Gender Trouble in Female Sports Films

Katharina Lindner

University of Stirling

Introduction

This chapter is concerned with questions of sport, gender

and sexuality in relation to cinema, with a specific focus on

depictions of female athleticism. It brings into dialogue

feminist critiques of women and/in sport as well as women

and/in cinema, in an attempt to explore the ways in which

gender and sexual identities are re-constituted in

contemporary female sports films, including Bring it On (Reed,

2000), Ice Princess (Fywell, 2005), The Cutting Edge (Glaser, 1992),

Stick it (Bendinger, 2006), Wimbledon (Loncraine, 2004), Bend it Like

Beckham (Chadha, 2003), Blue Crush, (Stockwell, 2002), Love and

Basketball (Prince-Bythewood, 2000), Girlfight (Kusama, 2000) and

Million Dollar Baby (Eastwood, 2004).

Much of the existing research concerned with

representations of female athletes has focused on broadcast

media and other non-fictional contexts, leading to a wealth of

often useful insights. The representation of female athletes

1

in fiction film, however, has not received much critical

attention – and the literature that does exist is often

problematic, as the specificity of either cinematic

representation or of athletic performance tends not to be

sufficiently acknowledged.

Research in this area, when undertaken by academics with

an interest in sport and gender and with backgrounds in

media/communication studies or sociology, often neglects to

consider the distinctions between different media forms,

leading to accounts of ‘stereotypes’ of female athletes in

film (as either hypersexualised or masculinised/lesbianised)

and of the ‘inaccuracy’ of filmic representations when

contrasted with the situation of female athletes in ‘reality’.

Within film studies, the longstanding and reciprocal

relationship between sport and cinema, particularly its

gendered dimension, is equally under-researched and has only

recently received more sustained critical attention (Lindner,

2011a; Pearson, 2001). This is surprising considering the

historical pervasiveness of athletic themes, sports-centred

narratives and athletic bodies in (Hollywood) cinema, ranging

from the frequent depiction of fictional and non-fictional

2

boxing fights in early newsreel to Robert De Niro’s and

Hillary Swank’s Oscar-winning performances as boxers in Raging

Bull (Scorsese, 1980) and Million Dollar Baby.

Interestingly, a critical interest in female athleticism

and physicality can be identified within those film studies

debates that are more generally concerned with representations

of gender and the female body in cinema. Specifically, this

includes critical engagements with the action cinema that

focus on the troubling significance of the active and muscular

female body (see Holmlund, 2001; Tasker, 1993). In fact, the

female boxing film Girlfight is included in Beltrán’s (2004)

discussion of the ‘New Latina hero’ within the action genre,

whereas the ‘boxing film’ (typically assumed to be about a

male boxer) tends to be considered a sub-genre in its own

right (Grindon, 1996; 2007).

While debates around the action genre usefully

contextualise the significance of female athleticism, it is

equally important to acknowledge the specifically athletic

character of bodily ‘action’ in the female sports film as well

as the implications of an engagement in sports as a very

specific socially-situated, and gendered, bodily practice that

3

differs considerable from the often ‘fantastic’ bodily action

of the action genre.

The aim of this chapter is to acknowledge both the

specificity of athletic performance as well as the specificity of

cinematic representation. This means going beyond an account of

the stereotypes/images of female athletes in cinema by

considering questions of genre, narrative, spectatorship and

viewing pleasures. This will allow for a consideration of how

sports and cinema (as institutions that ‘discipline’ bodies in

particular ways) contribute to our understandings of the

athletic female body and its (potentially troubling)

capabilities.

Pirouettes and Knock-Out Punches: Genre, Narrative, Spectacle, Pleasure

The depiction of female athletes in central roles has

increased dramatically in previous decades (Lindner, 2011a;

Pearson, 2001) and there are some useful observations to be

made as to the kinds of films athletic female protagonists

feature in as well as to the types of sport depicted.

4

It is, firstly, worth noting that sporting activities

themselves are gendered, with certain kinds of sports, such as

figure skating, gymnastics or cheerleading, carrying feminine

connotations. It is therefore no surprise that there are a

number of films that depict female protagonists pursuing

female-appropriate sports, including Ice Princess (figure

skating), The Cutting Edge (figure skating), Stick it (gymnastics)

and Bring it On (cheerleading). Within the context of traditional

gender relations, the depictions of athletic performances by

female characters tend to be relatively ‘safe’ and non-

threatening. The bodily shapes, movements and clothing fit

neatly into established and heteronormative gender binaries,

as the performance of (heterosexual) femininity is arguably

written into the rules of the sports themselves (Feder, 1994).

These are some of the reasons why depictions of female

gymnasts, cheerleaders and figure skaters are easily

integrated into the established visual and narrative

conventions of mainstream cinema. In fact, the (staged)

performances by athletic female characters in these films

resemble closely the kinds of performances identified by

Mulvey (1975) as providing narrative opportunities/excuses for

5

the display of the female body as a sexualised and to-be-looked-at

object for the actively desiring gaze of both the (male)

characters within the films and the viewers of the film.

In her polemic about the patriarchal psychic structures

of (mainstream) cinema, Mulvey points to the ways in which

narrative and visual agency is associated with masculinity,

while femininity, as it is inscribed on the female body on

screen, tends to be associated with passivity and a lack of

agency – and this binary constellation is, according to Mulvey

(1975), linked to the specifically gendered viewing pleasures

provided.1 The fact that figure skating, gymnastics and

cheerleading are sports in which winning and losing is

determined by the decisions of (often male) judges who

evaluate, among other things, the visually and aesthetically

pleasing nature of the performance, adds to the significance

of the controlling and objectifying gaze directed at the

female body. The to-be-looked-at performances of athletic female

characters in films such as Ice Princess, The Cutting Edge and Bring it On

are therefore easily integrated into mainstream cinema’s

1 The arguments provided by Mulvey in her seminal essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (1975) have been criticised, challenged and developedin a number of different ways, but continue to be a central reference pointin contemporary debates concerned with the representation of women in mainstream cinema.

6

heteronormative narrative and looking constellations. Figure

skating and cheerleading are suitable activities to be pursued

by female characters within this representational context and

its obsession with heterosexual romance and traditional gender

binaries.

A central characteristic of female-appropriate sports is

the disavowal of the powerful and assertive physicality of the

female body. ‘Good’ and ‘successful’ performances demand for

the bodily strength and exertion that are, of course,

absolutely necessary for the execution of complex and demanding

movements to be denied. Although gymnasts, figure skaters and

cheerleaders are required to develop strong, powerful and

potentially troubling bodies in order to succeed in their

sport, they are also required to ensure that the physicality

of their bodies remains invisible and/or within the boundaries

of acceptable femininity, which undermines the ‘empowering’

potential of girls’ and women’s engagement in these sports.

While (some) athletic activities provide opportunities for the

development of a sense of body ownership, confidence, and a

sense of being ‘in tune’ with one’s body, female-appropriate

sports such as figure skating and gymnastics demand a

7

continual awareness of what the performance, and as such the

body, ‘look like’. This means that athletes are involved in a

process of perpetual self-surveillance and alienation. This

internalisation of what Bartky (1988, p.34) calls the gaze of

the ‘anonymous patriarchal Other’ constitutes an effective

policing of appropriately and intelligibly feminine bodily

forms and movements and reassuringly repositions the female

body as an object to-be-looked-at.

That said, the active physicality of the characters,

although denied, is potentially ‘troubling’ as it threatens to

undermine traditional gender binaries that equate femininity

with passivity and objecthood. There are, for instance, a

number of sequences in Ice Princess, The Cutting Edge and Bring it On that

hint at the characters’ bodily strength. Bring it On shows the

cheerleaders in the weightlifting gym. However, the characters

do not actually lift weights, but merely use the gym as the

setting for a conversation. The film thus points to the

significance of bodily strength, but an athletic physicality

is not inscribed at the level of the body itself. The bodies of

the characters/actresses are rather unathletic, not overly

muscular, and as such not overly ‘troubling’.

8

The Cutting Edge contains a similar weightlifting sequence

and we actually see the female protagonist, Kate (Moira Kelly)

lift a dumbbell. The actual figure skating performances,

however, tend to be devoid of references to Kate’s

corporeality, in favour of an emphasis on ethereality and

weightlessness. The power and strength of Doug (D.B Sweeney),

the male skater and former ice hockey player, on the other

hand, are certainly emphasised when he picks up Kate, throwing

her up in the air as part of the performance. The potentially

troubling implications of the female characters’ athletic

activities are thus disavowed through the negation of their

physicality, which is necessary, it seems, for their

integration into the films’ heteronormative trajectories that

ultimately lead to the climactic formation of the heterosexual

couple.

The transgressive potential of female athleticism is

additionally undermined by the ‘unbelievability’ of the

portrayal of bodily skill. Variously, actresses (rather than

athletes) such as Kirsten Dunst in Bring it on, Michelle

Trachtenberg in Ice Princess and Moira Kelly in The Cutting Edge, do

not visibly embody particular athletic capabilities. Even

9

careful editing cannot entirely conceal the fact that the

actresses’ bodies are, in fact, rather unathletic bodies and

their movements, when framed in ‘real time’, seem clumsy and

disjointed. When framed via complex editing techniques, they

become unbelievably spectacular. The characters’ athletic

movements seem removed from the physicality of the ‘real’

bodies supposedly executing these movements.

The gymnastics film Stick it provides an interesting

exception by featuring a visibly muscular female protagonist,

Haley (Missy Peregrym), and by explicitly grounding her

gymnastic performances in the physicality of her body.

Generally, however, there is a tendency for the most

spectacular performances to be framed in a way that imbues

them with a flattened, abstract, and depthless quality and to

take place in what Dyer (1992) might call a disembodied and

‘utopian’ realm.

A similar argument around a lack of authenticity can be

made about Dunst’s performance as professional tennis player,

Lizzie, in Wimbledon. Dunst’s athletic actions (tennis,

running) seem awkward, inhibited and disjointed. She runs and

plays tennis ‘like a girl’, and exhibits the typically

10

feminine movement and comportment that Young (1980) discusses

in her essay ‘Throwing like a girl’.

Young suggests that women’s bodily existence tends to be

characterised by an ‘inhibited intentionality’ and by an

essentially alienated relationship of women to their own

bodies. This is particularly noticeable within the athletic

context where women tend not to make use of their bodies’

‘spatial and lateral potentialities’ (Young, 1980: 143). These

gendered differences in movement and comportment are acquired

and learned, rather than ‘natural’, and they are indicative of

larger socio-cultural pressures that inscribe binary

differences on male and female bodies and their relation to

space. The professional male tennis player, Peter, played by

Paul Bettany, has a more naturally athletic physique and moves

around the court much more comfortably. His performances are

given additional ‘substance’ through the internal monologues,

in which he comments on his actions during most tennis

sequences.

Wimbledon follows, in straightforward fashion, the

conventions of the romantic comedy, with the initially

antagonistic and competitive relationship between the

11

characters developing fairly predictably into a relationship

of romantic and sexual attraction. The romance narrative is

squarely situated within the athletic context, which arguably

serves to assuage fears about the lesbian associations of

female athleticism. These associations are particularly

‘visible’ in relation to tennis, with ‘out’ female tennis

players such as Martina Navratilova and Amélie Mauresmo having

considerable public/media profiles. Wimbledon therefore

diverges from the established generic conventions of the

(male) sports film, where sporting sequences tend to chart the

ups and downs of the athletic character’s way, ultimately to

sporting success.

While heterosexual romance plays a role in most (male)

sports films, these tend to be marginal narrative strands and

the formation of the heterosexual couple follows on from, and

is an ‘incidental’ side-effect of, sporting success. In

Wimbledon, however, the priorities are reversed, with an

initial narrative and visual emphasis on tennis gradually

making way for narrative and visual concerns with heterosexual

romance – at least in relation to Lizzie whose obsession with

tennis turns into an obsession with Peter, and whose ultimate

12

aim is not athletic success (anymore) but the successful

integration into social, narrative and generic norms. The

narratives of potential empowerment and independence that

feminist critics (e.g., Choi, 2000; Heywood and Dworkin, 2003)

tend to construct around girls’ and women’s engagement in

sports are very much marginalised and undermined by the film.

The soccer film Bend it Like Beckham is more ambiguous in its

portrayal of athletic skills. The authenticity of Jules’s

(Keira Knightley) and Jess’s (Parminder Nagra) athletic

performances are undermined by the actresses’ lack of athletic

skills, which is noticeable, for instance, in their run up to

the ball at awkward angles. However, the film’s transgressive

potential lies, as I have suggested elsewhere (Lindner,

2011b), in Keira Knightley’s tomboyish appearance and

androgynous physique: the film’s comically self-conscious

acknowledgement of the lesbian associations of female

athleticism as well as the narrative and visual ambiguities

surrounding the female characters’ relationship to each other.

As in Wimbledon, the protagonists’ relationship develops

primarily within the sports context and it is the development of

13

a (physically) close bond between the female characters that

arguably opens the film up for a ‘lesbian’ reading.

Similar arguments can be made about the female surfing

film Blue Crush, where the relationship between the central

surfing characters Anne-Marie (Kate Bothworth) and Eden

(Michelle Rodriguez) is overlaid with considerable visual and

narrative ambiguity. Rodriguez’s muscular physique and her

role as Anne-Marie’s best friend and training partner, who

becomes explicitly jealous when Anne-Marie enters into a

relationship with American footballer Matt (Matthew Davis), is

central to the film’s troubling of heteronormative conventions

and constellations. In terms of narrative development and

closure, Anne-Marie eventually chooses her surfing career (and

Eden?) over Matt and the climactic moment towards the end of

the film is in fact a sporting moment, with the heterosexual

romance being at least temporarily sidelined. Here, Anne-

Marie’s athletic achievements are given narrative importance

in their own right. In a way, this is similar to the final

sequence in Bend it Like Beckham, which sees Jess and Jules walk

onto an airplane that will take them to the United States

where they will join a college team on a soccer scholarship.

14

Their athletic achievements ultimately strengthen their

relationship and the film’s ending points to their continuing

engagement in sport.

Overall, Blue Crush, Bend it Like Beckham, as well as films such

as Love and Basketball and Girlfight, are explicitly critical about the

social-cultural, interpersonal and material barriers and

prejudices often faced by girls and women when pursuing

gender-inappropriate sports. The acquisition of a powerful

physicality and the engagement in antagonistic bodily contact

is often perceived as a form of gender transgression. While

films such as Wimbledon deal with the resulting tensions by

situating female athleticism in a reassuringly

heterosexualised genre (the romantic comedy) and thus re-

establish binary frameworks of sex, gender and sexuality,

films such as Stick it and Million Dollar Baby disavow these tensions

by attempting to avoid questions of sexuality altogether.

Questions about Hayley’s and Maggie’s (Hillary Swank) gender

and sexual identities are always clearly ‘there’ – female

sports films are always already ‘about’ gender and sexuality

(Caudwell, 2009) – but never explicitly dealt with. Disavowal

always leaves a trace of absence, however, and this is where

15

possibilities for negotiation, fluidity and subversive viewing

pleasures lie.

What imbues Love and Basketball and particularly Girlfight with

potentially troubling qualities, is that the films deal with

the ‘troubling’ implications of female athleticism head on.

Both films feature heterosexual romance narratives involving

male and female athletic characters. In Love and Basketball,

Monica (Sanaa Lathan) and Quincy (Omar Epps) are childhood

friends and the film traces the ups and downs of their

relationship alongside both characters’ high school, college

and professional basketball careers. The final images of the

film see Monica play in a professional basketball game while

Quincy is in the audience, together with their young daughter.

While the film’s ending celebrates heterosexual union and

procreation alongside athletic success, it also deals quite

explicitly with notions of female masculinity in the context

of heterosexual romance. Monica is not necessarily feminised

in order to fit into heteronormative binaries of gender and

sexuality; rather, the film seems to reassure us that muscular

women can quite easily fulfil traditionally feminine roles as

mother and wife. Love and Basketball thus has transgressive

16

potential but its overall significance is reassuring rather

than challenging of the heteronormative status quo.

In Love and Basketball, Monica and Quincy compete directly

against each other twice, with neither encounter taking place

in an official sporting context. Instead, the characters go

head to head on a private basketball court in the middle of

the night, when Monica wants to play for Quincy’s ‘heart’. The

second encounter is in their college dorm room when they play

with a toy basketball ‘for clothes’ (a clearly sexualised game

of striptease, rather than basketball). Following the film’s

title, heterosexual love and basketball are intimately

intertwined in the film. This contrasts heavily with the

relationship between Diana (Michelle Rodriguez) and Adrian

(Santiago Douglas) in Girlfight, where the boxers meet in the

ring on several occasions.

The boxing ring is a clearly marked space in which

encounters between individuals are by definition violent and

antagonistic, and much of the film deals very explicitly with

the incompatibility of Diana’s gender identity (her female

masculinity) and her sexual identity as Adrian’s girlfriend.

It is, in fact, Adrian who seems to struggle with this tension

17

the most as, within a heteronormative framework, his romantic

involvement with Diana appears to raise questions about his

own gender and sexual identity.

Their relationship is at its most fragile when she does,

in fact, beat him in the ring in the film’s climactic fight,

with Rodriguez’s muscular physique and powerful movements

lending considerable authenticity and believability to this

crucial narrative event. There are moments when the fighters’

faces are not directly visible, making it impossible to

distinguish physiques of the male and female boxers – sexual

difference becomes invisible. The tensions between female

masculinity and heterosexuality grappled with by the film are

never reassuringly resolved. The film’s ending is ambiguous

and no (utopian) solution to the ‘problem’ of female

masculinity is provided. This is arguably where the subversive

implications of Girlfight lie.

The boxing film in particular has a long tradition within

mainstream cinema and has established itself as a ‘genre’ with

certain narrative structures and visual conventions since the

very early days of cinema. Before concluding this chapter, I

want to turn to this particular genre and consider the ways in

18

which the female boxing protagonist ‘troubles’ its

conventions.

Writing about the functional nature of genres, Altman

(1999) points to their significance in isolating and providing

symbolic solutions for socio-cultural problems and conflicts.

Variously, the boxing film genre has been identified as being

centrally concerned with notions of a ‘troubled masculinity’

(Woodward, 2007). In one of the most detailed discussions of

the genre, Grindon (1996; 2007) argues that the boxing film

evolves around the fundamental conflicts of body versus soul,

opportunity versus difference, market values versus family

values, anger versus justice, as well as the tension between

the violence in the ring and the (heterosexual) romance

surrounding the boxing action. These generic conflicts are

played out over the body of the boxer, who is assumed to be

male. As Woodward (2007, p.122) puts it, ‘the archetypal boxer

in film has traditionally been portrayed as a singular heroic

figure of troubled masculinity’.

With regard to the narrative conventions, Grindon (1996:

57-59) suggests that the boxing film typically consists of (a

variation of) the following structure:

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Move 1: The Discovery. The protagonist is found to have a

remarkable talent for fistfights[…]

Move 2: The Crisis. The values embodied in the

protagonist’s family and his sanctioned ambition are

placed in crisis which drives the reluctant hero into the

ring. Masculine pride provoked by poverty [can evoke such

a crisis.]

Move 3: The Promise. The boxer confirms his potential with

his first victory in the ring […]

Move 4: The Rise. In the gym the manager develops the

boxer’s craft […]

Move 5: The Deal. The boxer, blocked by the brokers of the

fight game, signs with a gangster promoter, against the

advice of his manager, fiancée, brother, or other trusted

confidant [...]

Move 6: Debauchery. The boxer abandons his previous

regimen of training for parties and the fast life. The

girlfriend from the old neighbourhood, disturbed by the

transformation, is pushed aside by the vamp […]

Move 7: Big Fight 1. The protagonist gains the title or

wins the fight that assures him big status […]

20

Move 8: The Dive. Rendered vulnerable by high living,

isolated from his true friends, and in need of cash, the

boxer yields to pressure from the gangster promoter and

agrees to take a dive for some dubious reward […]

Move 9: Big Fight 2. In an extended bout, the boxer

suffers terrible punishment, but in a late round he

regains his will and defeats his opponent; nevertheless,

his career is over […]

Move 10: Resolution/Epilogue. The end of the boxing career

signifies the decline of the body […]

Clearly, the socio-cultural conflicts and the narrative

conventions identified here assert an understanding of the

boxing film as a masculine genre and render the female boxing

film problematic – I refer to this is as ‘genre trouble’.

The genre’s gendered conventions are based on the

inherently masculine associations of the sport itself. As

Oates (1985: 72) suggests: ‘Boxing is for men and is about

men, and is men’. Woodward (2007: 3) notes that Oates’ comment

‘is not only an empirical observation about the people who

take part, but an expression of the powerfully gendered

21

metaphors of the sport’. This highlights the troubling

implications of the female boxer’s embodiment of masculinity

already identified in relation to Girlfight. The figure of the

female boxer raises important questions ‘about how and why

women might ‘do’ masculinity […] and whether there are

alternative reconfigurations of gender identities’ (Woodward,

2007: 5-6).

Woodward usefully points to the problems surrounding the

‘draw’ and ‘appeal’ of the spectacular display of violence in

boxing. It is the spectatorship of the spectacle of ‘broken and

damaged as well as fit and beautiful’ (Woodward, 2007: 134)

male bodies in violent physical contact that is full of

tensions. These tensions are amplified when the broken and

damaged but fit and beautiful bodies are the masculinised

bodies of female boxers, such as Maggie’s/Hillary Swank’s in

Million Dollar Baby or Diana’s/Michelle Rodriguez’s in Girlfight,

raising important questions about the re-configuration of

gender and sexual identities, the psychic investments made

possible and the unconscious fears and desires thus addressed.

If ‘boxing heroes offer the fantasy of a stable masculinity’

(Woodward, 2007: 128) in response to uncertainty and change,

22

particularly in relation to gender roles, the female boxer’s

performance of masculinity certainly is deeply troubling. This

manifests itself in the ways in which Girlfight does not manage,

or refuses to even attempt, to resolve the generic problems

‘caused’ by its protagonist’s embodiment of female

masculinity.

With regard to Million Dollar Baby, the gender/genre trouble

manifests itself in the film’s generic code switching from

boxing film to melodrama. Swank’s performance as the female

boxer, Maggie, has won widespread critical appraisal, as well

as an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Lead Role in 2004.

Much attention was drawn to the strict training regime the

actress had undergone in preparation for the role, which saw

her develop a visibly muscular and powerful body - the body of

a boxer. The film highlights the physical strain of the

boxer’s training, and there is a visceral emphasis both on the

power of her punches as well as on the severity of injuries

sustained. There are two particularly visceral moments:

1) we hear the sounds of bones crunching and grinding when

Maggie’s coach Frank (Clint Eastwood) forcefully pushes her

bloodied and broken nose back into place (upon Maggie’s

23

stubborn request, as she wants to continue fighting), and 2)

we also hear her spine cracking in a slow-motion sequence that

sees her fall onto the wooden frame of a stool when she is

unexpectedly hit in between rounds by her devious opponent.

This second incident is a key moment in the narrative, as it

results in Maggie being paralysed from the neck down, unable

to move and perform even the most basic bodily functions

without the help of others. It is as if the film hits the end

of the ‘generic road’ at this point in the narrative, not

knowing what to ‘do’ with its female boxing protagonist.

In the case of Million Dollar Baby, the solution to the

‘problem’ of female masculinity is to deny the character all

bodily agency and to turn the film into a melodrama about

precisely this lack of agency and the unjustness of Maggie’s

‘fate’. After a series of unsuccessful attempts, Maggie

eventually manages to assert a final act of agency and commits

suicide. While Million Dollar Baby has the potential to provide a

serious challenge to established notions of gender and sexual

difference, the film does not follow through and instead kills

off the boundary-crossing female protagonist (similar, in a

24

way, to the established cinematic treatment of the femme

fatal).

Conclusion

This brief overview of ten female sports films suggests

that within the context of cinematic representation, female

athleticism, particularly when ‘believably’ rooted in the

physicality of bodies depicted, has the potential to challenge

our understanding of gender and sexual binaries. Most of the

films mentioned here provide a degree of visibility for

muscular and athletic female bodies that are imbued with a

sense of bodily and narrative agency. This agency tends to be

variously undermined, however, by re-positioning the

transgressive female characters in relation to heteronormative

generic, narrative and visual contexts. The majority of

athletic heroines can be found in comedic and/or romantic

genres where sport provides a mere backdrop for the

development of heterosexual romance.

The complete absence of filmic biographies (biopics)

about female athletes (particularly considering the abundance

25

of biopics about male athletes) is also worth noting.

Nonetheless, Girlfight in particular, but also films such as

Million Dollar Baby, Stick it and Love and Basketball place powerful and

visibly athletic characters at the centre of their narratives.

While the characters’ bodily agency is various undermined,

their troubling potential is never fully contained. These

films and their commercial and critical success therefore

ensure that certain narrative fragments and images of

ambiguously gendered and powerful girls and women enter the

popular imagination.

If, as Altman (1999) argues, the function of cinematic

genres is to provide symbolic and often utopian solutions for

contemporary socio-cultural problems, the relatively recent

proliferation of female sports films and the often troubling

entrance of female protagonists into traditionally male-

centred genres, point to the wider, and potentially

subversive, socio-cultural significance of female athleticism.

The fact that reassuring ‘solutions’ to the ‘problem’ of

female athleticism are provided, but often not convincingly

so, also points to the significance of sport as a context that

constitutes an important battleground where our commonsense

26

understandings of sex, gender and sexuality continue to be

challenged.

27

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Tasker Y (1993) Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema.

London: Routledge.

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Woodward K (2007) Boxing, Masculinity and Identity: The ‘I’ of the Tiger.

London: Routledge.

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Filmography

Bend it Like Beckham. 2003. Gurinder Chadha. UK.

Blue Crush. 2002. John Stockwell. USA.

Bring it On. 2000. Peyton Reed. USA.

Girlfight. 2000. Karyn Kusama. USA.

Ice Princess. 2005. Tim Fywell. USA.

Love and Basketball. 2000.Gina Prince-Bythewood. USA.

Million Dollar Baby. 2004 Clint Eastwood. USA.

Raging Bull. 1980. Martin Scorsese. USA.

Stick it. 2006. Jessica Bendinger. USA.

The Cutting Edge. 1992. Paul Michael Glaser. USA.

Wimbledon. 2004. Richard Loncraine. UK.

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