Feminist Analysis of a League of Their Own

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baseball profession entirely.

The movie ends with Dotti coming out of her flashback when entering the Doubleday baseball field where she was reunited with her old teammates to witness their induction into the baseball hall of fame. This was a special moment, because it appears that this is the first time Dotti and Kit have seen each other since the last baseball game, as well as the fact that their team was the first group of women to ever be inducted into the baseball hall of fame.

C. Figure: Image(s) Representing Text

This poster for the movie shows the uniforms the girls were forced to play in

This is the primary poster used to advertise the movie

This advertisement for the movie features a kiss mark left behind from lipstick on the baseball

D. Rationale: Why this text?

I chose this movie with the help of my parents because I was unsure of something that I could write in so much detail about. My father introduced me to A League of Their Own because it is one of his and my mother’s favorite movies. After watching it with them a few times, I found myself to really enjoy this movie as well. As I mentioned earlier, the whole theme of this movie focuses on the inequality between men and women at this period of time. The women are stepping in to fill the shoes of the men, and although it is meant to be a comedy there are a lot of messages in the movie about sexism.

The reason I chose to conduct a feminist analysis on this media is because the women in this movie are forced to become sexual objects in order to get the attention of the rest of society, which is a topic we also focused on in our class discussions. The girls are not looked at for who they are as ball players, but instead for what they look like. I found while watching A League of Their Own, I was reminded of many readings from our texts and scenes from the videos that we have watched, such as Miss Representation, so I wanted to share my views on this movie in relation to what we have learned in class.

IV. Analysis of Media Text

Throughout the film A League of Their Own, women are not treated anywhere close to equals to men, as shown in almost every scenes. The first scene that differentiates girls from boys is the opening scene, where four children are outside of Dotti’s home as she is getting ready to leave for her trip. The two girls are sitting in dresses on the porch, while the two boys are playing with a basketball, shooting hoops. This is the beginning of where we see the movie separating women’s activities from men’s activities.

The next scene is Dotti and Kit watching their recruiter, Ernie, consider taking on another player. This girl (Marla) is hitting every ball with perfection, but something is wrong here, as we noticed since she wouldn’t lift her head. The recruiter told the girl’s father that he is interested in his daughter, but as soon as she lifted her head up and took off her ball cap, her face was revealed and the scout was no longer interested. Ernie told the father that she has no chance because of her lack of beauty. This is an example of how women are judged solely on their appearance and are unwanted if their beauty doesn’t measure up to what is socially acceptable. This reminded me of Miss Representation when the speakers mentioned the twisted views of beauty in today’s society.

This quote was from the following scene, in a radio broadcasting room, when the idea of the all-American girl’s baseball team was first being discussed and put into place. A news reporter said “Careers in higher education are leading to the masculinization of women, with enormously dangerous consequences to the home, the children, and our country. When our boys come home from war, what kind of girls will they be coming home to? And now the most disgusting example of this sexual confusion: Mr. Walter Harvey of Harvey bars is presenting us with women’s baseball. Right here in Chicago, young girls plucked from their families are gathered at Harvey Field, to see which one of them can be the most masculine. Mr. Harvey, like your candy bars, you are completely nuts.” This was, in my opinion, the most offensive quote from the entire movie. First of all, this is what our books refers to as binary opposition. (O’Shaughnessy & Stadler, 2009). This is an example of binary opposition because it is making a claim that just because these athletes are women, they should not be allowed to have any “masculine” traits, because only men should be masculine. It is not society’s place to decide how a woman should or should not act, and if they want to play baseball that is the girl in the positions decision. Another thing wrong with this quote is that they are claiming the women playing baseball is what is dangerous to families and the country while the men are out fighting a war that is far more dangerous! The fact that this woman also claimed women playing baseball is “sexual confusion” is repulsive considering if a woman wants to play a game that does not have an effect on her sexuality or gender. It is simply a game, that since stereotypically is played by men, makes it an unnecessary issue when a woman wants to get involved.

In the next scene, the girls have finished tryouts and are put on their teams. This is when they are given all of their rules, completely different from men’s baseball. The first rule is that they must play in miniskirts as their uniforms, which completely sexualized these women by using their bodies as a form of advertisement to get men to attend games, rather than allowing them to be comfortable in normal pants like the men. Along with this, they are told they must be accompanied by a chaperone at all times to ensure they are “acting like ladies” and not smoking or drinking. To top it off, they had to attend charm school! For baseball! Where does charm intervene with baseball?! This was another attempt to get the women to act in the stereotypical “classy” manner. In what world does it make sense for girls who are getting dirty and running around and playing a game to have to be “charming”? That is just another way society forces women to be different than men, because women have to be “feminine” at all times.

The next scene I’d like to explain further is the girl’s first baseball game, where the stands have barely anyone in them, and the people who are there to watch the game are simply there to mock the girls. Men are yelling profanities at them like “Hey glamourpuss can you throw the ball?” and “Better look out, might break a