10.16.2008

The Death of Roller Derby.

This is my manifesto.
5 years ago, I saw a flier seeking girls interested in wearing skates and hitting other girls. I went to the first meeting of what became one of the influential leagues in first wave of the roller derby resurgence. I began skating with that league at a time when there were few rules, lots of creativity, and fighting and cheating were encouraged. Roller derby was "marketed" as scrappy girls in wacky/sexy uniforms knocking each other around. The only purpose rules and refs served was to provide a moderate framework for the safety of the players and to keep things from getting too out of hand.

This past weekend I helped out at an 18 league tournament. (That's more leagues in one place than were in existence when I started.) It was an awesome event with plenty of exciting roller derby action that allowed me to see how far the sport has come, or fallen, depending on your point of view. In my point of view, I think roller derby is falling into some sphere that I will have a really hard time enjoying and participating in should it continue to move in that direction.

Where I come from, people go to see roller derby because of the scrappy girls. They don't care how sexy these girls are, they don't care about the officiants, the announcers or , in most cases, the score. What they want to see is girls on skates knocking each other down with a minimal number of interruptions for penalties and injuries. They want to have a tough game where people do anything possible to get their jammer through the pack. They do not pay money to watch a bunch of people skate fast in a circle.

My biggest problem with where the sport is going is the Refs. People who chose to referee sports should have a genuine interest in the sport, officiating the rules and maintaining the safety of the game. These people should not have an interest in specific players, should not have an interest in showing off how cool or tough they are, shouldn't be hanging out with the teams on a social basis and should not be blowing their whistle for any reason beyond unsafe play. No one goes to a sport to see the fucking officials, period. Do not be an official if you need to have people pay attention to you, or you need to control people but couldn't make it in the police academy. Unfortunately, this is just the type of person who seems to be most drawn to referee roller derby. I believe refs have worked to increase the complexity and number of rules to the point where they've had to increase their numbers beyond all reason (name me one single sport where there are less than 2 players per ref). It is impossible to enforce the massive number of unnecessary rules fairly without having a ridicilous number of refs. What I saw at the tourney was a bunch of guys in black and white shirts show boating their skating skills, throwing snit fits because the score board was "confusing" (to them only) or the tape was wrong and hanging out with the players on a social basis. Does this happen in ANY OTHER SPORT? No. No it does not. Having a massive number of rules, where most of them have nothing to do with player safety, and fratrinizing, show boating refs just diminishes the toughness of the game, and makes it LESS professional and more boring.

And there's my second biggest complaint about where roller derby is going ... Professionalism. I understand that the people who play this sport want to be taken seriously. They are taking serious hits, having serious falls and really putting themselves on the line health-wise. The hits, falls and injuries are REAL. In my experience all I, and most other skaters, wanted people to know was no results were predetermined and all the hitting and falling was actually painful. However, during the tourney I overheard many comments about the professionalisim; some girls weren't dressed enough, some names were too dirty and how "awesome" it would be for this sport to be part of the Olympics. NO!! NO NO NO NO NO!!!! It's Roller Derby, not beach volley ball or WNBA. A big part of roller derby is your roller derby persona, which includes your name and the individual flair you give your uniform. What draws many women to roller derby, as opposed to other sports, is it's allowance for individuality and creativity (and the fact that it's full contact). You do get to pick your own name, you do get to alter your own uniform. If you are comfortable skating in your underware, then you get to skate in your underware. If you want to call yourself "Anita Flippabitch" then you get to do that. If the audience has a problem with that, they can get fucked, because they aren't skating. If a parent has a problem explaining the skater names or uniforms to their child, then they can go to fucking Chuck E. Cheeze so they won't have to have that conversation. To make it more professional, family friendly or uniform (in the uniform department) is to kill everything that makes it awesome, and draws people who would not otherwise pay to see a sport.

I just have a few questions.
What is so wrong with Roller Derby spending it's entire life as a relatively small, underground, amature, community-based event?
What is so wrong with the roller derby league in your community serving as something that helps keep the local roller rink open for another few years?
What is so wrong with people volunteering their time to help put on bouts, as opposed to paying to contract out so it's "professional" and "standardized"?
What is so right with diluting the basic essence of a very unique sport to keep it "family friendly" to get "major corporate sponsors"? Or simply so a small number of people can make massive amounts of money off the all the hard work we've put in on our own with no help from them to begin with?
What don't you like about spending a relatively small amount of money (compared to "professional" sports events) to hang out with your friends, see some awesome girls skate and knock eachother around and more likely than not, go hang out with them at the after party?


***I'll add here, I don't skate any more, but continue to participate as a mascot and support person. It has nothing to do with the issues in my manifesto above, but everything to do with the fact that I enjoy being able to do things like bend my knees and move without pain. Yes, I am a wuss.

1 comment:

Nursedude said...

Feh, have you considered getting involved with a woman's rugby club in your area? OK, it's not roller derby, but it's physical as hell, most clubs are always looking for new players, and there are not a whole lot of other sports where you pound the hell out of your opponent, then you go out and party with them after the game. It is pretty much an amateur game, so you don't have to worry about professionalism and the sport selling it's soul for advertising the sex appeal of a good looking athlete. Just a thought.