I have chosen to watch and analyze the movie A League of Their Own, made in 1992, a fiction film based on the rise of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. The movie looks at not only the league but also the personal struggles and successes of players in the league. While being a sports movie, it has a large number of female characters, and I am examining whether or not these women were conforming to stereotypical gender roles or fighting them. I am looking at the characters in the movie but also techniques used in filming and the plot as well.

 

The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was a women only baseball league that operated from 1943 to 1954 and is the subject of the film A League of Their Own. The United States began their war efforts, joining World War II near the end of 1941, sending thousands of American men overseas to battle. The depletion of the Major League Baseball teams, as well as minor teams left a huge void in baseball, prompting support from then President Roosevelt for the continuation of baseball, citing national morale boosting. In response, Phillip K. Wrigley, President of Wrigley gum, and the Chicago Cubs baseball team, chose to use his financial resources and create the AAGSB (the word professional was added to the name at a later time) in 1943[1]. The film shows Wrigley, although the film portrays him as Harvey a candy bar mogul, but still owner of the Cubs, played by Garry Marshall, swaying fellow owners into investing into this new women’s league. The male characters assigned to hit the road and recruit women to play seem to seek out good looking, Caucasian, middle class women, and put emphasis on the image of the players, teams, and league. The uniforms seen in the film were incredibly similar to the uniforms used in real life, the Rockford Peaches wore a light pink uniform, and all teams wore skirts, to the dismay of the characters who complained they were not able to slide. The film shows the high importance placed on the players maintaining a sense of femininity, not only appearing pretty, but also acting as such, the players are seen having to endure charm classes, to help them be ladies on and off the field[2]. Certainly these acts and visuals are on par with conforming to traditional gender roles, the players are maintaining their images as poised ladies, even though they are seemingly breaking down these stereotypical walls by playing professional baseball.

 

A League of Their Own shows the hardships during World War II, the suffering of the job market, and the pressures it put on families as well as the country. Again, seeing that the cancellation of Major League Baseball may hurt morale of the country, Wrigley/Marshall chose to pursue a women’s league. At this time women had began entering the workforce after a large number of men travelled overseas to assist in the war efforts. Although the government claimed that married women without children under the age of ten were the best source of workforce supply, the film gives the impression that it was all hands on deck to help [3] even showing one character, Evelyn bringing her young son along with her during games and practices. These scenes in the movie help show that although women are breaking down barriers playing sports, they still have to be the homemaker and mother roles all at the same time. The traditional of the second shift has stood the test of time; still today women are seen as the primary caregivers for the family and children, even after they have worked a full day, just as the man in the household. The end of the war saw many women leave the workforce and return to the home as they had before, the baseball league continued until 1954 when it was finally cancelled, although remains a part of the baseball hall of fame[1].

 

The characters as well as the women who played in the All American Girls Professional Baseball League were breaking down gender barriers. The issue is that they were “allowed” to break them; they were given permission by society, and the owners or managers of the baseball clubs to join professional sports. If this were not the case would there have been a professional women’s league? Or would women have dove into sport at the time that they did, if ever? This piece of evidence in the movie persuades me to believe the women in the movie were conforming to gender roles, as they still were under command of men, being told how to act, and what to wear although playing baseball. However the creation of this league was ground breaking and an importance piece of history for women, and baseball in general. Themes from A League of Their Own are still seen in the society of sports today. Still today we notice that even women’s sport is controlled by men, coaching staff, owners and management for the majority male, and in the small cases of women coaches, they are paid a small fraction of what a male coach is paid. Another aspect of the film that has carried over is the ideal that female sports are second rate to men; this is seen in coverage of games, wages, and fan base[4]. In the movie attitudes from the public as well as the leagues male authorities the girls are not seen at athletes, but as girl athletes. Lastly the uniforms in the film, in particular the Rockford Peaches wear a pink skirt style uniform, chosen by the male management. These uniforms imply how the player’s look is more important than their playing abilities, and forces them to conform to their roles as beings here for male viewing. In the current era of women’s sports you can see similar patterns in uniforms still, golf and tennis players still wear skirt style outfits, in volleyball women wear much more tight fitting clothes than the men. Is this to continue pleasing the eye of men, or a statement of empowerment and choice? Why not wear uniforms similar to men, lose fitting, baggy shorts and jerseys? Rosalind Gill poses this question in Postfeminist Media Culture stating[5]:

 

Of course the idea that in the past women dressed in a particular way purely to please men is ridiculous; it suggests a view of power as something both             overbearing and obvious, which acted upon entirely docile subjects – as well             as implying that all women are heterosexual and preoccupied with male     approval. But this pendulum shift to the notion that women just ‘please         themselves’ will not do as a substitute. It presents women as entirely free             agents and cannot explain why – if women are just pleasing themselves and              following their own autonomously generated desires – the resulting valued ‘look’ is so similar.

 

A League of Their Own does show examples of using the gaze towards some characters in the movie, in particular the more beautiful women. Characters like Dottie and May are seen in a more soft, sexual light, getting attention from men in the bar or male fans. In comparison Kit and Marla are seen in a more harsh light, and are made to look less beautiful, receiving criticisms and ridicule for various reasons. Lastly the heavier set, less beautiful Doris is the sidekick to the beautiful and sexy May. While trying to fight traditional gender roles in the plot of the movie, it maintains them by using the gaze to portray women and using men and love as subplots, for example Dottie’s conflict of whether to return home to her husband or to continue to play for the Peaches. However all of these moments and issues are overshadowed by the larger theme of the movie, that women can be powerful, and can work together to become something great.

 

I think this movie was made to try to fight gender stereotypes, during the time it was made movies that were box office hits were The Last of the Mohicans and Reservoir Dogs, movies that portray hyper masculinity, and A League of Their Own combats these ideals with powerful women achieving something traditionally only seen by men. While the overall theme is opposing gender roles, I think the characters themselves are conforming to them, though playing baseball they are still maintaining femininity asked of them by male management and coaches.

 

 

Bibliography

 

Fiddler, Merrie. A. The Origins and History of the All-American Girls Baseball League. North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc. Publishers, 2006.

 

Gill, Rosalind. “Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility,” The Journal of Cultural Studies, 10, No 2 (2007) : 147-166.

 

Kossoudji, Sherrie A. and Dresser, Laura J. “Working Class Rosies: Women Industrial Workers during World War II,” The Journal of Economic History, 52, No 2 (June 1992): 431-446.

 

A League of Their Own, directed by Penny Marshall (1992; United States: Parkway Productions), DVD.

 

Musto, Michela, Cooky, Cheryl and Messner, Michael A. “From Fizzle to Sizzle: Televised Sports News and the Production of Gender-Bland Sexism,” Gender & Society, 31, No. 5 (October 2017): 573-596

 

 

[1] Merrie A Fiddler, The Origins and History of the All-American Girls Baseball League (North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc. Publishers, 2006).

[2] A League of Their Own, directed by Penny Marshall (1992; United States: Parkway Productions), DVD.

[3] Sherrie A. Kossoudji and Laura J. Dresser, “Working Class Rosies: Women Industrial Workers during World War II,” The Journal of Economic History, 52, No 2 (June 1992): 431-446.

 

[4] Michaela Musto, Cheryl Cooky and Micharl A. Messner, “From Fizzle to Sizzle: Televised Sports News and the Production of Gender-Bland Sexism,” Gender & Society, 31, No. 5 (October 2017): 573-596

 

[5] Rosalind Gill, “Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility,” Journal of Cultural Studies, 10, No. 2 (2007): 147-166