Sports Films

GENDER

Within the utopian narrative typical of American sports films, the heroic individual who overcomes obstacles and achieves success through determination, self-reliance, and hard work is most often male. The primary notion of masculinity in sports films is that this male protagonist defines and proves himself through free and fair competition modeled on American society, which promises rewards to the most deserving individuals. The competitive opportunities offered to male athletes in most sports films justify patriarchal authority by naturalizing the idea of men as more assertive and determining, while women generally appear in the secondary roles of fans and dependent supporters. Differences in social position are therefore naturalized as evolutionary rather than depicted as a result of a lack of competitive opportunities. The competition involving men that sports movies generally showcase provides an opportunity to validate assumptions of male superiority. These films seldom acknowledge that women have not had as much access to sports. When gender discrimination comes up, in the few films about female athletes such as Pat and Mike (1952), Personal Best (1982), Pumping Iron II (1985), and A League of Their Own (1992), it is often portrayed not as a systemic flaw in sports competition or American society, but rather as just another ad hoc challenge that the strong and resourceful individual will overcome.

Because they so often feature male athletes, sports films provide a useful site for the analysis of dominant ideas of masculinity, yet they also show how it has been refigured over time in response to changes in American society. From the 1880s through the end of the twentieth century, the effects of industrialization, professionalization, deindustrialization, changing forms of media representation, and the increased assertion of women and nonwhite and gay men have forced dominant masculinity to define itself in new ways. In an attempt to portray athletic events in a realistic style, the makers of sports films have responded to these social changes in their depictions of masculinity—by demonstrating its strength through service to others (The Iron Major [1943], The Rookie), by showing nonwhite men and women who embody its traits (Space Jam, Girlfight), even by presenting a white masculinity inflected with qualities associated with nonwhite athletes (White Men Can't Jump, Any Given Sunday [1999]).

A few sports films show assertive women, some of whom are athletes, pursuing a feminist desire for control of their careers and relationships; in Pat and Mike, Bull Durham (1987), and Tin Cup (1996) those strong women even verbally deconstruct masculinity. Several films about female athletes such as Personal Best, Pumping Iron II, and A League of Their Own present a disjuncture between scenes in which they demonstrate their ability to appropriate qualities associated with masculinity (especially physical strength and self-confidence) to perform in sports, and a narrative that pushes them toward compromise with conservative ideas of gender. Two more recent films, Girlfight and Love and Basketball (2000), take a step further by validating female athletes who can appropriate the positive traits of masculinity, without requiring they compromise the benefits that they realize from involvement in sports.

Despite the increased social equality shown in some recent films, most sports movies made in the last twenty-five years have continued to tell the stories of white, male protagonists, insisting on hard work and determination as the only ingredients that matter for athletic achievement. The success of Rocky in 1976 demonstrated a desire to dismiss the inequalities that the 1960s counter-culture had identified in American society, and gave new life to utopian sports movies such as The Natural (1984), Hoosiers, Field of Dreams (1989), Mr. Baseball (1992), Rudy (1993), Angels in the Outfield (1994), The Air Up There, and The Replacements. These nostalgic films not only remember the mythology of white male protagonists, but also reassert the old portrayals of nonwhites and women as either obstacles that define the hero or faithful supporters of his achievement.