Lesbian Fantasy and Roller Derby - The Backlash!!! Part Three

And finally .... here are my opinions on his article, and Roller Derby as a 'Lesbian Fantasy'

Firstly, I’m still not sure why Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page snogged in Marie Claire to promote the opening of Whip It!  Neither am I sure why their interview was filled with quite so much ‘mutual adoration’, however I don’t agree with Jeremy Clyman’s analysis of the film.

Having seen Whip It! while I was in the States a few weeks ago, I admit that a viewer could have thought in the first thirty minutes of the film that Bliss had a lesbian crush on the Derby Girls.  When she first sees the TXRD girls, it’s done in slow-motion with goofy music, and you don’t necessarily understand where her massive passion for the sport so quickly develops – her best friend is unaffected by the display bout they watch, and this bout isn’t particularly well filmed so an uninformed viewer might not understand the draw of the game.

Yet after the first thirty minutes, Bliss goes on to find herself a BOYfriend, and any potential gay undertone disappears.  All the skaters she is close to seemed to be straight – Drew Barrymore’s character is married, and her mentor Maggie Mayhem has a child from a previous heterosexual relationship.

Addressing two of Clyman's points specifically - I thought the coach, boyfriend and Bliss's father were all strong enough male characters, they just weren't body-building alpha-males!  And 'Jabba the Slut' is only shown once, so I don't know what version of the film he saw!

This obviously isn’t to say there aren’t lesbian rollergirls, it’s just to say that in my opinion the film had no undertone of homosexuality whatsoever, so I can’t understand why Jeremy Clyman drew so heavily on one in his article.  He claimed that the idea of playing a non-mainstream sport as rebellion was a parallel to coming out, but I really don’t get that assumption.

And as for lesbians in Roller Derby … of course there are lesbians in the game!  There are also lesbians who play every other women's sport I can think of!  In my personal experience, I’ve known a higher percentage of gay women in sports teams than in my life outside sport, but this can be attributed to a number of factors, including the fact that people bring often bring their friends into a sport, and my lesbian friends have a lot of lesbian friends … do the maths! 

Having said that, a key aesthetic of roller derby, as Wikipedia so neatly defines, is ‘punk third-wave feminism’ – ie the tattoos, fish-net, burlesque, sassy, rocker, take-no shit aspect of the game.  Whilst that is in no ways an exclusively lesbian theme, it is something that I would suggest probably attracts a lot of gay women … as well as straight girls with tattoos, and straight girls with a love for fish-nets, and straight girls who like the thought of standing up for themselves!!!

So maybe there are a disproportionate number of lesbians in the sport, but does that really matter?  It definitely doesn’t make it a lesbian sport, any more than it makes it a straight sport.  It’s A SPORT …. And one of the most inclusive I’ve ever come across!  The reason I started skating was because after one trial session I was taken aback by how welcoming and non-exclusive the girls were.  I love the fact that it’s a sport that accepts any girl – whether she’s gay, straight, fat, thin, tall, small, tattooed, pierced, or ‘untouched’.  So let’s not let uninformed critics like Jeremy Clyman cast the sport with a certain brush, and instead, let's work as a team to get an image of Roller Derby as one of the most inclusive and exciting new sports out to the masses. 

Hopefully then we'll be able to draw in huge crowds in like the ones in Whip It!

Jet Stepper xxx

Lesbian Fantasy and Roller Derby - The Backlash!!! Part One

Right so last month I drew your attention to a questionable article by Jeremy Clyman, on Psychology Today.  The blog was titled 'Lesbian Fantasy, Disguised', and discussed the film Whip It! as a film really about lesbians and the pressures of coming out in the Deep South, and in doing so, branded Roller Derby as little more than a euphemism for lesbian sex.
Whilst he later published an apology - Lesbian Fantasy, Reconsidered - he still failed to be missing the point!

I'm gonna do this in three parts .....

First of all, here's what he had to say

Let's back up before we get into conspiracy theories. "Whip It" is directed by a female (Barrymore), its protagonist is female (Page), and the story is about a girl who becomes a woman in a female dominated world. There isn't a serious male character to be seen. Oddly enough, the film is also about sports and the Deep South. I know what you're thinking. I, as a heterosexual man, am incapable of watching an exclusively female story without conflating its straightforward coming-of-age purpose with some sort of secret, subversive sexual agenda. Why can't I just appreciate this movie as the female version of adolescent identity growth and discovery? Why force meaning in-between the lines and covertly degrade this story as only interesting if satisfying some half-cocked interpretation?




So, where is lesbian fantasy to be found in this film? Let's back up even further for a minute. What is the primary function that films serve? Escape. Specifically, escape into a desirable fantasy world from an undesirable reality. Let's imagine for a moment that you are a closeted lesbian in a suppressively heterosexual environment like Bovine, Texas. You are not coming out. You would probably rather die then come out. Thus, you are walking around with unmet needs. You have a desire to be truly known, sexually gratified and socially accepted, but society relentlessly disappoints. There is a convincing pile of emerging research that examines the specifics of this kind of misery. It is real. It is profound. If you are a filmmaker then you have the opportunity to, at least temporarily, assuage this kind of misery. But you have to be careful. If you make the story about something that is almost as "bad" as being a lesbian, and you tell a tale of adversity overcome, of strength, growth and freedom then you can indulge this fantasy of lesbian actualization without activating the anxiety of reality, that is, the shame of feeling different and the fear of being different in a prejudice society.


(T)here needs to be a wink-and-nod to the lesbian-in-hiding audience that sexuality is the real issue. A couple points here:
A. "Whip It" is about roller blading, which this movie defines as a group of half-drunk women, in tight athletic gear and rollerblades muscling each other for inside positioning, as a few key teammates weave in and out of the pack. Those that have finesse are chased by those that have strength, somewhat akin to the cat and mouse pursuit of a top and bottom sexual power dynamic (there's a reason the standard sexual position is missionary). In short, this game is a metaphor for sex.
B. The protagonist, Bliss (Page), behaves in the way that a lesbian might behave before she knows she's a lesbian. We meet her just as she's playfully dying her hair blue for a beauty pageant. Her inexplicable love for roller derby is incited by the image of three women pushing each other on rollerblades. She dumps her boyfriend with suspicious ease and celerity. She's an adolescent who likes to be different, is experimental and puts a boyfriend second to roller derby. Now, obviously none of these things makes her a suppressed lesbian, but as a lesbian in the audience you might be cued into the possibility of an alternative,unconscious sexual agenda.
C. A character named "Jaba the Slut" is definitely a lesbian. She winks at girls and offers them drinks and come-on lines. This is never made explicit, which signals to the audience that lesbianism is both present and not really present


Even copying an pasting this I have to stop myself screaming out at the many blatant mistakes ... but just quickly, before I start on my real argument .... Jaba the Slut only appeared once in the version of the movie that I saw, and that was simply to tell someone her skater name, and there are a heap of strong male roles in the film ....

ok .... enough of this .... lets see what you guys thought ......


Jet xxx

Psychology Today Apology ....

So, after offending a high proportion of the roller derby world - both gay and straight - for his suggestions that Whip It!, and more specifically Roller Derby bouts are lesbian fantasy fests, the author of 'Lesbian Fantasy Disguised' on Psychology Today, Jeremy Clyman, has retracted a number of his points and apologised to the Roller Derby community.  

Read his apology here.  He claims that the sport was irrelevant to his opinions on the film, something I personally struggle to believe when he originally wrote things like  

' "Whip It" is about roller blading, which this movie defines as a group of half-drunk women, in tight athletic gear and rollerblades muscling each other for inside positioning, as a few key teammates weave in and out of the pack. Those that have finesse are chased by those that have strength, somewhat akin to the cat and mouse pursuit of a top and bottom sexual power dynamic (there's a reason the standard sexual position is missionary). In short, this game is a metaphor for sex.'

But I'll let you make your own judgments.  Read the initial article, read the apology .... and then tell me what you think!! I'll be writing a Round-Up on the topic very soon

Jet xxx

Lesbianism and Roller Derby ....

Here at the Round-Up Bout we've noticed a fair bit of uproar following an article on Psychology Today by Jeremy Clyman, about his hypothesis that Whip It, and thus Roller Derby, is a closeted source of lesbian fantasy.  

Personally my favourite paragraph from the piece starts ....

Whip It is about roller blading, which this movie defines as a group of half-drunk women, in tight athletic gear and rollerblades muscling each other for inside positioning, as a few key teammates weave in and out of the pack. Those that have finesse are chased by those that have strength, somewhat akin to the cat and mouse pursuit of a top and bottom sexual power dynamic (there's a reason the standard sexual position is missionary). In short, this game is a metaphor for sex.

Hmm ...

But I'll let you know what I think later!! For now I would like your opinions ... Read the Article, watch the available snippets of Whip It online, and try and get hold of the Marie Claire edition where Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page are photographed kissing ... the impetus for the article.

Then let me know what you think ... are homosexuality and roller derby really linked?  Is a bout just some form of closeted sexual frenzy??!

I'll do a summary of the best and most dramatic opinions at the end of the week

Jet Stepper xxx