Women and Sport in Girlfight, Billy Elliott and Dare to Compete :: Film Movies

Women and Sport in Girlfight, Billy Elliott and Dare to Compete When a woman or man joins a non-traditional sport for their gender or sex, it can have drastic social and cultural costs. These impact not just the individual but also the entire community. When a person challenges the gender roles of society, then they change the perceptions of what men or women are capable of doing, they further androgynize cultural norms, and they open up sports for others. First of all, it is important to note that the first few challengers to a gender role are seen as novelties. In the film 'Dare to Compete', many early woman athletes were co-opted into male teams to attract more fans. Baseball managers would often employ stunts to raise their ticket sales, with one black team – the Clowns –putting on a vaudeville show during the game. The Clowns did have a female player, but she was not publicized to grab more attention at first. Later, advertisements would announce her presence as astounding that a woman could play as well as a man. She was a novelty within a novel team. In the all-female league during World War 2, the managers would have the girls wear short skirts and put on makeup to look like "ladies". Men would come hoping for a striptease in the middle of the game, because women were placed in the same category of sports as the black leagues. That is, they were only to entertain and not actually compete. In 'Girlfight', the main character is at first skeptically viewed by her coach and then she is viewed as a humorous oddity until she proves her determination. Last year, Muhamid Ali and George Foreman's daughters decided to fight each other in a rematch of the famed Rumble in the Jungle. This received major network coverage and was a pay-per-view event on HBO, but the girls were trivialized and many late night commentators ridiculed the idea of women boxing more than one round. Jay Leno suggested that in between rounds, the ladies would stop to touch up their makeup or become enraged if their hair was mussed during the match. The event was well watched because of this curiosity, and it hopefully proved that the daughters of Ali and Forman were just as much an athlete as they were. Women or men who enter a non-traditional sport for their gender will always be viewed with skepticism.