves, Jennifer and Patricia Anne Vertinsky. Physical Culture, Power, and the Body. New York: Routledge, 2007; Lenskyj, Helen "Power and Play: Gender and Sexuality Issues in Sport and Physical Activity." International Review for the Sociology of Sport 25.3 (1990): 235-45; Roth, Amanda, and Susan A. Basow. "Femininity, Sports, and Feminism: Developing a Theory of Physical Liberation." Journal of Sport & Social Issues 28.3 (2004): 245-65 112 rejects his advance through at least two key scenes which demonstrate her sexual unavailability and independence. Drake says through a text box while grabbing her arm,

“You might kiss me good morning.” Shona wriggles out of his clutch.60 In the following scene, a fight breaks out on deck. Shona defends a crew member who is being violently abused by the first mate of the ship. She puts her body between the crew member and the antagonists (the captain and the first mate) and calls Drake a bully. Before this scene ends she throws the scarf that presumably Drake gave her as a gift onto the deck. This throwing of her scarf is the first symbolic rejection of Drake and proclamation of her sexual autonomy.

The second scene that occurs which validates Shona’s sexual unavailability to

Drake and concurrently her sexual independence is the scene when she throws the pearls over board. Once Captain Drake is aware that Shona is in possession of pearls, he sets Robert adrift in a sailboat and makes a visit to her cabin. Drake resolutely demands the pearls. Shona is complacent in her response and to his strong-arming her with his command. Shona breaks away from his grasp, looks Drake in the eyes and tells him, “I’d rather give them back to the sea,” as she forcefully throws the pearls through the porthole into the ocean. Shona’s throwing of the pearls through the porthole signifies her unavailability to Captain Drake and her independence in choosing Robert because the pearls are the symbol for her and the sea is a symbol for Robert who Drake set to sea. Captain Drake cannot have or take her pearls, her worth, her body, her love, or her compliance. Shona makes those decisions for herself and she demonstrates her confidence to do so within these two key scenes.

60 In this scene, Captain Drake concludes that Shona loved Robert and this was the reason she rejects his advances. 113

Ann Casey also does not shy away from expressing her independence within

Girls Can Play. Although the banter is written into the script of the film, the exchanges between Casey and Jimmy Jones are not to be mistaken as simply a part of the romantic plot. In fact, these exchanges signify Casey’s strength and independence.

Within the scene when Casey and Jimmy meet, the filmmaker makes clear that Casey will consistently assert her will in the relationship.

In this first scene, Jimmy walks up and down the line of prospective interviewees

for the modeling position advertised. He was looking for a young woman for a human

interest story his boss told him to write. When he approaches Casey he says, “Say,

Look, I . . .” Before he can finish his sentence Casey interjects, “You seem to be doing the looking! But whatever it is no!” This immediate and curt response gets her point across because Jimmy just as quickly backpedals. “Now don’t get me wrong,” he says.

She once again interrupts his dialogue, “I don’t what to get you at all. Try further down the line.” This first exchange emphasizes Casey’s will to maintain her independence.

Jimmy finds a placeholder for Casey and she agrees to the interview. Through her discussion with Jimmy she tells him that she is a great athlete and that she left

Cedar Rapids to pursue her professional goals. As a result of taking the time to

interview with Jimmy, she misses the opportunity to interview for the modeling position.

The last scene in this sequence ends with Casey still in command of the exchange.

Because she is angry with Jimmy for taking up her time and missing the interview she

throws her ice cream cone and hits Jimmy square between the eyes. As she throws the

ice cream she says to Jimmy, “Oh Mr. Jones, put that in your story too!”

114

There are a multitude of opportunities to recognize that Casey consistently uses her physical strength to assert her sexual independence within this film. At the softball practice, Jimmy shows up to conduct interviews and get photos of the team members for a newspaper article. When Casey recognizes Jimmy she is practicing her pitching.

She uses her strength and skill to once again to affirm her position and maintain her sexual independence. Director Lambert Hillyer uses a close up of Casey’s face to highlight her determined facial expression and a zoom out to capture her pitch. This pitch is perfect since it once again hits the target, Jimmy’s head. Dumbfounded, Jimmy rubs his head and decides to confront her. The diegisis of this scene can be interpreted as Casey hit Jimmy to get his attention. Either way, she continues to reject his offers.

When practice is called, Jimmy offers Casey a ride to the diner. When she snubs his offer, Jimmy says, “Come on, Casey be a good sport and give me a chance to square myself.” Casey retorts, “Alright. I will tell you how you can.” Jimmy relaxes for a moment until Casey continues, “Stay away from me. You are a jinx!” The message in this scene is carried for most of the film. Casey rejects Jimmy’s advances based on his clearly romantic intentions and her desire to fulfill her personal goals. Casey is not the only female athlete in early sports films who maintains her sexual autonomy through athletic performance.61

Within Fiesta, Maria also holds Pepe off until she is ready to marry him. Maria’s fiancé, Pepe shows up at the hotel in Pueblo to fetch Maria. He received a position in

New York and in order for them to leave together the next day, they must get married.

61 In the last scene of the film, Casey is still able to hit Jimmy in the back of the head with a newspaper from quite a distance. While she might not compete, she will apply the fundamental physical skills she learned on the diamond in her future. The skills and confidence she learned through athletic endeavors translates to other parts of her life. 115

Maria plans to bull fight in her brother’s stead until he returns. Before she will agree to

marry Pepe he must promise to get Maria back to the hotel in time for her to dress for

the ring. Maria does not let on that she is fighting in place of her brother. Pepe agrees to

get Maria back in time for the bullfight. Thus, Maria maintains her autonomy in this

scene in order to accomplish her goals. In this scene, Maria exercises her sexual

independence by her freely choosing to marry Pepe. A woman’s sexual independence

does not equate with maintaining her virginity or declaring an “alternative” sexuality, but

can also be found in exercising her will to marry or express her sexuality in whatever

manner she chooses. In this scene, Maria manages to secure all of her interests:

marrying Pepe, bullfighting, and bringing her brother home.

Despite that fact that Velvet in National Velvet is an adolescent, there is opportunity to consider this reel female athlete’s sexual autonomy. When an athlete is on the field or the court she is unavailable and independent of all other purposes in that moment. When Velvet is riding and training The Pi, this is her function. Throughout the film, Velvet’s goal was to enter her horse in the Grand National race. She and Mi work out and train The Pi on the family’s farmland, surrounding fields, fences, and

hedgerows. When Velvet rides during the training scenes, this is her sole function.62

62 The filmmakers chose to use a male stunt double for the scenes during which The Pie trained and during the long shots of the race at Aintree. However, Velvet also “trained” for the greatest race of her life. By the time the filmmakers revealed that Velvet would jockey in the Grand National at Aintree, the viewer understood that Velvet was literally training too. What the filmmakers conceal is the fact that the rider in the “training” scenes was none other than the young horseman Monty Roberts. When interviewed about the experience he states in a matter-of fact tone, “I rode a horse over some jumps and wore a wig. I knew there was a little girl somewhere who would be in that movie and I depicted that little girl.” Many of both the training and race scenes are long shots. Exceptions to the long shots allow the view to believe that it is Elizabeth Taylor riding The Pie. The filmmakers used a medium shot when Velvet falls during the training, providing the illusion that Elizabeth Taylor rode The Pie. Moreover, the long shots during the race allow the viewer to believe that the spectators could not see that Velvet was a young woman. The little known, but important fact that Taylor had a stunt double does not undermine the significance that the viewer read the training and racing sequences as a capable female rider and horse training for an 116

The business of this sequence is all about preparing the horse, nothing else. In these

moments, she is permitted this role in this moment and likewise is independent of the impending feminine roles she is expected to fulfill.

Ostensibly the concept of sexual independence rooted in physical strength does not seem to apply to such a young girl. Yet, when she performs in the prerace process and jockeys in the race as a young man, the opportunity to consider this concept more clearly surfaces. At the time of her performance as an jockey and athlete, Velvet is not sexualized in the way she might have been had her gender been known. She is not trivialized or looked at any differently than any other jockey in the processing line or during the actual race. Through the processing of jockeys, Mi does all the talking therefore the strange look from the official is meant to be of puzzlement.

After processing Mi tells Violet to meet him at the center of the paddock since he was going to saddle The Pi. Velvet makes her way to the center and stands at the hedge awaiting MI and her ride. As a matter of doing so, she works her way through the crowded area, but no one takes a second look at her. Also, no one looks very long at her or The Pi as they exit the paddock and make their way to the starting line. At no point in the process of the race is Velvet revealed as a girl jockey and this allows her to retain her independence in the sequence.

For this moment, Velvet’s physical strength and skills allow her the independence normally reserved for men. As a result of the doctor later announcing that the winning jockey was a girl, she is disqualified from the race. The director of the film, Clarence

Brown carefully redefines femininity with this sequence. Velvet lost the race by

important race. See, Nadine Brozan. “Chronicle.” New York Times. Aug 18, 1997. National Velvet. Brown. (1944). 117 disqualification, but she wins the battle to expand conceptions of feminine character, strength, and abilities.

The Artemis Model and Sexual Independence

McCaughey’s theory of physical feminism is closely tied to Annis Pratt and

Pamela Creedon’s ideas about the practice and use of the Artemis archetype in sport and film to affect parity in gender relations. Within these powerful yet liminal moments of the sports films, filmmakers employ the ancient Greek goddess and archetype, Artemis.

Filmmakers of the sports films examined here used the Artemis archetype as a model for the female athlete on the silver screen because she is a symbol of female strength, capability and authority, and sexual independence.

In her work Dancing with Goddesses: Archetypes, Poetry, and Empowerment,

(1994) Annis Pratt asserts, “Artemis is always associated with collective feminine independence in the greener world. . . [which] is not a sexless virginity, but a repudiation of sexual restrictions” (294). Pamela Creedon wrote “From the Feminine

Mystique to the Female Physique: Uncovering the archetype of Artemis in sport,” (1994) within which she remarks, “Any discussion of physicality and gender ultimately leads us to the relation between physicality and sexual oppression. A physically strong woman communicates a much different message than a weak one” (291). These scholars cement the idea that Artemis represents the physically liberated woman because she represents the woman who can successfully compete, fight back, who is not rape-able and exercises her own will in choosing her sexual partners or to be sexually independent. Creedon and Pratt posit that Artemis did not define herself through men or women or a compulsory sexuality. Likewise, she provides an image of sexuality defined

118 outside of patriarchal structure or an alternative gender and sexuality (287). Artemis defies sexual definition and rejects a gender hierarchy of physicality and sport. This figure serves as an inspiration for women resisting definition in patriarchal terms. The sports feminist movement progresses through the utilization of the archetype within early American sports films.

If sexual independence is reserved as a male characteristic, when a woman expresses this sexual freedom she creates an alternative femininity. The women in Pin

Down Girls, in particular the character of Peaches Page, demonstrate Annis Pratt’s notion of the Artemis archetype and create an alternative femininity. Peaches Page signs with Scalli’s gym because she believes that he can provide the opportunities for matches that will lead to her to a championship match. But, Peaches’ agenda is at least two-fold. After a workout, the gym manager and trainer, Ms. Ruby, is massaging

Peaches in the locker room. She asks Peaches, “What are you thinking about?”

Peaches confides in her trainer, “Oh I was just thinking Mr. Scalli is such a wonderful gentleman.” Ms. Ruby tries to dissuade Peaches from her interest in Mr. Scalli, her manager.

Ms. Ruby’s efforts are in vain because later in the film, Peaches finds her way into Scalli’s arms. Ruby walks in on Scalli and Peaches kissing in his office. She responds to what she considers an indiscretion in a monologue divulging his womanizing techniques and history. This does not discredit Peaches desire for Scalli.

Regardless of Ruby’s warnings and rants, Peaches freely chooses Scalli. The director,

Robert C. Dertano, meant to complicate Scalli’s character with this scene in order to portray him not only as a gym owner, racketeer, gangster, and liar, but also as a

119 womanizer. At the end of the scene, Scalli ‘s character is in question and there is little focus on Peaches’ choice. Taken together, the scenes verify that Peaches exercised her own free will independent of other characters’ ideas on the matter.

The character Annette Kellerman also exercises her own free will in her romantic relationships within the biopic, Million Dollar Mermaid. Within this film, Annette does not immediately form a relationship with either Alfred or Jimmy. In fact, there are several scenes that reinforce that she independently makes these decisions. The first is when her and her father are talking about Jimmy’s whereabouts after a Hippodrome show.

The second is when Annette confronts Jimmy on the airfield and the third occurs when

Alfred asks her to respond to his marriage proposal. The final significant scene that supports Annette’s sexual independence occurs in the final sequence, when director,

Mervyn LeRoy, makes it readily apparent that Annette independently chooses Jimmy over Alfred. Her physical strength underpins her sexual independence and the filmmakers craft scenes that highlight this point.

Shortly after Annette earns a contract to perform her water ballets with the New

York Hippodrome, her father enters into a contract to conduct the orchestra. Just after one of her nightly performances she hears the news of her father’s employment and says, “Oh Dad, I couldn’t be happier!” Frederick Kellerman responds, “Couldn’t you?” and proceeds to report Jimmy’s whereabouts and activities. Jimmy was in Florida, New

Orleans, and then Chicago. When Annette confides that she feels like she must find

Jimmy and make things right, her father advises, “Darling, you mustn’t confuse love and loyalty. You owe nothing to anybody in the world, not to me or anybody.” Here, her father establishes that Annette is independent of all the men in her life and free to make

120 her own choices. Frederick may orchestrate music, but he will not orchestrate his daughter’s decisions.

Each moment the filmmakers communicate Annette’s autonomy, they connect it to her athletic or physical abilities. The scene where Frederick relays Jimmy’s whereabouts begins with Annette presumably exiting the Hippodrome pool since she is in her robe and the stage assistant gives her a towel. The director transitions from this scene through a montage of Annette’s brilliant Hippodrome performances. Therefore in this sequence, LeRoy connects her physicality with her sexual independence.63

Annette’s physical strength envelops the second scene, which highlights

Annette’s sexual autonomy. The night before Jimmy is to take off for a transcontinental airplane race, Doc comes to Annette and asks her to talk to Jimmy about staying on the ground. He is not afraid of Jimmy winning the $50,000 prize money for the contest, but he is afraid that Jimmy will crash the rickety plane and lose his life. Before Annette takes action to address her and Doc’s concerns, she completes her performance.

Filmmakers take the opportunity to showcase Annette’s daring diving scene and performance just before Jimmy will also take great risks. After the last dive in her performance the curtain of water goes up with red lights shining through. Director,

Mervyn LeRoy then cuts to the airfield where Jimmy’s red plane is ready for flight. Here, the director uses red in both scenes to signify the risks both characters take in their endeavors and the sovereignty of their decisions.

When Annette travels to the airstrip to confront Jimmy, she initially uses Doc as an excuse for Jimmy not entering the contest. When this doesn’t work she vehemently says, “Jimmy please don’t force me to take drastic actions!” Jimmy asks in a puzzled

63 This montage was also likely meant to signify the passage of time. 121 tone, “What’s that?” To which Annette responds, “I said don’t force me to take drastic actions!” Jimmy retorts, “I’ve never forced you to do anything, baby, remember?” An official hands Jimmy paperwork and tells him that it is a court summons requesting the confiscation of the plane and equipment due to uncollected expenditures on the concession. Timidly, Annette clarifies, “Among other items there is one for $200.00 marked personal. You’ll have to explain that.” Jimmy reaches under his shirt to pull the ring off his necklace and says, “Oh yes! I’m sorry. Here is the item. You can sell it somewhere,” and then he prepares for take off. Filmmakers cut to a close up of the ring in Annette’s gloved hand, then to Annette’s painful expression, and then to Jimmy watching Annette leave the airfield.

Both Annette and Jimmy take risks, leave the airfield on their own accord, and make decisions on their own terms. Both characters independence to take risks and make their own decisions is clearly related in this scene. Jimmy’s comment that he never forced her to do anything reasserts her independence and confirms her character embodiment of an alternative femininity. LeRoy does not reserve displays of the characteristics of authority, physicality, and sexual independence to men in this film.

Moreover, they connect this scene with her demonstrated physical strength and talent at the earlier concession. The director constructs this sequence to highlight Annette’s physicality and her sexual independence.

The third scene is also set inside the Hippodrome where Annette performs her infamous swimming and diving feats. In the sequence, Alfred is meeting with Mr.

Garvey who is pitching his idea for Annette to star in his film, Neptune’s Daughter.64

64 This scene names an actual movie Annette Kellerman filmed during her career, but the circumstances of her involvment are constructed for the plot line of this film. 122

Alfred asks Mr. Garvey, “Have you talked to Ms. Kellerman?” Garvey perplexed,

counters, “I thought you were handling her affairs?” Alfred states flatly, “Well, don’t let

that fool you. I advise her, but she is a lady who makes up her own mind. Still it might be a good change of pace for her. Might even be a good change for me. “For you?” asks the director Mr. Garvey. Alfred turns to Garvey and says, “A trip to California . . .

the two of us . . . just thinking.” His reluctance to commit his thoughts to action is based

upon the reality that Annette holds all of the authority in this situation. She will be the

one who will either decide to go to California, make a film, and commit to Alfred. The

placement of the scene is crafted around her physical performance that, as Alfred

explains, Annette dedicated to the children of the orthopedic hospital.65

He walks into the adjacent room where Annette is playing Santa to the children.

Alfred asks her to answer his marriage proposal of last June. The scene fades out and

the filmmaker then transition to a newspaper headline announcing the impending

nuptials and her decision to make the film Garvey promoted. Annette makes decisions

in her own time. It took over six months before she agrees to be with and eventually

marry Alfred. Even when she agrees to do so, she buys herself more time by agreeing

to film Neptune’s Daughter. Through this sequence and in particular Alfred’s comments,

the director reaffirms Annette’s sexual independence and clearly connects this to her

physicality and authority.

During the final scene of Million Dollar Mermaid Annette chooses Jimmy. The

director consistently reinforces her sexual autonomy throughout the film and carefully

constructs the final scene in the hospital room to emphasize that her physical strength

65 We don’t actually see this particular performance. The performance is abstractly represented to emphasize her physicality. 123

and her sexual independence intertwine. Her injuries, her recovery, and her decision to

be with Jimmy are dependent upon her physical strength. Jimmy outlines her physical

strengths and accomplishments and then ties it to her independence to choose a

partner, “Well I just wanted to tell you that you’re going to beat this thing, baby! You and

[Alfred] Harper! He’s a terrific guy.” Annette already disagrees with Jimmy’s statement

about Harper, but does not need to make this proclamation. The close-ups of her

impassioned face during this scene measure her resolve to be with Jimmy.66

Realizing that Annette chose Jimmy, Alfred interjects, “Unlucky is a better word. .

. What Sullivan says is right, darling. You’ll beat this thing the same way you’ve beaten

everything else.” He turns to Jimmy, “As for you, I don’t know why you should get this

kind of a break. You don’t rate it. You struck gold once and never had the sense to

stake a claim. You are a crazy vagabond Irishman with both feet planted firmly in mid-

air. But, you are what the doctor ordered. Just see that you make her happy.” Alfred

leans over to kiss Annette on the forehead and says, “Good bye, darling. You will be up

and around soon rehearsing a new act. And when you do, remember I am holding you

to your contract with the Hippodrome!” Alfred understands Annette chooses Jimmy and

connects this decision to her physical strength as an athlete and performer.

The Artemis archetype is a model for the female athlete on the silver screen

because she is a symbol of female strength, capability and authority, and sexual

independence. Annis Pratt asserted that the Artemis archetype did not project a

“sexless virginity.” Creedon stated that the Artemis archetype conveys feminine strength

and this is viewed as contrary to traditional feminine qualities. Krane, Finley, and

66 She tells Jimmy that the engagement ring belongs to her, which also confirms her autonomous decision to marry him. 124

Schippers argue that when women embody the characteristics of physical strength, authoritativeness, and sexual independence they construct alternative femininities and when consistently expressed expand notions of gender and create more equal social and political climates. Director, Mervyn LeRoy certainly portrays the character of

Annette as a physically strong and sexually independent woman who resists hegemonic femininity, maneuvers between genders, and thus creates an alternative femininity.

The strongest case for the Artemis archetype as the physically strong and sexually independent feminine figure is found in the film, Billie. The first scene that confronts the gender hierarchy head on is the scene when Billie sings “Lonely Little In-

Between.” In the previous scene, her father questions the social appropriateness of

Billie’s prowess as a track and field athlete while Mike’s confirms her exceptional physical strength and skill. The placement of this scene reinforces the challenging nature of her physical strength and the impact it has on her perceived and developing gender and sexual identity. Through the scene when she sings the song, she articulates the gender binary and claims that she does not clearly fit into either category. This scene and song confronts heteronormativity and unequivocally deconstructs the gender binary, thus creating space for alternative femininities.

Lonely Little In-between I feel just like a toy, my head is in a whirl I should have been a boy but here I am a girl What good is growing up when this is all it means? I’m and in-between, a lonely little in-between. I don’t have fun on dates, I feel so out of place The boys don’t act the same as when we’re in a race I just can’t be myself, at least that’s how it seems I’m an in-between, a lonely in-between My father loves me so and I adore him too Why can’t he understand the heartaches I am going through I don’t know who to please, why can’t I just be me?

125

I’m sitting on a fence, confused as I can be Sometimes it really hurts just to be fifteen And an in-between, a lonely little in-between, that’s me (Lyrics by Bernice Ross, Lor Crane and Jack Gold, Music by Dominic Frontiere)

The song, within the context of the visual medium of film, both acknowledges and

disavows a spectrum of gender embodied by the character, Billie. The lyrics and the film

frame reverberate that she feels like she is concurrently masculine and feminine and

desires to be in both worlds. At the close of the song the camera pans down to reveal

that Billie holds perfume in one hand and track cleats in the other, symbolizing the

“contradiction” of the female athlete.

It is important to recognize that she sings this song alone in her bedroom. Along with the lyrics, this setting signifies her sexual independence and a repudiation of sexual constraints. At least for a moment the lyrics reject heteronormativity. Billie sings, “I don’t have fun on dates. I feel so out of place.” The assumption here is that she goes on dates with boys and that this does not fit her interests. For a moment there is a sexual fluidity suggested in this line and at a minimum it can be inferred that she questions her sexuality. The line that follows, “the boys don’t act the same as when we’re in a race” does not entirely clear up Billie’s gender or sexual identity and this is the central message of the song. She wants the world to be just like the race with an equitable starting place and opportunity for all individual competitors regardless of subjectivities or binary identities. In this moment, she is the symbol not only of the Artemis archetype in film, but also of the progressive female athlete in American film in that she challenges definitions of gender, rejects sexual constraints, and creates an alternative femininity.

126

Another scene in which to recognize the Artemis archetype and Billie’s physical strength and sexual independence is the scene in which Billie ends her relationship with

Mike. She breaks up with Mike because she will not put up with his rules for the relationship, which include that she must quit the track team and quit dancing with other boys. Billie will not relinquish her right to compete and, subsequently written into the dialogue as a matter of Mike’s dancing rule, her sexual independence. Billie realizes she wants to be with Mike, but not at the expense of her sexual autonomy or of her ability to exercise her physical strength.

The dialogue and her actions both connect her athletic success with her sexual autonomy. Mike’s statements jeopardize her physical strength and sexual autonomy.

Thus, she rejects the constraints Mike declares and retains both her qualities. Billie is the fastest runner on the track team. If she does not want someone to catch her she cannot be caught. The same is true in regard to Billie’s romantic partner choice. No one can romantically or sexually have, take or catch Billie if she does not consent. Director,

Don Weis reinforces this idea at the end of this break up scene when Billie runs from

Mike and he cannot catch her. This scene elucidates that Billie embodies the characteristics of the Artemis archetype and simultaneously creates an alternative femininity; one that includes strength and sexual sovereignty usually preserved as masculine traits.

Ultimately, both Mike and Billie quit the track team to create a level playing field for the relationship. This does not presume that either of them quit running. This turn of events does not necessitate the assumption that Billie gives up her sexual independence since she chooses this relationship with Mike under equitable terms.

127

Although the film ends with a song that avows hegemonic femininity, this does not

negate the liminal moments within this film, nor does this diminish Billie’s established

elite athleticism, authority or her sexual independence. Thus, she is the most credible

representation of the Artemis archetype in early women’s sports cinema.

Conclusions

Catharine Mackinnon penned “Women, Self Possession, and Sport” (1982) within which she asserts,

Athletics for women is a way of being of knowing and using our bodies for purposes other than that of looking at or possessing by men. . . it’s threatening to one’s takeability, one’s rapeability, one’s femininity, to be strong and physically self-possessed. To be able to resist rape, not to communicate rapeability, with one’s body, to hold one’s body for uses and meanings other than that can transform what being a woman means (121,122).

Here, she translates the central tenet of Finley’s gender maneuvering concept in that she points out that the creation of alternative genders can affect gender relations and consequently advance the sports feminist movement.

Leslie Heywood’s theory of stealth feminism, Martha McCaughey’s physical feminism, and Pamela Creedon and Annis Pratt’s ideas about the Artemis archetype, all demonstrate similar ideas: gender parity comes about through redefining femininity and

subsequently masculinity. When women build their physical strength they become more

authoritative, and sexually autonomous women.

I argue that the filmmakers of the works under study were familiar with the

practice of resisting the hegemonic gender order because they employed what we now

think of as Finley’s theory of gender maneuvering. The films explored in this study

contain liminal celluloid spaces presented by the filmmakers as everyday occurrences.

128

The patterns of resistant celluloid space emphasized the “normality” of the reel female

athlete’s action and likewise worked to mainstream the female athlete’s image. The

liminal moments are the very moments in which the sports feminist movement moves

forward because they expose the spectator to an image of alternative femininities and

the physically liberated woman. The filmmakers of and actresses in early women’s

sports cinema portrayed counter-hegemonic femininities embodied in the characters of the female athletes. Because they committed celluloid space to this end, they ensured that the athletes misfit the frame of conventional femininity. Hence, these images served as a progressive force for the redefinition of femininity.

Mariah Burton Nelson stated, “Feminism is rarely an individual’s motivating force but always the result” (30). Regardless of whether or not the filmmakers or the actresses self-identified as feminists, their actions support a history of sports feminism alive and well and still debated among scholars and lay people alike. The ideas of gender hegemony and hegemonic femininity allow for the potential for change. Finley’s concept of gender maneuvering outlines the framework for change and proponents of the physical liberation theory present the action which becomes the catalyst for the re- conceptualizing or redefining or reconstructing societal ideas of gender. Female athletes in early women’s sports cinema provide the catalyst for redefining gender most visibly through moments when they demonstrate their physical strength.

129

CHAPTER FIVE

FAST FORWARD: SPORTS CINEMA AND THE PHYSICAL LIBERATION OF WOMEN

While I was growing up, I had a very idealistic perspective of gender equality because I have a twin brother. Because my parents usually treated us equally, I felt that this always ought to be the case. It was as if we did not even have individual names because we were most often referred to as “the twins”. My brother and I were inseparable growing up. We played every sport with all the neighborhood kids. But, when we were about eight or nine years old, my parents registered my brother for little league baseball. To say the least, I was disappointed each and every time I sat in the bleachers to watch his practice or game. I felt that my parents valued his involvement in sports over mine. I could not think of any valid reasoning for my parents’ major offense.

I survived this baseball season despite watching other girls playing with the boys on the little league teams. I saw firsthand that the reason for my exclusion was not an official rule excluding girls.

One evening around the same time period, my grandfather took my brother, my male younger cousin, Michael, and me to the driving range and batting cages to get us out of the house. This was a real treat for me since he frequently only took the boys. As per usual, we were excited to spend time together and with our grandfather. When we arrived, he allowed us to hit baseballs in the batting cages while he hit golf balls. We finished pretty quickly and went to find our grandfather.

Since we found him still hitting golf balls at the driving range we asked him for more tokens. Instead of giving us more tokens, he allowed us to hit some golf balls. I

130 went first. True to my jokester personality, I started goofing off, while he was giving instruction. I was actually trying to listen to him and hit the golf ball, but I was also concerned with making my brother and my cousin laugh. My grandfather rarely lost his cool. On this evening, he hollered at me to knock it off. When I didn’t, he packed everything up and we all headed for the car. It seemed as if the drive home took ages.

In the car, granddad told me in a firm tone I had never heard before or since, that I would never become an athlete if I could not be serious and focused. Both my brother and my cousin tried to console me while our granddad berated me and rightly criticized my behavior. I think my brother and my cousin understood that if they had gone first, it might have been them who granddad lectured. I was in tears. In this moment, I couldn’t believe my granddad was yelling at me and being so hurtful with his comments.

I realized much, much later, that this was the first time that anyone suggested that I could be an athlete. I also realized that maybe I wasn’t taking anything seriously because I believed that I could not become an athlete. This episode, while traumatic, at the time meant that I would get more serious about developing my athletic skills. I ended up playing a number of organized sports in school and I continue to do so as an adult. My parents supported my athletic ambitions in middle and high school, but I certainly received a number of mixed messages about sports over the years. On the one hand, playing sports was not a priority for a girl. On the other hand, if I got serious,

I could become an athlete.

These are merely two examples of the kinds of mixed messages I received growing up as a Title IX baby67. I think when this law was enforced many people

67 Title IX passed in 1972 and was a part of the Equal Opportunity in Education Act . I am a member of the first generation to grow up with expanded athletic opportunities created as a result of this federal law. 131 including my parents and grandparents did not know how to respond. I believe that it took the athletic successes of Title IX babies to change the previous generations’ mind about what women and girls could accomplish. And I strongly suggest that we are not done. I do not presume that these types of mixed messages were intentional in any way. In fact, I consider my experience similar to the experiences of women and girls throughout the twentieth century. As athletic opportunities increased for women and girls, people reacted slowly and reluctantly to these changes.

Just as I received mixed messages about sports and people resisted change in gendered sports, the films studied here also reflect a similar sense of schizophrenic anxiety. Through my study of early women’s sports films, I argue that female athletes frequently conformed to hegemonic femininity in order to normalize female participation in sport and film in this male dominated genre.68 These athletes simultaneously do not fit (or misfit) the frame of traditional femininity. In doing so, they opened space for alternative femininities and encouraged the physical liberation of women.69 The representations of early reel female athletes are paradoxical in that the representations of hegemonic femininity and alternative femininities appear contradictory. Yet, they also expose a truthful representation of the reel female athlete as an historically complex gendered subject.

Title IX babies is the term often used to describe the generation of women who were born in the 1970s and early 1980s and who benefited from this law meant to eliminate sex-discrimination in educational institutions receiving federal funding (Wushanely 76; Lenskyj Out of Bounds 110; Hueben, 659). 68 Nancy J. Finley’s (2010) and Mimi Schippers (2007) define the concept of hegemonic femininity as necessarily heterosexual, and consequently the characteristics are connected to pleasing men. This concept puts an, “emphasis on vulnerability, fragility, acceptance of marriage, sexual receptivity, and motherhood” (361; Connell 1987, 188). 69 Finley suggests that alternative femininities Finley claims that it is, “alternative femininities” that are most likely to challenge the patriarchal order when performed by women. These “alternative femininities” disrupt gender relations in specific and subtle recurring interactions between men and women.

132

The mixed images and messages of the reel female athlete in early women’s sports cinema mirror the division within the feminist movement. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the nation industrialized as sports programs concurrently developed. During this time, politicians passed protective laws regarding women’s labor and courts argued the constitutionality of such laws. The positions of the arguments demonstrate the division within the feminist movement more generally and had a major influence on philosophy of difference in sport (Woloch Muller 61, 74).

My discussion of the philosophy of difference in sport is not meant as a sweeping condemnation of the efforts of early women physical educators. These early leaders of women’s education and athletic programs very much judged their efforts as quite progressive for the time. Many early physical educators were interested in increasing opportunities for women and girls to become physically active and fit individuals. They felt as though they needed to make the “rules” for women and girls’ physical activities different from those of men in order to emphasize their femininity, encourage collaboration among women, and ensure that everyone had the opportunity to participate (Duncan 2; Melnick 3-4; Wushanley 10-14). However, as result of their approach, they emphasized sex difference instead of equality of opportunity. The approach they took to ensure an expansion of opportunities for women was in fact progressive and unprecedented in athletic programs for women and girls, but certainly originated in a much more extensive discourse on women’s rights meant to construct men and women as different social classes under the law. The actions taken by the early leaders of women and girls’ athletic programs also constructed women and men as separate classes of people. Adopting policies that emphasize sex difference

133 unintentionally impeded rather than advanced the feminist goal of sex equality, particularly in the field of sport dominated by men.

The Brandies Brief was used in arguments for the overturning of the Muller v.

Oregon (1908) Supreme Court case. The brief exposed notions of difference and further politicized sex discrimination. The case regarded limiting women laundresses’ working hours. The decision of the high court to uphold protective legislation for women was based on a history of State supreme courts doing the same. For example, in 1876 the

Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld a law protecting women and children in the textile industry (Cott History of Women 586-588).70 The argument for protective laws was consistently based in sex difference, but it always also meant sex-discrimination.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandies argued that laws protecting women’s reproductive function were of public interest and necessary. The argument of his brief translated to women and men being treated as different classes of people under the law. Brandies said, “two sexes differ in structure of body, in the function to be performed by each, in the amount of physical strength [and] in the capacity for long-continued labor” (Chafe 57). Brandies presented sociological and “scientific” evidence to support his position that women needed protection and could not be treated equally under the

Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Cott, History of Women, 588-

589, 591).

This case is important because it legalized sex discrimination on a federal level before sex discrimination was written into law.71 In support of the decision, Felix

70 The Massachusetts case was representative of the kinds of decisions many State Supreme Courts handed down in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 71 Sex discrimination in employment was written into federal law through Title VII of the Civil rights Act of 1964. See, Cott, History of Women 597-601. 134

Frankfurter, later Supreme Court Justice noted, “Nature has made men and women

different . . . The law must accommodate itself to the immutable differences of Nature”

(Chafe 57). This case related to limiting women’s working hours, but the underlying

position on women’s physical inferiority and the socially dominant position that women

needed protection and special treatment were concepts that transcended debates on

gendered labor and were entrenched long before the case was heard in the highest

court.

This brief represented a means to an end in that lawyers and labor leaders

meant to follow up with subsequent cases in order to ensure the protection of all

workers. Those involved in the presentation of the case could not have foreseen the

lasting effect it would have on both women and men. Felix Frankfurter argued the case

of Bunting v. Oregon (1917) using the same arguments from the Muller case and

winning as Brandies had in 1908. However, the Bunting case was about protecting male

workers. Historian, Nancy Cott explains that many individual states followed the Muller decision, but largely disregarded the Bunting decision (History of Women 590; Ware,

75). Many women’s rights leaders held that protective legislative reform could serve as a means to establishing labor rights and women’s rights more generally. If labor leaders meant to win worker rights in the Muller and Bunting cases, they failed. The Muller decision legitimized difference under the law, which would restrict opportunities for women and the Bunting case would largely be forgotten (History of Women 590; See also Ware, 75). Others dissented from this view.

There were voices of dissent at the time the Muller v. Oregon decision was handed down. The term, protective legislation meant that women were not only a class

135

unto themselves, but also supported a hierarchy of gender and later citizenship. Alice

Paul a longtime advocate of women’s rights supported the position within the National

Women’s Party that spoke to the goal of equality of sexes. She asserted that protective legislation implied that women could not care for themselves and the word hindered the movement toward equality under the law (Chafe 55). Throughout the history of the women’s rights movement, feminists meant to ensure the erasure of all barriers of opportunity based in sex discrimination. Henrietta Rodman of the Feminist Alliance emphasized in a statement in 1916, that evaluation of the individual based upon merit and ability would be the best practice to eradicate sex-based discrimination. These radical positions represented the dissenting voice in the early modern feminist movement. (Cott The Grounding of Feminism 38).

Yet, it wasn’t until the 1970s, that scholars began to critically examine the ill effects of the decision and determined the Muller case as detrimental to the advancement of women. This case cemented a legal precedent to discriminate based upon sex. It had detrimental effects for women in that it restricted their opportunities in male-dominated fields (Woloch Muller 61, 74; Rothman, 162-163). Nancy Woloch states in regard to the Muller case and the varying approaches to feminist goals adopted during the twentieth century, “the paradox of modern feminism … is the tension between equality and difference” (Woloch Muller 73, 74; Cott The Grounding of Modern

Feminism 13-50; Woloch, Women 384-285). Labor leaders, women’s rights advocates,

and physical educators debated policies based in sex difference during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the issue of the impact of the Brandies Brief is still relevant and debated in contemporary time (Woloch Muller 74; Ware 75; Rothman 159).

136

The institutionalization of philosophy of difference in sport impeded the

advancement of equality within the sports feminist movement. Women who believed

that women and men ought to be treated differently shaped early policies on women’s

sport and athletics. While is seems women physical educators had no ‘Brandies Brief’ of

their own, they certainly adopted analogous principles of difference. When they did so,

they emphasized femininity and asserted they taught “true womanhood” (Melnick 4).

Prevailing opinions regarding their approach were criticized but those who disagreed

with difference policies and laws were a minority voice during the first several decades

of the twentieth century (Rothman 159-160; Cott The Grounding of Feminism 38; Chafe

55). Later generations would uncover the inherently discriminatory notion of difference

and ultimately slowly begin to adjust the policies and laws regarding gender difference

and sex discrimination under the law.72

In her book, Women and the American Experience, Nancy Woloch states that

protective laws “actually protected men against female competition” (384). This concept

is important to understanding the long-term impact of the Muller case and to

understanding why women physical educators held so tightly to difference policies. It is

interesting to note that at least a part of the motivation for protective legislation

originated from the perceived threat women posed to men’s dominance in the labor

market (Woloch, Women 384-385; See also, Rothman 160-164). Protective legislation reinforced a gendered hierarchy for labor. It solidified men as the “ideal” or the more attractive employee because they would not have restrictions on their hours or other terms of employment. These laws erased the threat, at least for a time, that women

72 For example, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Equal Opportunity Employment, the Equality of Education Act (1972) and the Congressional passage of the ERA in 1972 (not ratified) Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988. (Festle 112; Cahn 257; Cott, History of Women, 598; Chafe 215, Brake 17-21) 137

would take men’s jobs (Cott History of Women 586-587, 596, 606-607; Rothman 163;

Ware 74-75).73 While these laws did reinforce the women’s sphere of influence they did not exactly erase the threat that men would take women’s jobs. Women physical educators held fast to the philosophy of difference since they thought this meant they would keep their jobs and continue to encourage women’s physicality albeit in accordance with “true womanhood” (Wushanely 12; Duncan 2).

Given the tension between feminist schools of thought and the emphasis placed on expressing femininity and difference, it is no longer a question of why early women’s sports cinema contains such confusing messages about female athleticism. Certainly, filmmakers of early women’s sports cinema demonstrated the philosophy of difference, which incorporated characteristics of hegemonic femininity and were underpinned by the biomedical model and frailty myth. These representations demonstrate the influence of sports feminists who approached advancing women’s rights and opportunities by emphasizing difference and femininity.

Filmmakers produced an inconsistently progressive image of the female athlete in sports film. The reel female athletes often expressed physical strength, assertiveness, and sexual independence, but they also more often subscribed to traditional notions of femininity. In other words, they more frequently displayed fragility and vulnerability, their sexual availability, and their acceptance of the “inevitability” of motherhood and marriage. Because the characteristics of hegemonic femininity were so often portrayed onscreen they undermine the potential for a progressive impression of the reel female athlete.

73 Women were not really infiltrating men’s fields in large numbers at the time of the Muller decision and other like decisions bolstering protective legislation. After World War II men more often found themselves competing for employment. See Cott History of Women, 586, 596. 138

Yet, the ideas of the more liberal faction of the feminist movement are

represented in liminal moments within these sports films. I propose that the female

athlete within American film has always had a presence and opened space for the

reconfiguration of gender primarily through the filmmakers’ and/or athletes’ practice of a

variety of sports feminist theories. The liberal sport feminist theories utilized in this study

include, but are not limited to Nancy J. Finley’s ideas on gender maneuvering, Lisa

Heywood’s, stealth feminism, Martha McCaughey’s, physical feminism, Annis Pratt and

Pamela Creedon’s, ideas about the Artemis archetype in film, and Amanda Roth and

Susan A. Basow’s, physical liberation theory. Considering that these theorists’ ideas point to the core principles of the equality model of sports feminism, these theories help us understand the portrayal and limited representation of the female athlete in early cinema. By utilizing these modern liberal sports feminist theories, I assert that their ideas were represented in early film, even if the concepts had not been fully articulated at that time.74 This strengthens my argument that there is a long history of sports feminism articulated through women’s sports cinema. Furthermore, these sport feminist theories are useful in explaining a history of gender variance as well as understanding the slow progress of female athletes on and off the screen and in sporting spaces.

The question remains: what does the progressive image of a reel female athlete look like? What kind of image serves to advance the goals of sports feminist movement? The answer: it depends on whom you ask. The divisions within the feminist movement of the early twentieth century still exist today. The difference model has not

74 Jayne Caudwell explains that we should not compartmentalize feminism by waves when the general goals of feminism have not changed significantly. The leaders of the movement changed and it gives an impression that intergenerational divisiveness exists. I agree with Caudwell when she suggests we not get caught up with “reinventing” methods of resistance categorized by “third wave” feminists (Sports Feminism(s) 116-118). 139

been abandoned entirely, but its value has certainly been questioned. If the equality

model tends to hold more cultural weight now, then the characteristics of physically

liberated women ought to be a part of the reel female athlete’s image.

Utilizing liberal sports feminists’ notions regarding the physically liberated

woman, I suggest filmmakers incorporate the following characteristics as a measuring

stick for the creation of consistently progressive images of female athlete on screen in

the future. First, in order for a paradigm shift to occur in the representation of the female

athlete, the female athlete should never be called a boy or assumed to be a lesbian.

This occurs in many of the films, and in particular within, Billie. Second, the female

athlete should be recognized by her individuality not her gender. An athlete’s gender is

too often presented through her appearance. Filmmakers must work to eliminate rules that construct difference to include uniforms, and rules of the game, and equipment used.

Third, a truly progressive female athlete builds strength consistently and never suggests a glass ceiling of her strength or competition. The filmmakers of the biopic,

Million Dollar Mermaid, could have depicted Annette Kellerman’s desire to dive from unprecedented heights. In her own filmmaking ventures, she was part of the creative process and made decisions based on her abilities and desires. Filmmakers of this film, hinted at this reality through the Hippodrome scenes, but did not fully depict this part of

Kellerman’s character in the film.75 Fourth, athletes must have the opportunity to

75 For example, Annette was very much involved in a filming process of Daughter of the Gods (1916). Both studio executive William Fox and director Herbert Brenon listened to and often incorporated Kellerman’s ideas while making this film. Some of her ideas related to the height of her dives and others, the camera angles and scene settings. (Gibson 134-141). 140

compete with athletes of the opposite gender.76 With the exceptions of Billie and Venus of the South Seas, women did not compete with men. Gender segregated competition also persists in modern sports films. And fifth, the reel female athlete conveys confidence far more often than doubt. This is not to suggest that the progressive image of female athlete should be infallible, but that she is sure of her abilities. A good example of a female athlete who is consistently sure of her abilities is Anne Casey in

Girls Can Play.

Finally, through her strength the progressive image of the reel female athlete escapes the rape mystique. The rape mystique is too much a part of women’s sports cinema. Filmmakers must not habitually portray rape or the threat of rape, the concept that women are vulnerable to rape, or that they are in need of protection from another male.77 They must portray a woman who is physically strong and confident that, should any kind of assault on her body occur, she can and will defend herself.78 The truly progressive reel female athlete must force viewers to reconsider gendered assumptions of sport, until, as Martha McCaughey states, the nature of her actions are no longer considered “transgressive.” (201-203; Roth and Basow 252-261).

Women have agency; they have the power to transform gender relations. Sharon

R. Guthrie and Shirley Castelnuova (1994) Roth and Basow (2004), and many other sports feminist theorists agree that women’s liberation is dependent upon their physical

76 Roth and Basow present as a part of their argument that women and men can compete against one another and this growing female strength will present more opportunities if such competitions are sanctioned (254). 77 I am not suggesting that filmmakers disavow rape, but it is far too prevalent in American sports films and American films generally. 78 Several sports feminist who support the physical liberation theory suggest that women who build strength are far more likely to successfully resist rape. Moreover, they are more likely to subtly change gender scripts about who is vulnerable and who can be aggressive and this can over time, eliminate the rape mystique (Roth and Basow 255-256). 141

liberation. Nancy Theberge wrote, “Toward a Feminist Alternative to Sport as Male

Preserve,” (1985/1997) within which she asserts, “the potential for sport to act as an

agent of women’s liberation, rather than their oppression, stems mainly from the

opportunity that women’s sporting activity affords them to experience their bodies as

strong and powerful” (191).79 Despite of the paradox of the feminist ideas presented within the films, the reel athletes in early American sports films promoted the physical liberation of women. Their resistant performances demonstrate a much longer and more complex history of the sports feminist movement within women’s sports cinema.

New Directions for Research

There are several directions I consider as a next step for this project. I may research the real athlete on the silver screen. Traditionally, Hollywood filmmakers recruited actual athletes for American films. This research would lead a further consideration of the relationship between sports and sports film. I plan to research the national and regional reception of the films. Taking into account spectatorship in sport and audience reception in film offers the opportunity to recognize similar and important insights into gendered sports in American culture. Also, as a next step in my own research, I would like to extend this project chronologically into new millennium

American sports films. Other areas for future research include but are certainly not limited to contrasting the image of the male athlete in early American sport film and analyzing the reception of early films such as, The Sidewalks of New York (1923) that did not survive despite the best preservation efforts of film historians. I could certainly move forward with my study chronologically from a cultural studies theoretical

79 See also, Vikki Krane, "We Can Be Athletic and Feminine, But Do We Want to? Challenging Hegemonic Femininity in Women's Sport." Quest 53.1 (2001): 115-33. p.129. 142

perspective. An identity theory approach would not necessitate an abandonment of the

feminist model utilized in this study, but would offer an opportunity to include an analysis

of the intersections of gender and sexuality, with that of race, ethnicity, class, and

disability. Moreover, research is needed in the audience reception of these films from the same inclusive perspectives.

143

APPENDIX A

FILM SUMMARIES

Venus of the South Seas (1924)

This silent film was created to showcase Annette Kellerman’s swimming abilities and her image as the “perfect woman”. This silent film tells the story of Shona

(Kellerman), a pearl dealer’s daughter. Without a mother or a brother she assists her father, John Royale (Roland Purdie) with his business. As a result, she became adept at diving and swimming. She lives with her father and among the native population on the fictional South Pacific island of Manea. The narrative turns from Shona assisting her father in his endeavors to dreaming about her love, Robert Quane’s (Robert Ramsey) whom she met after she briefly boarded his cruise ship anchored off the island. While she waits for Robert’s return, her father dies suddenly and she is left to figure out how to leave the island. When she leaves the island she takes the pearls that remain with her.

She sets sail on the open sea only to run into a storm before reaching Captain John

Drake’s (Norman French) merchant ship. Unbeknownst to Shona, Robert has chosen to work on Drake’s ship in order to retrieve her from the island. Shortly after she boards this ship she reveals that she has valuable pearls, which make her a target. Once she realizes that she is a target and the pearls the crew’s motivation, she dumps them over board. Drake not only wanted the pearls for his own profit, but he also desired Shona.

Her dissention from his romantic plan as well as his plan to profit from the sale of the pearls angers Drake. Resolving this conflict becomes the last obstacle to the unification of Robert and Shona. When the crew and native divers cannot retrieve the pearls from

144 the ocean floor, Shona is called upon to do so. She is able to dive deep enough and stay underwater long enough to find the pearls when no other person could do so.

Following this climax, Robert and Shona leave the ship on the sailboat she arrived on and sail into the sunset.

Girls can Play (1937)

Here the director, Lambert Hillyer threads the narrative of women’s baseball into that of a crime drama. Therefore, the title leaves a lot to explain. But, this film is about

Ann Casey played by Julie Bishop. Ann has just arrived in Hollywood and is waiting in a line to apply for job when she meets the wannabe crime writer, Jimmy Jones (Charles

Quigley). They have lunch together and Ann reveals her athletic skills. She is reluctant to pursue playing sports because she feels as though she must choose between being a woman and being an athlete. Jimmy suggests she try out for the local baseball team anyway, which is sponsored by a local drug store owned by Foy Harris. Harris is a gangster who uses the drug store as a cover for his illicit activities. Rita Hayworth stars in the film as Sue Collins, the captain and catcher of a local baseball team and Harris’ girlfriend. When Casey tries out for the baseball team, she meets Sue. The two women instantly become friends and Casey gets a job at the drug store. Jones is suspicious of

Foy Harris and begins an investigation of his business. As the plot unfolds, it is clear that Foy is a dangerous criminal willing to kill anyone who threatens to reveal him to the authorities. This includes his girlfriend, Sue. When Sue suspiciously dies on the baseball field, the coroner, police detective, and Jimmy uncover Foy’s poisonous method, they have enough to pin him to this and other similar homicides. The only thing

145

between the investigative team catching Foy is Casey, who has the bad timing of being

caught in Foy’s office as he was making his escape. A tussle ensues as Foy is captured

and through this dramatic scene we understand that Jimmy and Casey have fallen for

each other. In the end, Jimmy gets his, guy, his girl, and his crime reporting position

with the local paper. Casey gets a man who appreciates her talents. As the closing

scene illuminates, they married, but she can still throw a mean curve ball.

National Velvet (1944)

This film was based on the book of the same name written by Enid Bagnold in

1935. However, this film is more than a tale about a girl and a horse. It is also about

socially constructed ideas about the role of women in sport. Velvet Brown is the lucky

winner of a raffle for a horse she named The Pi. When she gets the idea that this horse could win the Grand National horse race, nothing stops her from achieving this goal.

Her mother gives her the entrance money and tells her that this her is her moment to achieve greatness for herself. This kind of moment will have to last her lifetime. A boy named Mi helps train the horse and arranges for a jockey. When the jockey is not to

Velvet’s suiting, she decides to cut her hair, dress as a boy or young man, and race The

Pi herself. She wins the race, but is officially disqualified because she fainted before reaching the official area of dismount and unofficially disqualified because she was a female jockey. Either way, she achieved her goal. When the doctor who attends to

Velvet discovers she is a girl, he orders that screens be put up to block her body from view. The fainting and the screens symbolize the idea that women are fragile and in need of protection. Upon her return home, her mother gently insists that she retire her

146

thoughts of horse racing for they are reserved for young women or girls. It is time for

Velvet to grow up and accept a more feminine role.

Fiesta (1947)

This film is about the fraternal twins, Maria (Ester Williams) and Mario (Ricardo

Montalbán) who are born to Antonio (Fortunio Bonanova) and Señora Morales (Mary astor). Antonio is a famous Mexican matador who wishes to have his son follow in his footsteps. As children, their father and their father’s friend, Chato (Akim Tamiroff) trained Mario to be the best matador in the history of Mexico. Meanwhile, Maria trained with Chato behind her father’s back because it was socially unacceptable for women to become matadors. As the children grow up, their individual passions diverge. Mario would rather be a composer than a matador and Maria wants little else, but to be a matador. Maria succumbs to family and societal pressures regarding the unacceptability of her becoming a matador and reluctantly agrees to marry Jose ‘Pepe’ Ortega (John

Carroll). On the twins 21st birthday, Maria arranged for Mario to meet with Mazimino

Contreras (Hugo Haas), a famous musician interested in taking Mario on as a student.

Upon Mario finding out that his father sent Contreras away without informing him of the visit. Mario becomes disillusioned with his life and leaves the bullfight, where he was to make his public debut. This turn of events brought shame on the Morales family. Maria conjures up a scheme to bring Mario back. This plan allows her to become a matador since she will “simply” take his place at the scheduled bullfights. She fights successfully until her brother gets word that she is fighting in his name. Her plan ultimately works, but not before she is injured. Maria and Mario agree not to tell the family about her

147

scheme and his absence from the stadium. In the end, Antonio allows his son to pursue

his dream to be a composer, but Maria is still not able to pursue her dream of becoming

a professional matador. Instead, she marries Pepe. In the closing scene, their father

gets wise to the twins fallacious story, but we do not get to see the transformation of his

ideas about what a woman can accomplish in such a sport.

Pin Down Girls (1951)

This film centers on a gangster who uses his women’s wrestling gym and matches as a corrupt gambling racket. It features Peaches Page, Clara Mortenson, and

Rita Martinez as themselves. These “actresses” are the draw for the movie because they are champion wrestlers. In this film, the plot is tied to the sport of women’s wrestling in through familiar formula the sports crime drama. Until the end of the film, the director, Robert C. Dertano features a number of women’s wrestling matches to

legitimize the sport in the eyes of a wider, screen audience. Yet, the filmmaker

objectifies the female body by committing considerable celluloid to their gym time.

Umberto Scalli, (Timothy Farrell) heads the operation that attempts to manipulate

women’s wrestling bouts in order to cash in on their labor in the ring. When the female

wrestlers are asked to throw matches, they each decline and ensure the purity of their

sport over the assumed corrupt male version. When a member of the gang reports

Scalli’s racketeering to the gang leader, Mr. Big, he makes a run for it. Scalli and his

assistant, Joe (Don Ferrera) do not get far before Mr. Big’s thugs gun them both down.

If the film has a central message regarding women’s sport, it is that women’s sport is

148

better off managed by women. Unsurprisingly then, the filmmaker sought a rather

moderate message that the philosophy of difference in sport should be maintained.

Million Dollar Mermaid (1952)

Ester Williams stars as swimming star, Annette Kellerman in this biography of her life and career. Her story begins in Australia with Annette struggling to rehabilitate her legs, incapacitated by illness, through swimming. Later, she successfully competes in swim meets as a hobby. When economic misfortune hits the Kellerman family, Annette and her father (Walter Pidgeon) head to London to rebuild their lives. (Although Annette had siblings and a mother who influenced her life, they are not depicted in the film). The plot briskly moves from earning enough money to build her father’s music conservatory to Annette becoming a vaudeville star. She meets Jimmy Sullivan (Victor Mature) aboard the ship to Great Britain. Sullivan promises to make her a star in the United

States as a performer at the infamous Hippodrome. This theater was a world-class theater in New York City in operation during the early part of the 20th century that had

some of the largest rising water tanks. Jimmy proves correct in his assumption that the

American people would enjoy the display of Annette and her talents on a stage

particularly well suited to the priggish timeframe of the late Victorian Era. The

Kellermans enjoy significant success on this smaller vaudeville-sque stage as they work

toward the opportunity to contract with the management of the Hippodrome. In the

meantime, Jimmy has fallen for Annette, but Annette is reluctant to embrace his

advances. From this point, Annette progresses her own career and eventually earns

top-billing at the Hippodrome while Jimmy tries to win Annette’s affection by making it

149 big on his own. While working at the Hippodrome, Annette becomes romantically involved with the manager, Alfred Harper. He not only arranges Annette’s film contracts making her an American sweetheart, but he also makes her his fiancé. Through a series of mishaps, she is injured on a film shoot, and calls out not for her fiancé, but for Jimmy.

Her true love arrives and Annette and Jimmy live happily ever after. The film is centered around Kellerman’s many diving scenes, water ballets, and a factual run in with the authorities at Revere Beach over her “revealing” swimming attire. There is an interesting duality in the careers of both swimmers epitomized within this film.

Billie (1965)

This musical family drama regards an adolescent girl androgynously named Billie

(Patty Duke) and her family. In an establishing scene, the high school track coach sees her running and asks her to tryout for the high school track team. This event creates a groundswell of criticism from the community since her father, Howard (Jim Backus) is running for mayor and he had, at nearly the same moment, given a very conservative speech about the role of women in society. His traditionalist position is compromised when his daughter becomes a successful athlete and when his older daughter unexpectedly returns from college married and pregnant. Billie’s sister, Jean (Susan

Seaforth) came home from college not because she married, but because she was pregnant. Jeanie is the quintessential feminine character, dutifully fulfilling her role as wife and now, expectant mother. Jean (and to a lesser extent, their mother, Agnes) provides the example that Billie was expected to mimic. Meanwhile, Billie and Mike

(Warren Berlinger) meet on that first day on the track and form a close friendship that

150

quickly becomes romantic. When this occurs, both Mike and Billie must tackle their own

ideas about gender conformity. She thought Mike supported her participation on the track team. He thinks Billie should not be on the track team once he views her as a romantic interest. All the characters enter into a happily ever after scenarios and conform to gender roles, leaving viewers to create their own conclusions. Both Billie and Mike quit the track team toward the conclusion of the film. This decision falls short of symbolizing some sort of defiance for gender stereotypes and roles because Billie was not expected to participate in the first place. Howard is forced to confront and at least somewhat transform his convictions about gender roles as he decides to support his daughters’ decisions. Howard ultimately encourages Billie’s decision to compete in track meets and he supports Jean’s decision to quit collage and make a life and family with her husband, Bob. Howard wins the election and learns that he will become a father once again. This film plot mirrors the mixed feelings teenagers experience as they move toward adulthood and the mixed feelings people had about the changes to

American society in the 1960s. This conflict is also demonstrated through the contradictory nature of songs included such as “Lonely Little In-between” and “The Girl is a Girl is a Girl.” In other words, the writers of the soundtrack and the director, Don

Weis can’t seem to make up their minds about the central message of the film.

151

REFERENCES

Aoki, Douglas. “Posing the Subject: Sex, Illumination, and ‘Pumping Iron II’: The Women.” Cinema Journal. 38 (4) (-09-30) (1999): 24.

Ardell, Jean Hastings. Breaking into Baseball: Women and the National Pastime. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 2005.

Armstrong, Ann Elizabeth, and Kathleen Juhl. Radical Acts: Theatre and Feminist Pedagogies of Change. 1st ed. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 2007.

Bacchilega, Cristina. Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.

Baker, Aaron. Contesting Identities: Sports in American Film. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003.

———. “A New Combination: Women and the Boxing Film.” Cineaste. 25 (4) (09) (2000): 22.

———. and Todd Boyd. Out of Bounds: Sports, Media, and the Politics of Identity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.

Bandy, Susan J. and Anne S. Darden. Crossing Boundaries: An International Anthology of Women's Experiences in Sport. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1999.

Baron, Cynthia A., Diane Carson, and Frank P. Tomasulo. More Than a Method: Trends and Traditions in Contemporary Film Performance. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004.

Berlage, Gail Ingham, Women in Baseball: The Forgotten History. Westport: Praeger, 1994.

Bergan, Ronald. Sports in the Movies. London; New York: Proteus Books, 1982.

Birrell, Susan, and Cheryl L. Cole. Women, Sport, and Culture. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1994.

Birrell, Susan, and Mary G. McDonald. Reading Sport: Critical Essays on Power and Representation. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000.

Boyle, Ellexis, Brad Millington, and Patricia Vertinsky. “Representing the Female Pugilist: Narratives of Race, Gender, and Disability in ‘Million Dollar Baby.’” Sociology of Sport Journal. 23 (2) (06) (2006): 99-116.

152

Boyle, Raymond and Richard Haynes. Power Play: Sport, the Media, and Popular Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009.

Brake, Deborah L. Getting in the Game: Title IX and the Women's Sports Revolution. New York: New York University Press, 2010.

Briley, Ron, Michael K. Schoenecke, and Deborah A. Carmichael. eds. All-stars and Movie Stars: Sports in Film and History. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008.

Browne, Ray Broadus, and Marshall William Fishwick. The Hero in Transition. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1983.

Brozan, Nadine. “Chronicle” National Velvet. Brown, (1944). New York Times, August 18, 1997.

Burgoyne, Robert. Film Nation: Hollywood Looks at U.S. History. Rev ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.

Butler, Judith. “Athletic Genders: Hyperbolic Instance and/or the Overcoming of Sexual Binarism.” Stanford Humanities Review. Vol. 6.2 (1998). accessed February, 23, 2011.

------Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’. New York: Routledge, 1993.

------Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1999.

Cahn, Susan K. Coming on Strong: Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Women's Sport. New York: Free Press, 1994.

Cameron, Kenneth M. America on Film: Hollywood and American History. New York: Continuum, 1997.

Campbell, Amy. “Women, Sport, and Film Class.” Women's Studies Quarterly 33 (1) (Spring) (2005): 210-23.

Carson, Diane, Linda Dittmar, and Janice R. Welsch. Multiple Voices in Feminist Film Criticism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.

Casper, Monica. “Knockout Women.” Journal of Sport and Social Issues 25 (1) (-02-01) (2001): 104-10.

Caudwell, Jayne. “’Girlfight’ and ‘Bend it Like Beckham’: Screening women, sport, and sexuality.” Journal of Lesbian Studies 13 (3) (-07-01) (2009): 255-71.

153

------"Sport Feminism(s): Narratives of Linearity?" Journal of Sport & Social Issues 35.2 (2011): 111-25.

Chafe, William. The Paradox of Change: American Women in the 20th Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Chaudhuri, Shohini. Feminist Film Theorists: Laura Mulvey, Kaja Silverman, Teresa De Lauretis, Barbara Creed. London ; New York: Routledge, 2006.

Choi, Precilla Y. L. Femininity and the Physically Active Woman. London: Routledge, 2000.

Clover, Carol J. “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film.” Representations. No. 20, Special Issue: Misogyny, Misandry, and MIsanthorpy. (Autumn 1987), 202- 220.

------. Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

Coakley, Jay J. Sport in Society: Issues and Controversies. 2nd ed. St. Louis: Mosby, 1982.

Connell, R. W. Gender and Power. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1987.

------. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1995.

------. and James W. Messerschmidt. "Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept." Gender and Society 19.6 (2005): 829-59.

Costa, D. Margaret, and Sharon Ruth Guthrie. Women and Sport: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Publishers, 1994.

Cott, Nancy F. The Grounding of Modern Feminism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.

-----History of Women in the United States: Historical Articles on Women’s Lives and Activities. V.7 1,2. Munich: K. G. Saur, 1992.

Couturier, Lynn E. "Considering the Sportswoman, 1924 to 1936: A Content Analysis." Sport History Review 41.2 (2010): 111-31.

Cramer, Judith, and Pamela J. Creedon. Women in Mass Communication. 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2007.

154

Creedon, Pamela J. Women in Mass Communication. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2007.

Dane, Emily A. “Gendered Images in Sport Film: What Messages are Being Sent?” The New York Sociologist (2007).

Daniels, Dayna B. “You Throw Like a Girl: Sport and Misogyny on the Silver Screen.” Film & History 35, no 1 (2005): 29-38.

De Lauretis, Teresa. Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.

Del Rey, Patricia. "Apologetics and Androgyny: The Past and the Future." Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 3.1 (1978): 8-10

Dowling, Colette. The Frailty Myth: Women Approaching Physical Equality. New York: Random House, 2000.

Duncan, Margaret M. and Velda Cundiff. Play Days for Girls and Women. New York: A.S. Barnes and Co, 1929.

Eisen, George and David Kenneth Wiggins. Ethnicity and Sport in North American History and Culture. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1994.

Erdman, Andrew L. Blue Vaudeville: Sex, Morals, and the Mass Marketing of Amusement, 1895-1915. Jefferson: McFarland and Co, 2004.

Finley, Nancy J. "Skating Femininity: Gender Maneuvering in Women’s Roller Derby." Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 39.4 (2010): 359-87.

Festle, Mary Jo. Playing Nice: Politics and Apologies in Women’s Sports. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

Fojas, Camilla. “Sports of Spectatorship: Boxing Women of Color in ‘Girlfight’ and Beyond.” Cinema Journal 49 (1) (Fall 2009): 103-15.

Fuller, Linda K. ed. Sexual Sports Rhetoric: Global and Universal Contexts. New York: Peter Lang 2010.

------and Loukides, Paul. Beyond the Stars. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1990.

Gannon, L. “The Impact of Medical and Sexual Politics on Women’s Health, Feminism, and Psychology,” Feminism and Psychology. 1998. 8(3): 205-302.

Garber, Marjorie. Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety. London:

155

Routledge, 1992.

Gardiner, Judith Kegan. Provoking Agents: Gender and Agency in Theory and Practice. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995.

Gavora, Jessica. Tilting the Playing Field: Schools, Sports, Sex, and Title IX. 1st ed. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002.

Giardina, Michael. "Bending it Like Beckham" in the Global Popular.” Journal of Sport and Social Issues 27 (1) (-02-28) (2003): 65-82.

Gibson, Emily and Barbara Firth. The Original Million Dollar Mermaid: The Annette Kellerman Story. Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, 2005.

Gilbert, Joanne R. Performing Marginality: Humor, Gender, and Cultural Critique. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004.

Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982.

Giulianotti, Richard. Sport and Modern Social Theorists. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Goldin, Claudia D. Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Gray, Jonathan, C. Lee Harrington, and Cornel Sandvoss. Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World. New York: New York University Press, 2007.

Gregorich, Barbara. Women at Play: The Story of Women in Baseball. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993.

Guthrie, Sharon R, and Shirley Castelnuova. “The Significance of Body Image in Psychosocial Development and in Embodying Feminist Perspectives.” In, Women and Sport: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Margaret D. Costa and Sharon R. Guthrie. eds. Champaign: Human Kinetics, 1994.

Guttman, Allen. “Sports, Eros, and Popular Culture.” Stanford Humanities Review Vol. 6.2 (1998). accessed February, 23, 2011.

Hall, M. A. "The Discourse of Gender and Sport: From Femininity to Feminism." Sociology of Sport Journal 5.4 (1988): 330-40.

Halberstam, Judith. Female Masculinity. Durham: Duke University Press. 1998.

156

Hargreaves, Jennifer and Patricia Anne Vertinsky. Physical Culture, Power, and the Body. New York: Routledge, 2007.

Hargreaves, Jennifer. Heroines of Sport: The Politics of Difference and Identity. New York: Routledge, 2000.

----- "The Early History of Women's Sport." Society for the Study of Labour History, Bulletin 50 (1985): 5.

----- "Women's Boxing and Related Activities: Introducing Images and Meanings." Body & Society 3.4 (1997): 33-49.

----- "Sporting Females: Critical Issues in the History and Sociology of Women's” 331 Pages. New York: Routledge1993." Green, E. Women's Studies International Forum 18.1 (1995): 87.

Haskell, Molly. From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1987.

Heywood, Leslie and Shari L. Dworkin. eds. Built to Win: The Female Athlete as Cultural Icon. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.

Hogshead Makar, Nancy, and Andrew S. Zimbalist. Equal Play: Title IX and Social Change. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007.

Holmberg, Carl Bryan. Sexualities and Popular Culture. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1998.

Holmlund, Chris. “Visible Difference and Flex Appeal: The Body, Sex, Sexuality, and Race in the ‘Pumping Iron’ films” in Baker, Aaron, and Todd Boyd. eds. Out of Bounds: Sports, media, and the politics of identity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.

Hueben, Elizabeth A. “Revolutions, Numbers, IX: The Thirtieth Anniversary of Title IX and the Proportionality Challenge.” UMKC L. Rev 71 (2002).

Hughes Warrington, Marnie. The History on Film Reader. New York: Routledge, 2009.

Jamieson, Katherine M., and Leila E. Villaverde. "In/Visible Bodies: Lesbian Sexualities and Sporting Spaces: Introduction." Journal of Lesbian Studies 13.3 (2009): 231- 7.

Jay, Kathryn. More than Just a Game: Sports in American Life Since 1945. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.

Kennedy, Eileen and Laura Hills. Sport, Media, and Society. Berg: Oxford, 2009.

157

http://site.ebrary.com/id/10328939. (accessed October 18, 2011).

Kimmel, Michael S. The Gendered Society. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

------. Manhood in America: A Cultural History. New York: Free Press, 1996.

King, C. Richard, and David J. Leonard. Visual Economies of/in Motion: Sport and Film. Cultural critique. Vol. 6. New York: Peter Lang, 2006.

Krane, Vikki. "We Can Be Athletic and Feminine, But Do We Want to? Challenging Hegemonic Femininity in Women's Sport." Quest 53.1 (2001): 115-33.

Lafrance, Michelle N. "Reproducing, Resisting and Transcending Discourses of Femininity: A Discourse Analysis of Women’s Accounts of Leisure." Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health 3.1 (2011): 80-98.

Laslett, Barbara. "Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical Perspectives." Annual Review of Sociology (1989): 381.

Lavin, Maud. Push Comes to Shove: New Images of Aggressive Women. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010.

Lehman, Peter. Masculinity: Bodies, Movies, Culture. AFI film readers. New York: Routledge. 2001

——— Close Viewings: An Anthology of New Film Criticism. Tallahassee; Gainesville, FL: Florida State University Press; Orders to University Presses of Florida, 1990.

Lengel, Laura B., and John T. Warren. Casting Gender: Women and Performance in Intercultural Context. New York: P. Lang, 2005.

Lenskyj, Helen. Out of Bounds: Women, Sport, and Sexuality. Toronto: Women's Press, 1986.

----- "Power and Play: Gender and Sexuality Issues in Sport and Physical Activity." International Review for the Sociology of Sport 25.3 (1990): 235-45.

Lindner, Katharina. “Bodies in Action: Female Athleticism on the Cinema Screen.” Feminist Media Studies 11 (3) (-08-01) (2011): 321.

———. “Fighting for Subjectivity: Articulations of Physicality in ‘Girlfight.’” Journal of International Women's Studies 10 (3) (-03-01) (2009): 4.

Lockford, Lesa. Performing Femininity: Rewriting Gender Identity. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 2004.

158

Longhurst, Sean. "Sport, Sexualities and Queer/Theory." Journal of Homosexuality 58.5 (2011): 706-8.

MacKinnon, Catharine A. Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1987.

Malin, Leelannee K. Reel Women: Depictions of Females in the Sport Film Genre. Ph.D. Howard University, 2007 United States -- District of Columbia.

Manatu, Norma. African American Women and Sexuality in the Cinema. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 2003.

Mangan, J. A., and Roberta J. Park. From 'Fair Sex' to Feminism: Sport and the Socialization of Women in the Industrial and Post-Industrial Eras. London: F. Cass, 1986.

Mask, Mia. Divas on Screen: Black Women in American Film. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009.

McBride, James. War, Battering, and Other Sports: The Gulf Between American Men and Women. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1995.

McCaughey, Martha and Neal King. eds. Reel Knockouts: Violent Women in the Movies. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.

-----. Real Knockouts: The Physical Feminism of Women's Self-Defense. New York: New York University Press, 1997.

McDonagh, Eileen L., and Laura Pappano. Playing With the Boys: Why Separate is Not Equal in Sports. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Mean, Lindsey J., and Jeffrey W. Kassing. "“I Would Just Like to be Known as an Athlete”: Managing Hegemony, Femininity, and Heterosexuality in Female Sport." Western Journal of Communication 72.2 (2008): 126-44.

Melnick, Ralph. Senda Berenson: The Unlikely Founder of Women's Basketball. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007.

Merryman, Molly. “Gazing at Artemis: The Active Female Archetype in Popular Film.” in Creedon, Pamela J. ed. Women, Media and Sport: Challenging Gender Values. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1994.

Mintz, Steven and Randy Roberts. eds. Hollywood’s America: United States History Through Its Films. Third edition. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell, 2001.

159

Moul, Charles C. A Concise Handbook of Movie Industry Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Nelson, Mariah Burton. The Stronger Women Get, the More Men Love Football: Sexism and the American Culture of Sports. 1st ed. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994.

Oriard, Michael. ed. King football: Sport and Spectacle in the Golden Age of Radio and Newsreels, Movies and Magazines, the Weekly & the Daily Press / Inc NetLibrary. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

Pearson, Demetrius W. et. al. “Sport Films: Social Dimensions Over Time, 1930-1995.” Journal of Sport and Social Issues 27 (2) (-05-01) (2003): 145-61.

------“Absence of Power: Sheroes in Sport Films Post-Title IX,” in Linda K. Fuller, ed. Sexual Sport Rhetoric: Global and Universal Contexts. New York: Peter Lang, 2010.

Pierman, Carol J. “Baseball Conduct, and True Womanhood.” Women's Studies Quarterly 33 (1) (Spring) (2005): 68-85.

Powers, Stephen, David J. Rothman, and Stanley Rothman. Hollywood's America: Social and Political Themes in Motion Pictures. Boulder: Westview Press, 1996.

Pratt, Annis. Dancing With Goddesses: Archetype, Poetry, and Empowerment. Bloomington: Indian University Press, 1994.

Ravid. S. Abraham. “What Makes Movies Tick: Ivory Tower Insights, Studio Views and Research Directions.” in The Economies of Creativity: Ideas, Firms, and Markets. New York: Routledge, 2013.

Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” In Blood Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985. New York: W.W. Norton, 1986, 23-75.

Rosenstone, Robert. “The Reel Joan of Arc: Reflections on the Theory and Practice of the Historical Film.” The Public Historian. Vol 25. No. 3 (Summer 2003), 61-77. _____History on Film/Film on History. New York: Longman/Pearson, 2006.

Roth, Amanda, and Susan A. Basow. "Femininity, Sports, and Feminism: Developing a Theory of Physical Liberation." Journal of Sport & Social Issues 28.3 (2004): 245- 65.

Rothman, Sheila M. Women’s Proper Place: A History of Changing Ideal and Practices, 1870 to the Present. New York: Basic Books, 1978.

Salter, David F. Crashing the Old Boys' Network: The Tragedies and Triumphs of Girls and Women in Sports. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996.

160

Sandoz, Joli, and Joby Winans. Whatever it Takes: Women on Women's Sport. 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.

Sandoz, Joli. A Whole Other Ball Game: Women's Literature on Women's Sport. 1st ed. New York: Noonday Press, 1997.

Shea, B. C. "The Paradox of Pumping Iron: Female Bodybuilding as Resistance and Compliance." Women & Language 24.2 (2001): 42.

Shea, Daniel M. Mass Politics: The Politics of Popular Culture. New York: St. Martin's; Worth, 1999.

Schippers, Mimi. "Recovering the Feminine Other: Masculinity, Femininity, and Gender Hegemony." Theory and Society 36.1 (2007): 85-102.

Smith, Lissa. Nike is a Goddess: The History of Women in Sports. 1st ed. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998.

Suggs, Welch. A Place on the Team: The Triumph and Tragedy of Title IX. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.

Sultana, A. M. "Patriarchy and Women's Gender Ideology: A Socio-Cultural Perspective." Journal of Social Sciences (15493652) 6.1 (2010): 123-6.

Tasker, Yvonne. Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre, and the Action Cinema. New York: Routledge, 1993.

------. Working Girls: Gender and Sexuality in Popular Cinema. New York: Routledge, 1999.

Taylor, Lisa. “From Psychoanalytic Feminism to Popular Feminism” in Joanne Hollows and Mark Jancovich. eds. Approaches to Popular Film: Inside popular film. Manchester ; New York; New York: Manchester University Press; St. Martin's Press, 1995.

Theberge. Nancy. "Same Sport, Different Gender." Journal of Sport and Social Issues 22.2 (1998): 183.

------. “Sport and Women’s Empowerment.” Women's Studies International Forum Volume 10, Issue 4, 1987, Pages 387–393.

------. “Toward a Feminist Alternative To Sport s a Male Preserve.” In Susan Birrell & C.L. Cole eds. Women, Sport. & Culture (pp. 181-192). Champaign: Human Kinetics, 1985, 1994. (Reprinted from Quest, 37, 193- 202)

Tudor, Deborah V. Hollywood's Vision of Team Sports: Heroes, race, and gender.

161

Garland studies in American Popular History and Culture. New York: Garland Pub, 1997.

Wallington, Mark C. Portrayal changes of the American Athlete in Popular Film Florida State University, Thesis on microform, 1993.

Ware, Susan. Modern American Women: A Documentary History, New York: McGraw- Hill,1997.

Woloch, Nancy. Muller v Oregon: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

----- Women and the American Experience. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994.

Women and the Apologetic. 2 Vol. Westport, CT: ABC-Clio, 2009.

Wushanley, Ying. Playing Nice and Losing: The Struggle for Control of Women's Intercollegiate Athletics, 1960-2000. 1st ed. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2004.

Films

Billie. Dir. Don Weis. Perf. Patty Duke, Kim Backus, and Jane Greer. Paramount, 1965.

Fiesta. Dir. Richard Thorpe. Perf. Ester Williams, Akim Tamiroff, and Ricardo Montalban. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1947.

Girls Can Play. Dir. Lambert Hillyer. Perf. Julie Bishop. Charles Quigley, and Rita Hayworth. Columbia Pictures, 1937.

Million Dollar Mermaid. Dir. Mervyn LeRoy Perf. Ester Williams, Victor Mature, and Walter Pidgeon. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1952.

National Velvet. Dir. Clarence Brown. Perf. Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp, and Anne Revere. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1944.

Pin Down Girls or Racket Girls. Dir. Robert C. Dertano. Perf. Peaches Page, Timothy Farrell, and Clara Mortensen. Arena Productions, 1951.

Venus of the South Seas. Dir. James R. Sullivan. Perf. Annette Kellerman, Roland Purdie, and Robert Ramsey. Lee-Bradford Corporation, 1924.

162

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Stacy Lynn Tanner completed her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Humanities at Florida State University. Her areas of study are Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Digital Humanities. While studying at Florida State University, she also earned a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies. Her research interests include late 19th and 20th century American women’s history, sports history, and the history of film and media. She earned her Master of Arts in History at Florida State University and her Bachelors of Arts in Interdisciplinary Social Science from the University of South Florida. She has eight years experience teaching history and humanities at the college level.

163