I have seen a few Roller Derby Documentaries. An interesting aspect is how early the commonalities in starting, and being a part of a Roller Derby league become a clear pattern. This can be enlightening, and within a good perspective funny.
Roller Baby is about not one league, or one region, it is about the sport of Roller Derby itself. As the sport grows, and changes, there are large questions becoming clear, about skaters transferring right before regionals or championships, sponsorship, paid positions, and most heatedly, how much should Roller Derby conform to the nature of (american) sports?
Derby more than anything to me is its own subculture. I think my life has been a series of subcultures.
I was born in Haight-Ashbury. I lived off the Sunset Strip during the heavy metal 80s. I moved to Seattle in the early 90s (delayed by the L.A. Riots). I have seen many parts of my life represented in documentaries, books, tv programs. Roller Derby is no different.
There are the two sides, the subculture and the sport. Can you really keep subculture within a mainstream sport? One of the amazing aspects of Roller Derby is that almost every league started organically. Many times without the women actually having a complete picture of what Roller Derby is. Then each small group of women go out and find ways to get more information. From a neighboring league, from a convention like RollerCon, and spending their time and money created a league of their own.
There are organizations that can not be explained within normal parameters. A.A. is one, in the beginning Ebay was another.
I look at Roller Derby as a subculture that is just going to get bigger. Like Punk Rock, parts of it will go mainstreams, some new version (New Wave) will be created. There will always be some place in the world where a group tries to create their own version.
If the sport was to become accepted, as a sport in the realm of sport- well I can't picture that because I like many others came to Roller Derby with forty-years of dislike for sport.
Roller Derby has changed that. I can see the reasons and advantages of girls playing sports when they are any age.
Junior Derby all over the world, will certainly have the largest future impact on our sport. Derby Baby was a good starting point in the conversation. Even in Tasmania the many large questions about the future of our sport has come down to "I will never give up my fishnets!" which of course is not the actual argument. But a prime example of normal divisiveness within a subculture.
But yes, in the movie they show a team, in N.Carolina that was created, by a man with a plan. (As truly was flat track Derby but that is different documentary). The women skate under their own names, and I am sorry but they are definitely quaffed in a way that most leagues are not. (My photos are usually taken mid-practice on a day we are practicing in some very creatively found venue and I am dirty, smudged and tired as hell).
Women in Roller Derby need to pick the fight they want- what they feel is the most important aspect to concentrate on.
I believe that if anything can be learned from past movements, and other subcultures is that Roller Derby leagues need to start looking at the larger picture and decide what they want. I believe Roller Derby does not have to conform. I believe in the revolution of change.
But of course if I have learned anything from Derby it is that my opinion is not the only opinion. Also my ideas might be as good as the next, or not the best. As with any friendship, there is give and take, and compromise.
Also my personal experience continues to be as it was last night. I drove with three other people, all of us volunteering our time, and contributing our money to a new, small start up league. Västrås.
They had their first public scrimmage, a showing of the movie and an after party. Just a sweet group, in their corner of the world, creating yet another revolution.
Or, in the oft-quoted words of L.A. music journalist Kickboy Face: "I have excellent news for the world. There is no such thing as new wave. It does not exist. It's a figment of a lame cunt's imagination. There was never any such thing as new wave. It was the polite thing to say when you were trying to explain you were not into the boring old rock 'n' roll but you didn't dare to say punk because you were afraid to get kicked out of the fucking party and they wouldn't give you coke anymore. There's new music, there's new underground sound, there's noise, there's punk, there's power pop, there's ska, there's rockabilly. But new wave doesn't mean shit."
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