Women In Sports Films
By: Jonathan Barnes
Dr. McKahan
Sem. Gender & Media
Any person who is a fan of film or sports could name five sports films that they have
either seen, or heard about in their life time. A good majority of people would name off movies
like: Rudy, Rocky, The Natural, Hoosiers, and Raging Bull. The one thing all of these movies
have in common is that the actors are male, and the sports they are playing are typically male
dominated. Men, sports, and movies will always go together so it makes sense that motion
picture studios would take advantage of the people who love all sports and the movies that are
created around them. One thing many studios have not touched on is women in sports. Women
participate in sports just like men do, but they are not given the credit they deserve in the media
or in real life. This essay is designed to show how female athletes are portrayed in sports films
whether it is positively or negatively. Many different issues arise when you start to look at many
of the main female sports movies that have been made over the years. From A League of Their
Own to Million Dollar Baby, each of these films uses woman in ways that could be seen as
positively representing women in sports or bringing even more negative connotation to women in
sports. In Aaron Bakers book Contesting Identities: Sports in American Film he says “films about
sports present compelling discourses for race, class, gender, and to a lesser extent sexuality”
(Baker, 2003). It all depends on how you view these movies, and what you take away from how
certain characters act around the sport and each other.
If you start to think of all of the sports movies that are based off of women, you might be
able to name a couple. Many people will only be able to name one or two movies, which are
usually the same two movies. The film Bring it On would most likely be one of them, but its plot
and story does not fit what some consider to be a sport. Many cheerleaders are thought of as
being cheerful and peppy, but there are not many movies that have story lines of women in
masculine sports. Men have hundreds of football, baseball, basketball, soccer, and golf movies,
while women only have maybe one for each sport. Motion picture studios neglect the fact that
woman, just like men, play sports. While researching women in sports, there was a list of female
sports movies that have been made over the years. Included in that list were movies that had
nothing to do with sports, and were rarely based in a male dominated sport. Troop Beverly Hills
was named on that list, which is about a group of rich girls from the city trying to make a name
for themselves as girl scouts. The rest of the movies were based on dancing and cheering, which
are sports, but do not show the true side of what some female athletes go through playing any
number of physical sports.
Baseball or Softball movies are likely the most common movie that men relate to and
actually play. Linda Fuller notes in her book Sport, Rhetoric, and Gender: Historical
Perspectives and Media Representation that “Girls Can Play was the first sound era feature film
dealing primarily with women in sports.” She goes on to say that “interestingly, it was a mystery
movie not a comedy – which all films about women athletes would be from then on.” (Fuller,
2006) No other sports movie has ended up to be a mystery movie, because no one really expects
to see a mystery movie when watching sports. This shows how little people think about women
in sports. Most sports movies based on males end up being some type of comedy, but they also
have other movies that deal with just the way people have to fight to earn what they want.
If we do see women in male sports films they are in there for one reason. They are the
very attractive wives who either support their husbands 100%, or they hate the fact that they play
baseball but still love the man. Almost all sports movies have a wife or a love interest for the
protagonist. Deborah Tutor says that “women in this role within sports film bear the traditional
values ascribed to us: truth, fairness, and home”. She also notes that “this function has not been
laid to rest by any feminist influence on sports films. Although there are some sports films
inflected by post-feminist notions, the older stereotype still endures.” (Tutor, 1997) In movies
like Bull Durham or The Natural there are women in the story for the men and not the sport.
Some of the women know a lot about the sport, but are never asked or given a chance to see if
they can play. One could only imagine what could happen if that woman was given a chance to
impart her knowledge or skill to the players.
Women for the most part have not even had the chance to prove themselves to be good
athletes in real life. It might not be until that happens when we start to see a lot more movies
being created to target young women athletes to get them interested in the game of their choice.
Douglas Baldwin mentions in his book The 1920's “women were playing sports just for the sake
of playing sports” and that “women weren't win-at-all-cost male notion of the game. Woman's
scores weren't even recorded. It was how you played the game that mattered.” (Baldwin, 2000)
When movies are based on sports where it is a male dominated sport there are always characters
in the movie that doubts they have the skill or determination to become very good at it. A League
of Their Own is a very good example for many topics within this essay, but the way in which the
women are doubted in the movie is very obvious. A League of Their Own is based the All
American Girls Baseball League which was created because of the many soldiers that fought for
this country during World War II were apart of Major League Baseball at the time. Throughout
the movie the women were told that “girls cant play baseball” and that “they could draw fans.” It
gave them a chance to prove themselves an Linda Fuller says in her book Sport, Rhetoric, and
Gender: Historical Perspectives and Media Representation that “most movies mixing women
and sport emphasize romance, but it was refreshing to see woman want to play the game.” (Fuller,
2006) In the movie Million Dollar Baby about a trainer and female boxer, the trainer does not
want to work with her at first just because she is female. In Aaron Bakers book Contesting
Identities: Sports in American Film he says “the primary notion of masculinity in sports films is
that the male protagonist defines and proves himself through free and fair competition modeled
on American society, which claims that awards go to the most deserving individual. Differences
in social position are therefore naturalized as evolutionary rather than as a result of a lack of
competitive opportunities. These films seldom acknowledge that women had limited access to
sport.” (Baker, 2003). These movies are the few exceptions where women end up coming out of
top. They achieve their goals of being successful athletes win or lose.
Most sports movies that are mainly based around women have the protagonist, and in
some cases a lot of the cast, turned into sexual symbols rather than athletes competing in a sport.
The surfing movie Blue Crush constantly has its main character in a bikini even when she is not
surfing, but when she is surfing she wears a wet suit that covers most of her body. She is desired
by a man in the movie and there is intimacy between them many times during the movie while
showing her in bed half naked. A League of Their Own has women wear short skirts instead of
baseball pants. All of the girls that are involved in the league are required to go through beauty
school. Every part of their body was scrutinized and was fixed to conform to what the league
wanted the girls to look like. They had to be attractive to play in the league. Linda Fuller says in
her book Sport, Rhetoric, and Gender: Historical Perspectives and Media Representation that
“primarily, women were expected to be sex objects. One of the league posters boasted Beautiful
Girls Plus Appealing Costumes Plus Grade A Baseball.” (Fuller, 2006). While picking up one of
the girls on a recruiting trip, the agent did not want take one of the girls because she did not fit
the type of girl that the league wants to be known for, which is beautiful women playing baseball
in short little outfits that were decent enough to hit the ball. When the stylist was asked what to
do to help the masculine looking girl become beautiful she suggested “a lot of night games.”
Women are made to look and act very sexual in films and in real life because they know sex sells.
It is one reason some people came to see the games. They wanted to see them slide so they could
get a look up their skirts.
When watching these movies you could be convinced that many of these girls are scared
or vulnerable to many difference things. In Blue Crush the protagonist is scared to ride the big
waves. It has scared her since she had a wipe out years before, but she is constantly reminded of
how scared she is by her friends who taunt her about riding them again. She obviously has a right
to be scared but her friends often go out of their way to say something to her about it on a regular
basis. Million Dollar Baby has the main character die at the end of the movie. Even though she
dies from the result of her boxing injuries she was still seen as scared and vulnerable before it
happened because she was a woman. The best example of girls being scared or crying was in A
League of Their Own. If any one has seen the movie they will never forget the famous lines
uttered by Tom Hanks “there's not crying in baseball.” The woman starts to cry immediately and
Tom Hank's character keeps yelling at her. Some could say that shows weakness and
vulnerability, but everyone has seen male athletes cry as well. In media or in real life we see
athletes cry about winning, losing, reunions, retirements, mistakes, and many more. Everyone is
emotional at times, and has a right to show it every now and then.
Masculinity in these movies is something that is very noticeable. It is also very obvious
since playing any sport is seen as masculine, so when women are seen playing a sport they are
deemed masculine. In the book Woman and Sports in the United States by Cahn and O'Riley they
say that “As the number of playing opportunities went down; girls and women who decided to
seek high-level competition faced stereotypes of female athletes as ugly, unnatural, and
masculine. Even more damaging were insinuations linking woman's sports with lesbianism, also
stigmatized as masculine. Such condemnation created powerful disincentives for female athlete
involvement.” (Cahn,O'Riley, 2007). This is shown in films as well. Most movies have at least
one girl in the film that fits the stereotype of being ugly and masculine. In A League of Their
Own the girl who was almost rejected because of the way she looks fits that mold. She was taken
because the fact that she was so masculine and good at baseball. In the film Bend it Like
Beckham the main female character is very masculine. As a girl from India she loved to play
soccer. She wore very baggy clothes like a boy, and was not interest in looking attractive for a
good part of the movie. Million Dollar Baby's main character doesn't try to look pretty. She
knows that she is a boxer who will have scars and cuts all over the face and body. Women who
put themselves through the rigors of a game and come out with scars and cuts are looked at as
being very masculine.
As stated by Cahn and O'Riley in the previous paragraph there are insinuations linking
women in sports with lesbianism. They go on to say that “woman's sports teams were assumed to
be places where the mannish lesbian lurked. Women in sport and physical education especially fit
the profile of people to watch out for: they were not engaged in activities that enhanced their
ability to be good wives, and mothers.” (Cahn,O'Riley, 2007) In professional sports there are a lot
of openly gay women participating in all types of sports. Male homosexuality in sports is very
rare to find though. If there are homosexual male athletes they usually will not admit they are gay
until after they retire because they had fears of being chastised for their life styles. Women seem
to have a comfort with the fact that a good amount of the girls that they compete with are
homosexual. Even though it is known by most people that homosexual women are involved in
sports, films do not really have story lines or characters that are homosexual. One might think
that if it is thought to be so prevalent then why haven't they made a movie about it? In A League
of Their Own there are moments when some could question whether or not these women were
straight or not, but are not any direct story lines in the movie. The most masculine of them all,
and the one who would in O'Rileys words “fit the profile to watch out for” (Cahn,O'Riley,
2007)leaves the team in the middle of the movie because she meets a man, and marries him.
Women in professional sports may not live the most luxurious life style if they are not
extremely successful. With the few woman sports movies that are out there they represent wealth
woman make in a realistic way. A League of Their Own has most of the girls making money, but
it was just a little more than what they had been making before they started to play professional
baseball. People may have had money before they started playing by marriage or parents by not
by their athletic skills. Linda Fuller says in her book Sport, Rhetoric, and Gender: Historical
Perspectives and Media Representation say that it was very common that “most of the desirable
women are wealthy, well connected by birth” (Fuller, 2006) No one was going to get very rich off
of what they were doing like the men that played before them. They were a cheap substitute until
the men came home from war so it may have been assumed there was not much money to be
made. In the movie Blue Crush the protagonist and her sister are basically poor. They have a
house but barely survive with the payments that they must make. Each day seems to be a struggle
for them since it is so hard for her to make a substantial amount of money to live off of. The life
of a female athlete in these movies is not glorious. They work just as hard but receive half the
credit and recognition in film and in real life.
Sports movies involving males have many different types of stories behind them. The
majority of the well known sports movies are based off of true events. Remember the Titans is
based off of true events along with , Rudy, Friday Night Lights, Miracle on Ice, Cool Running's,
Hoosiers, and the list could go on. It is hard to believe that there has not been one inspirational
story that has come out of women playing sports that was made into a movie. Male Olympic
stories are made in to movies all the time, but no one has been able to put out a Olympic movie
with women in it. These movies are so good because it is usually an underdog story that most
people can relate to at some point in their life. It makes you feel good regardless of the sex, just
as long as it is a good story.
Racism within women sports and film is not very prevalent. You only catch glimpses of it
in some movies if you see any of it at all. A league of their own has scenes where you see the
segregation going on at the time, but there are no black people allowed to play in the games.
Baker say that there was a “exclusion and marginalization of African Americans from films about
sports until the 1940's. In the decade after World War II, blacks began to gain more substantial
and even starting roles in sports films, but with the restriction that they continue to accept white
control and represent an ideology of self-reliance and gradualism.” (Baker, 2003)None of these
were women though, and that seems to be the main source racism and discrimination going on in
the films. People are use to seeing men play all of these very hard sports, so seeing women try to
play these games come off as a shock at first. People don't know what to expect and never give
them a chance to prove themselves before they start to make fun of them and belittle them. Bend
it Like Beckham's story revolves around a Indian girl living in England trying to make it as a
soccer player. If there was anyone who might have faced racism in a sports movie it would likely
have been her. She is one of the only non white main characters in a woman's sport movie, and
the only girl who is of a different ethnicity in Bend it Like Beckham. She plays soccer with girl
who are all white and from the same type of background and class. Her father faced racism while
trying to play cricket, so he attempts to warn her that she might face the same racism for playing
soccer. Like many other things in life racism and discrimination is something that will always
exist. Even though it is unfair for people who are on the wrong end of it, films put it in these
movies to show the real sides of what not only women go through, but what everyone goes
through when it comes to racism and discrimination.
With the many different male sports movies out there, most of which have the same type
of story, it is safe to say that the formula for making those male driven movies is pretty solid. It
has not yet translated into making sports movies for women though. There are not many sports
movies with women in them that are not involved with dancing or cheering. Since many of the
movies are about mainly none male sports it is hard to attract both audiences to the theater, which
is why many of these movies are not made. Everyone knows that women, just like men, play
sports like soccer, baseball, and even football, but are not respected for doing it the way males do.
The movies that do use women playing male sports usually do so in a way that still makes
women look weaker than their male counterparts. Women are also usually turned into sex
symbols in these movies. We are supposed to be attracted to them, but also find it attractive that
these women are taking part in these sports. To reiterate what Fuller said "women were expected
to be sex objects" (Fuller, 2006), which is something that most women knew. Women also
showed weakness in some of these movies. Men also show their emotional sides during sports
films, but when women are seem being emotional it could be seen as them being over dramatic.
Masculinity is also another theme that you see throughout sports movies involving women.
Women playing sports is already masculine enough, but many of these girls are portrayed at ugly,
and not interested in looking attractive. Some of the women dress in baggy clothes and can be
seen without make up on. One might come to the conclusion that some of these women might be
interested in the opposite sex. Homosexuality among women in sports is much more out in the
open than homosexuals in male sports, but there have been no recent movies that tell the story
about two women who play sports and love each other. Racism within sports movies based on
women is not very common. The only racism and discrimination going on is that they treat
women different within sports for being women. It is just hard to believe that there are so many
male sports movies, and hardly any for women. There are tons of inspirational stories out there
about athletic women, so someone needs to find the perfect formula to make inspiring women
sports films.
Annotative Bibliography
Baker, A. (2003). Contesting identities:sports in film. Chicago, Illinois: Board of Trustees of the
University of Illinois.
Since the earliest days of the silent era, American filmmakers have been drawn to the visual
spectacle of sports and their compelling narratives of conflict, triumph, and individual
achievement. In "Contesting Identities", Aaron Baker examines how these cinematic
representations of sports and athletes have evolved over time - Baker shows that even as sports
films tackle socially constructed identities like class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender, they
ultimately underscore transcendence of these identities through self-reliance. His analysis of how
race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class are represented in feature sports films are consistently
thought-provoking and intriguing
Baldwin, D. (2000). The 1920's. Alberta, Canada: Weigl Educational Publishers Limited.
Cahn, S & O'Riley, J. (2007). Women and sports in the united states: a documentary reader.
Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England.
A spectacular transformation in women's sports has occurred over the past century in colleges,
high schools, and recreational leagues across the nation. Gradual changes during the late 1950s
and 1960s within the fields of women's physical education and amateur sport provided the initial
energy for this transformation. But it took the rebirth of a grassroots feminist movement in the
late 1960s and 1970s to catalyze the radical changes in women's athletic opportunities and
attitudes toward female athletes. American women's sports is evident in schools, the media, and
local playing fields, scholars are still in the early stages of fully examining the causes and
impacts of this historic change. Women and Sports in the United States brings together scholarly
articles, journalism, political and legal documents, and first-person accounts that collectively
explore woman's sports in America,
Fuller , L. (2006). Sport, rhetoric, and gender:historical perspective and media representation.
New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Interested in sport, gender, and language, Sport, Rhetoric, and Gender deconstructs the role of
rhetoric in the multi-billion dollar popular cultural/infotainment business. Wide-ranging, its 21
chapters, from contributors representing a number of different disciplines and athletic interests,
examine the language surrounding and incorporated by it in the world arena.
Tutor, D. (1997). Hollywood's vision of team sports: heroes, race, and gender. New York, NY:
This book analyzes the ways in which sport reflects, imitates, and questions cultural values. It
examines the representation of team sports, heroes, race, families, and gender in films and other
media. Analysis of the ways in which broadcast media and films create such images allows us to
map the ways in which traditional cultural beliefs and practices resist and accommodate changes.
Films about sport do not reproduce a simple, unified set of values-rather, they exhibit the
complications of attempting to negotiate ideological contradictions.