Feminist Analysis of a League of Their Own

II. Introduction

For my final project, I have chosen to take a feminist approach in conducting a critical analysis of an older movie, A League of Their Own. This World War II based movie heavily focuses on the strong inequality between men and women during the mid-1900’s, which is why I felt as though writing my paper from a feminist standpoint was the best path to follow.

With that being said, I will be focusing primarily on the “Sex” category from the SEARCH acronym because of how the women showcased in the film are sexualized and discriminated against based on their gender. I will also be slightly touching upon the “Race” category, due to the fact that one scene regarding this issue really caught my attention.

III. Description of Media Text

A. Commercial History

According to IMDb, the movie A League of Their Own, directed by Penny Marshall, was released in theatres by Columbia Pictures on July 1, 1992 after three consecutive months of filming in seventeen different locations. The story was co-written by Kim Wilson and Kelly Candaele, while the screenplay was also co-written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. (IMDb, “A League of Their Own)

With the movie being rated PG, one would believe that it was acceptable to be viewed by a wide range of audiences, therefore I do not believe there was one intended audience. Instead, anyone who watched the movie could either get a laugh or become educated, depending on the person viewing the movie and their interpretations. Since the intended audience was so broad, I believe that had something to do with how well the movie made out financially.

After the movie was produced with an estimated budget of $40,000,000, Columbia Pictures received a large worldwide gross profit of $132,440,069. (IMDb, “A League of Their Own) The movie was so popular, it prompted a television series to air under the same name with some of the same cast, but unfortunately only ran for one season on Columbia Pictures Television. (IMDb, “A League of Their Own) Once the comedy had been distributed through Sony pictures to be rented, the rental profit came to a total of $53,500,000 in the US alone. The movie was not released on DVD or Blu-ray until its 20th anniversary in 2012. (Wikipedia, A League of Their Own)

Along with the profits generated, the movie was also nominated for various awards including the Golden Globes for best performance by an actress in a motion picture and best original song, Awards for the Japanese Academy for best foreign film, Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards for best picture, Grammy Awards for best song specifically written for a motion picture or for television, and MTV Movie Awards for best female performance, best breakthrough performance, and best kiss. Although they did not win those awards, there are a few awards that A League of Their Own did receive, including American Comedy’s Awards’ “Funniest supporting actor in a motion picture”, ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards’ “Most performed songs from motion pictures”, Casting Society for America’s “Best casting for feature film, comedy”, and Hochi Film Awards’ “Best foreign film”. (IMDb, “A League of Their Own)

B. Description of Text

A League of Their Own takes place in the 1940’s when the Second World War was being fought. At this time, the men of America were being sent away to war, and the females were left to maintain the country by filling in and taking over the jobs of these men. Not only were regular civilians sent to battle, but also sports players, and specifically focused on in this movie- baseball players. After coming to the realization that this meant there would be no men to play baseball and keep the entertainment going, a business man in the candy bar industry, Walter Harvey, came up with the idea to start the first ever all American girls professional baseball league.

The movie starts off with a woman (Dotti) preparing to leave for a trip that she is unsure about her feelings towards. After her daughter convinced her to go, she ended up at a baseball field, where she entered a flashback to when she was younger. The flashback starts in a small town in Oregon where two sisters, Dotti Hinson and Kit Keller are scouted from their local softball game to join tryouts for the all-girl baseball league. Originally, Dotti was the sister the scout wanted but she was not interested and only went along in order to help her sister, Kit, make the league and fulfill her dreams of “being somebody”, which she was unable to achieve in their hometown. As the movie continues, the girls are at tryouts in Chicago at Harvey Field, accompanied by over one hundred other females. At this time, the girls are shown doing drills and eventually when the teams and cuts were listed, it was revealed that both Dotti and Kit made the same team. This was good news for them originally, but eventually caused conflict between the two because of their competitiveness towards one another.

The coach of Dotti and Kit’s team, the Georgia Peaches, was revealed to be a former all-star baseball player, Jimmy Dugan, who has since turned into a sloppy alcoholic. He had agreed to coach the team for the sole purpose of the money he would receive and treated the girls horribly. The team is made up of sixteen girls, but only a select few are focused on throughout the entirety of the movie. The most important girls, in my opinion, are Dotti and Kit, “all the way” Mae Mordabito and Doris Murphy (a former taxi dancer and her bouncer, respectively), Marla Hooch (the ugly duck), Ellen-Sue Gotlander (a former pageant queen), Evelyn Gardner (a mother who takes her child on the tour), and Betty “spaghetti” Horn.

Once the girls start playing games, they realize the fan base is not what they had expected. Instead of cheering fans, they were met with men mocking their ability to play. Ira Lowenstein, the middle man of the owners and the teams, steps in to inform the girls that the team owners are aware of this as well, and threaten to shut down the league if the girls can’t do something to fix it. This is when the girls start portraying themselves in a more sexual way and the crowd, in return, starts to increase dramatically.

While the girls were doing so well on the field, the controversy between sisters Dotti and Kit increased rapidly as Dotti received more attention and praise than Kit. Dotti asked to be traded to another team to resolve the issue, but instead Kit was traded to their rival team, the Belle’s, which worsened everything. When the playoffs and championship rolled around, the sisters were forced to play against each other, resulting in Kit scoring the game-winning home run and Dotti leaving the