Released in 1992, A League of Their Own is a movie directed by Penny Marshall. Base on a real story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the movie tells a story about a memorable period of time and those extraordinary female baseball players.
During World War Ⅱ, because Major League Baseball shut down managers had to think of other ways to make money. So they decided to start a girls’ baseball league. As major players of the league, Dottie and Kit were sisters from the countryside played together as the Peaches. Dottie and Kit were both talented players. However, Dottie was the team star. And Kit seemed like would never get a chance. So she decided to play for another team to get a chance. They met at the final game, and Kit won the game.
This is a movie about great period of time. Director Penny Marshall was trying to replicate that period of time. When she chose actors and actresses, she intended to pick some actors and actresses that looked like those original players. The costumes that were used in the movie were exactly the same as they were in the 1940s. At the beginning, Dottie’s daughter said to her “you just don’t understand how special it was.” Dottie didn’t think baseball meant too much to her, but she also knew baseball meant everything to her little sister Kit and other members of the team. Moreover, the movie begins with Dottie preparing for her journey to the induction of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. And the movie ended at the Baseball Hall of Fame which is made to memorize those great players and moments.
Another theme of this movie in my opinion is family love. Older sister Dottie loved Kit. Her love was the biggest obstacle and helper to Kit’s success. Through the whole movie, Kit had been living under Dottie’s shadow. She couldn’t succeed as long as her sister was playing baseball. At the beginning of the movie, old Dottie told her older grandson to give his little brother a chance to shoot. This was a hint to the last game which Dottie lost to Kit by mistake. Since Dottie was the best player of the whole league, I believe she did that on purpose.
This is also a movie about feminism. When the AAGPBL was found, it was also the very beginning of the Second-wave Feminism. Under this situation, it’s understandable for girls to go out of kitchen and play a manly game. In the movie, girls play baseball just like boys. They change their image of housewife who used to support the husband to self-independent strong manly baseball players. In one scene, there is a woman holds a book saying girls shouldn’t play baseball, they should stay in kitchen. Also when the coach says he got no baseball players, he only got girls, this shows the anti-feminism attitude of the society. Director used parallel montage to portray this plot. Two stories descript two one argument which is girls can play baseball. And at the end of the plot, two stories reach one agreement that girls prove their capability of playing baseball. Another interesting thing of this movie is Madonna played a role, and Madonna is a typical feminist.
As I mentioned, this movie is about feminism. Feminism is a long process of women fight for their equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities. It started from 18th century and still undergoing at present. The new representative figure of feminism in late 20th century has to be Madonna. Madonna is well known by standing for women’s rights and fighting for freedom. From this perspective, the movie is honoring those women fought for their rights. And it did quite well.
