Terrific story of women's baseball has great messages.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 10+?
Any Positive Content?
Drinking, Drugs & Smoking
some
Jimmy Dugan is frequently drunk; references to his being fired in the past for drunken behavior. Players smoke cigarettes. Shy Marla belts out a tune on stage when her teammates give her alcohol.
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Men admire the girls in their skimpy uniforms. "All the Way Mae" pursues dates and exploits her feminine charms. Some sexual references: "pickle tickle," comment about girls being better suited for sex than baseball, reference to "the clap." Shots of women in their underwear. A drunk coach urinates in front of the women (no nudity). Some sensual dancing.
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A player incurs a large bruise after sliding into a base. Teammates fight, but no one is injured. The war's effect on the home front leads to some tense moments.
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Women support women at a time before the value of female athletic talent was routinely recognized and appreciated. The league isn't integrated, and in one scene we see that there are women of color who would have been excellent ball players. Major themes include compassion and teamwork.
Positive Role Models
a lot
The individual players work hard to play well and root for each other to succeed. A married player stays away from nightlife because she's faithful to her husband, who is fighting abroad. The coach, who disdains coaching women, starts out drunk but gradually shapes up as he comes to admire, respect, and help the women on his team.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that A League of Their Own is a warmhearted tale of camaraderie based on the real-life 1940s All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Starring Geena Davis and Tom Hanks, it has strong messages of teamwork, compassion, and "girl power" and offers relatable female characters who throw fastballs right through the gender stereotypes of their day. Expect some innuendo and sex talk (Madonna's character is referred to as "All the Way Mae") and some swearing ("s--t," "penis with a hat on"), drinking (Hanks' character is often drunk), and smoking. Men admire the women in their skimpy uniforms. Sexual references include the phrase "pickle tickle," a comment about women being better suited for sex than baseball, and a reference to "the clap." There are shots of women in their (substantial) underwear, a drunk coach urinates in front of the women (no nudity), and there's some sensual dancing. There's also some wartime sadness/stress, but ultimately this is a great story for tweens and up. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
While this was a good movie, with a great cast and a heartwarming story, there was far more sexual innuendo and crude speech than other reviewers have mentioned. "I'm going home to give my wife a pickle tickle." "Women are for sleeping with after the game, not coaching during the game!" "What if when I run on the field my uniform comes open and my bosoms hang out?" "Do you think there are men in America who haven't seen your bosoms?" One woman teaches her teammate to read using a romance novel. She sounds out, "He grabbed her creamy, white breast," then the first character says, "It gets really good after this." The movie was full of this kind of dialogue, not to mention drunken kissing in a bar and a young boy asking a woman to take him in the back seat and make a man out of him.
Great movie, but I was very uncomfortable with my ten year old watching.
Opens the door to discussions about sexism, then and now
This movie was a lot of fun to watch, and gave us lots to talk about afterward.
As other reviews have mentioned, there are crude words and jokes throughout, and Tom Hanks is drunk for much of the movie. (His drunkenness not incidental--it's a central plot point.) I agree with the other reviews that, although some of this goes over kids' heads (nobody calls gonorrhea "the clap" anymore), parents do need to know that a lot in the movie will prompt questions and/or giggles. ("What did she say?" "Why are they laughing?")
The movie also has a lot going for it, including giving kids a window into the kind of sexism that existed in the 1940s. Our kids found it sometimes amusing and sometimes amazing what kinds of stereotypes existed about women back then. One of the best things about the movie is showing the kind of courage and thick skin it takes to move a society away from stereotypes.
There are also things in the movie that demonstrate the kind of sexism that was acceptable at the time the movie was made.... and which reinforce gender perspectives that some may now find outdated or even inappropriate. Here are two to consider:
The Madonna character ("all-the-way May") is written and portrayed with a commendable strength. She also fits and reinforces the stereotype of the "easy" girl who, off the field, is known by everyone as "the one who sleeps around." Some would argue that--in the movies and in real life--there is not an equivalent male stereotype, despite the fact that guys also "sleep around." If you agree with that argument, it may be an interesting discussion point for your family.
There is also a running joke in the movie about how others believe that one of the female players is so terribly and awfully ugly. To my wife and I, these jokes came across as not really a way of showing that, in the 1940s, beauty mattered more than skill. It was mostly a "gag" that the writers and costume designers used to make fun of the girl's appearance and get some cheap laughs. (A related joke is that Tom Hanks "accidentally" kisses the chaperone who--ha ha--is so ugly he screams when he realizes what he's done and complements her on her portrayal as the the witch in the Wizard of Oz.) Well, of course cheap laughs are part of what you get with a comedy movie :-) But these in particular may also provide an opportunity to talk about whether those jokes are really that funny, especially to the character in the movie who is treated sometimes as if she is wearing a scary Halloween mask.
(BTW the movie treats this same issue in a more nuanced and less mean-spirited way when it focuses on how the two sisters on the team have to deal with perceived differences in attractiveness and skill.)
I know this sounds like I wouldn't give the film four stars but, as I said at the top, we liked watching the movie and enjoyed talking about it even more with our two daughters. My comments are really just magnifying a few potential blemishes that others have not mentioned.
What's the Story?
Set in the 1940s, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN focuses on the exceptional circumstances surrounding the All-American Girls League. As in most baseball movies, the film follows the skills and friendships that develop among the Peaches, but in this case viewers also learn of the unique difficulties for a women's league in the midst of pre-feminist America. With guidance from their somewhat unstable and reluctant manager (Tom Hanks), Dottie (Geena Davis), Kit (Lori Petty), Doris (Rosie O'Donnell), Mae (Madonna), Marla (Megan Cavanagh), and the rest of the team face tough training sessions, mocking spectators, and other challenges as they try to win fans and beat opposing teams at a time when women were supposed to look pretty and bake cakes. And just when they achieve success on the playing field, the war ends, the male baseball players return home to the U.S., and the Peaches are abruptly abandoned by management and fans alike.
Everyone loves a good story about the teamwork and triumph at the heart of America's favorite pastime, and this film adds the twist of women struggling to prove themselves as athletes in the 1940s. There are many funny and poignant moments, and the Peaches are an interesting bunch from various backgrounds (including Rosie O'Donnell as an outspoken former bouncer and Madonna as a sultry taxi dancer). Tom Hanks is hilarious as manager Jimmy Dugan, and this is some of the richest character work he's done to date.
Tweens will probably enjoy A League of Their Own, though they may lose interest during the maudlin epilogue that's set 40 years later, when the AAGPBL is finally recognized by the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about women's role (or lack thereof) in most professional sports -- and their role in A League of Their Own. Do you think women could compete equally on men's teams? Why or why not?
To keep the game popular with fans, the players flaunted their femininity. Do you think this was all in good fun, a sign of the times, or somewhat demeaning?
Why are underdog movies so popular? Name some other movies that feature losing teams that learn to work together and succeed. What qualities allow underdogs to win?
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