Remember the movie A League of Their Own starring Geena Davis, Rosie O’Donnell, Tom Hanks, and Madonna? There is now a new streaming series of the same name, which delves into the lives of these remarkable women in a time when it was impossible to make a name for yourself in a male-dominated sport.
It is the 1940s, and America has joined WWII. Men are being drafted all over the country to fight, and the country is facing a shortage of workers and professional sports players. Then a candy bar manufacturer came up with the idea of creating a woman’s baseball team, with the idea that it would sell more candy. This is how we are introduced to the group of women who are playing for the Rockford Peaches.
Carson Shaw (Abbi Jacobson) has left her husband. The latter is away fighting, and Carson wants to try out for the first-ever woman’s professional baseball team. She meets Greta Gill (D’Arcy Carden) and Jo De Luca (Melanie Field), heading to the tryouts.
Even when there is a shortage of players across the country, segregation and racism still exist as we see Max Chapman (Chante Adams) is not allowed to try out for the team due to her skin color. Yet, she is one of the best pitchers, as she is called time and again by many of the other players.
This series addresses many issues that were not present in the movie, racism, ongoing sexism, and how society perpetuates the idea that “it is a woman’s job to be seen and not heard,” even in baseball. This drama series makes you face all these issues head-on, and they have done a remarkable job. Plus, they also do a great job of representing sexuality and queerness and reminding the viewer how it was deemed a mental illness in the 1940s, but it still existed behind closed doors.
Will Graham and Abbi Jacobson created it. A League of Their Own is a comedy-drama series that is very relevant and does make you realize how hard these women had it. Every day they had so many hurdles to overcome to be able to play baseball.
This was a time when women didn’t have a voice and couldn’t get a job, but the circumstance changed due to the war. But the reality is that racism was prevalent, and women of color had an even more difficult time and had to be subservient. Women of the 1940s had tough jobs. Yet, they managed to overcome and succeed in a sport that, up until that time, had been a male-dominated arena.
A League of Their Own is a charming surprise. Quite often, with remakes, you cringe as they lose the spark of the original. Still, with this, they do a much deeper dive into the characters but also present how difficult life was for women in the 1940s, which in reality wasn’t that long ago!
A League of Their Own is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime.
