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elfinblazeI'm all for raisin' hell, but sometimes you gotta know when to make peace.
- Malice
After watching the movie a few weeks ago, yesterday I read Shauna Cross' teen fiction novel Derby Girl (or Whip It).
It's about, Bliss, a sixteen-year-old girl growing up in a small town in Texas, and bored out of her skull by the beauty pageants her mother forces her to compete in, and the bland and limited life around her.
So she joins the Roller Derby League in Austin, in which teams of women on roller skates engage in a rough contact sport, with and against each other, and have a hell of a fun time doing so. Adopting the Derby name Babe Ruthless, she finds friends, learns to stand up for herself, and finds a place she belongs, for the first time in her life. With bumps and scrapes along the way, of course, as these things go.
Even though the teenage language grated on my nerves at first, I got used to it, and it adds to Bliss' voice through the book. It's also very funny, slightly ridiculous but charmingly so, and the female friendships are heartwarming and real.
It's great to read a book about girls doing what they love and learning to be unafraid. I wish I'd had something this contemporary and awesome to read when I was younger. I would have been all over it. I still am, fifteen years too late, but oh well.
~~~
Before halftime, Crystal hurts her knee and has to sit out a few jams. During a time-out, Malice calls me to block. I give her a you-must-be-crazy look. It's well established that blocking's not my strong suit.
Malice pulls me aside and says, "You know what I do when I have to block? I think of my ex-boyfriend, Dax, and what an asshole he was - a word of advice, Ruthless, never date a boy in a band, or a Leo - they're totally toxic. Anyway, when I block, I picture kicking Dax's ass with his precious guitar. It totally helps. Think of things that piss you off, and you'll throw some great blocks."
So, I'm up there blocking, and Robin Graves is jamming, poised to pass me and score. Normally, I'd let Robin go, but not this time. This time I follow Malice's advice. I think of Brook, and Corbi, and all the cranky customers who never tip - all of it - and just as Robin goes low to pass, I throw my hip and shoulder and - bingo - I make contact. Robin slams to the track as I skate away.
By the final heat, I'm so goin' with the flow, I feel invincible and, dare I say, ruthless. This time I'm blocking, not jamming. I can do whatever stunt I want. And somehow, with the crowd egging us on to a big finish, I go for the granddaddy stunt of them all: taking the rail.
Only three girls in the league can really pull this off, but somehow I decide I'm going to be the fourth. So, I take a hit from Juana Beat'n of the Sirens and head to the top of the track full speed. When I hit the edge I reach for the rail and cartwheel myself right over.
The drop is about eight feet onto cold, hard concrete.
The crowd gasps... I see nothing but a blur of lights as I fly through the air...
And then - SLAP! - my skates hit the floor. The crowd roars, and I realize I'm still standing. I did it! I took the fucking rail!
And just like that, I'm a Derby Girl legend, in my own mind anyway. The minute I step off the track I can feel my social life taking a sharp turn for the better. I am swarmed by fans.
Pash runs over, swatting them all away, screaming, "Oh my God, Bliss! You're a freakin' rock star!"
~~~
Some of the names are different in the movie. In the book there's no Smashley Simpson or Iron Maven, but Eva Destruction is there and others like Chrystal Deth, Emma Geddon, Kid Vicious, and Dinah Might (the book's sort-of version of Iron Maven, except that Maven would kick Dinah's arse if the characters ever actually met).
Some things are better in the book; the emotions are obviously more immediate since books can get right into the head of a character the way films usually don't, so the pain hurts more, and the exhilaration is even greater, the lows lower and the highs higher, whatever Bliss goes through. Conversely, the movie lets you see things other people are doing outside of Bliss' own head, as you can do with a less immediate viewpoint. I also loved that Iron Maven was an older woman in the movie, the implication being that you're never too old to make it to the top... even if you did encounter this book/movie fifteen years too late.
The book is more cohesive, every storyline comes to a conclusion, but it's also more clichéed. In the movies the team (the Hurl Scouts) don't win the grand final like in so many sports movies, but in the end that's not really the point. The point of the entire Roller Derby experience is to have fun, make friends, and "be your own hero", as the movie's by line states.
Other things are just plain different: Malice in Wonderland, the college student who becomes like an older sister to Bliss, in the movies becomes Maggie Mayhem, a single mother (which is awesome in its own right), but she's still the protective lioness.
So there are good things to both versions and I like them both.
A word of advice: Don't fuck with a girl on skates.
- Malice
- Malice
After watching the movie a few weeks ago, yesterday I read Shauna Cross' teen fiction novel Derby Girl (or Whip It).
It's about, Bliss, a sixteen-year-old girl growing up in a small town in Texas, and bored out of her skull by the beauty pageants her mother forces her to compete in, and the bland and limited life around her.
So she joins the Roller Derby League in Austin, in which teams of women on roller skates engage in a rough contact sport, with and against each other, and have a hell of a fun time doing so. Adopting the Derby name Babe Ruthless, she finds friends, learns to stand up for herself, and finds a place she belongs, for the first time in her life. With bumps and scrapes along the way, of course, as these things go.
Even though the teenage language grated on my nerves at first, I got used to it, and it adds to Bliss' voice through the book. It's also very funny, slightly ridiculous but charmingly so, and the female friendships are heartwarming and real.
It's great to read a book about girls doing what they love and learning to be unafraid. I wish I'd had something this contemporary and awesome to read when I was younger. I would have been all over it. I still am, fifteen years too late, but oh well.
~~~
Before halftime, Crystal hurts her knee and has to sit out a few jams. During a time-out, Malice calls me to block. I give her a you-must-be-crazy look. It's well established that blocking's not my strong suit.
Malice pulls me aside and says, "You know what I do when I have to block? I think of my ex-boyfriend, Dax, and what an asshole he was - a word of advice, Ruthless, never date a boy in a band, or a Leo - they're totally toxic. Anyway, when I block, I picture kicking Dax's ass with his precious guitar. It totally helps. Think of things that piss you off, and you'll throw some great blocks."
So, I'm up there blocking, and Robin Graves is jamming, poised to pass me and score. Normally, I'd let Robin go, but not this time. This time I follow Malice's advice. I think of Brook, and Corbi, and all the cranky customers who never tip - all of it - and just as Robin goes low to pass, I throw my hip and shoulder and - bingo - I make contact. Robin slams to the track as I skate away.
By the final heat, I'm so goin' with the flow, I feel invincible and, dare I say, ruthless. This time I'm blocking, not jamming. I can do whatever stunt I want. And somehow, with the crowd egging us on to a big finish, I go for the granddaddy stunt of them all: taking the rail.
Only three girls in the league can really pull this off, but somehow I decide I'm going to be the fourth. So, I take a hit from Juana Beat'n of the Sirens and head to the top of the track full speed. When I hit the edge I reach for the rail and cartwheel myself right over.
The drop is about eight feet onto cold, hard concrete.
The crowd gasps... I see nothing but a blur of lights as I fly through the air...
And then - SLAP! - my skates hit the floor. The crowd roars, and I realize I'm still standing. I did it! I took the fucking rail!
And just like that, I'm a Derby Girl legend, in my own mind anyway. The minute I step off the track I can feel my social life taking a sharp turn for the better. I am swarmed by fans.
Pash runs over, swatting them all away, screaming, "Oh my God, Bliss! You're a freakin' rock star!"
~~~
Some of the names are different in the movie. In the book there's no Smashley Simpson or Iron Maven, but Eva Destruction is there and others like Chrystal Deth, Emma Geddon, Kid Vicious, and Dinah Might (the book's sort-of version of Iron Maven, except that Maven would kick Dinah's arse if the characters ever actually met).
Some things are better in the book; the emotions are obviously more immediate since books can get right into the head of a character the way films usually don't, so the pain hurts more, and the exhilaration is even greater, the lows lower and the highs higher, whatever Bliss goes through. Conversely, the movie lets you see things other people are doing outside of Bliss' own head, as you can do with a less immediate viewpoint. I also loved that Iron Maven was an older woman in the movie, the implication being that you're never too old to make it to the top... even if you did encounter this book/movie fifteen years too late.
The book is more cohesive, every storyline comes to a conclusion, but it's also more clichéed. In the movies the team (the Hurl Scouts) don't win the grand final like in so many sports movies, but in the end that's not really the point. The point of the entire Roller Derby experience is to have fun, make friends, and "be your own hero", as the movie's by line states.
Other things are just plain different: Malice in Wonderland, the college student who becomes like an older sister to Bliss, in the movies becomes Maggie Mayhem, a single mother (which is awesome in its own right), but she's still the protective lioness.
So there are good things to both versions and I like them both.
A word of advice: Don't fuck with a girl on skates.
- Malice
