A League of Their Own on Amazon Prime

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carmenjonze
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Joined: Mon Oct 25, 2021 3:06 am

A League of Their Own on Amazon Prime

Post by carmenjonze »

Me and a couple friends binged this yesterday and I highly recommend it!

I never saw the movie, but I probably will, now.

It tells two parallel stories about women in professional baseball during the WW2 years, one of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, and the smattering of women who played in the Negro Leagues.

Very worth the watch!

How Amazon's A League of Their Own Differs From the Movie—But Stays True to History - Time
The motto of the AAGPBL was “play like a man, look like a lady,” and players were required to maintain a rigid beauty and personal hygiene routine to maintain their roster spots. Former players have said that the Helena Rubenstein-run charm school was the AAGPBL’s way of weeding out the women they feared would be perceived as lesbians. Josephine “JoJo” D’Angelo, who identified as gay, claimed she was kicked off her team for having a “butchy haircut.” A former player named Connie Wisniewski was reportedly told “she’d be kicked off her team if she chose to get a close-trimmed cut.”

No “boyish bobs” was just one of the AAGPBL’s rules that was designed to help women “dress, act, and carry themselves as befits the feminine sex,” according to the league’s official handbook. In the first episode of the series, after watching the tryouts, league owner and candymaker Morris Baker (a Wrigley surrogate played by Kevin Dunn) argues that they’ll “need a magician” to make these women appear more ladylike. “Look at their calves,” he gripes. “They’re enormous!” To which his right hand man Marshall (Nat Faxon) assures him he’ll find someone to “teach the women how to be women.”

In the real league, players were forced to wear lipstick on the field because “every woman wants to have an attractive and pleasing mouth.” They were also required “to preserve your nails in a presentable condition and in keeping with the practical needs of your hands in playing ball.” Players faced fines of up to $10 if they wore pants or shorts outside of their living quarters. Three strikes and they would be thrown out of the league. One player was even told to stop wearing girls’ Oxford shoes “because they were excessively masculine-looking,” according to Girls of Summer: In Their Own League.

Most notably, the women were forced to play in skirts no shorter than six inches above the kneecap because Wrigley, the league’s owner, thought it would be more pleasing to the eye. Despite it being far less safe for the players, who suffered horrible bruises nicknamed “strawberries” from sliding. “When I heard about the league’s uniform, I thought that was a joke. No way was I gonna play ball in a dress,” Joyce Hill Westerman, who played for the AAGPBL between 1944 and 1954, told the Chicago Tribune in 2014. “But then when I saw what kind of ball these ladies played, I was so in awe of them that I changed my mind.”
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Motor City
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Joined: Thu Oct 28, 2021 5:46 pm

Re: A League of Their Own on Amazon Prime

Post by Motor City »

I liked it it got me to thinking

The men were mass migrated to warzones and the women to factories, there was simultaneous easing and repressing of gender and sexualroles and identities, like the violent raids of the gay bars and the female industrial workers, baseball leagues. There as always is much emphasis on returning soldiers as heroes and families reuniting but war often breaks up families alienates estranges them from each other. Its interesting the conditions that put into place and how they shape things to come.
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