Lean and mean, Iron Maven passes rainbow-clad Smashley Simpson on the track. Dressed in a skimpy plaid skirt, the Holy Roller girl weaves in and out of the green-sash wearing Hurl Scouts and, with a violent hip thrust, Scouts’ Rosa Sparks knocks one of the Rollers to the ground with a bone-jangling crack.
While at a recent press screening for Whip It, Shannon Brock, aka Papier Schnitt, cheered as a roller girl elbowed another on the track. Each whack brought out a yelp of approval, sounding much like the crowd that would watch her team battle it out in a real roller derby in the coming weekend.
I attended the screening with four Gotham Girl roller derby players to gauge their reaction to Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut, which couches a coming-of-age tale within the energy of their rowdy, raucous sport. Based on Shauna Cross’ original novel of the same name, Whip It has all the elements of a teen drama—small town girl dreams of something bigger, finds inspiration, falls in love, gets crushed and plenty of life lessons are learned—but with more bruises and roller skates.
While the structure of the story proves easy to dissect, what remains a mystery and keeps the film fresh is roller derby’s vigor. It’s the sport’s physicality that attracts the film’s heroine, 17-year-old Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page), to the game in the first place. After seeing her first bout, Bliss becomes enamored with the game and introduces herself to Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig), the mom figure of the derby group.
To transform from a shy, suburban girl into Babe Ruthless, Bliss’ derby alter ego, she teams up with the coach Razor (Andrew Wilson) and starts practicing on the Hurl Scouts team. Bliss skates around the block, she skates at work, she falls on her ass, she falls on her knees but, most importantly, she gets back up.
“They showed her realistically,” says Margot Atwell, aka Em Dash who plays on the Manhattan Mayhem team. “You really have to work hard to be a derby girl.”
While the action you see on screen gives a basis of the game, you aren’t actually allowed to punch a player, let alone climb on top of them and pummel them in the rink as Barrymore’s stoner character Smashley likes to do. Most of the rinks today are flat-tracks, not the curved banked-track featured in the film. As far as fancy footwork and tricks go, the whip is used frequently to push a player ahead. But the extended leg whip? “It was only used the same day it was created, that I know of,” says Natily Blair, aka. Ginger Snap, who plays for the Bronx Gridlock.
Originally created in the 1930s and later popularized in the ’60s and ’70s, roller derby made a comeback in 2001 in Austin,Texas—where the film is set—and has quickly spread across the country to 78 flat-track teams in the United States. But even though roller derby has become more popular in the last decade, Whip It is the first time the sport has got its due on the big screen.
Juliette Lewis plays bad girl Iron Maven, but the Gotham Girls who accompanied me to Whip It assured me a character like her doesn’t exist in their league.
“We are competitive,” said Brock. “But we work with each other.” Even if Maven’s extreme bitchiness is a stretch, Lewis rocks out in the character, and her lithe body appears made for skating.
“I liked how much derby was on the screen,” said Atwell. But they all agreed that there is one vital part that was certainly missing from this sweaty sport’s onscreen portrayal: How bad they all smelled after a bout.
> Whip It
Directed by Drew Barrymore Runime: 111 min
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