Women, Sport, and Film Course

Sponsored by the Department of Athletics and Physical Education at Bryn Mawr College, with support from the Center for Science In Society at Bryn Mawr College and the Serendip website.

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FORUM ARCHIVE

Students and faculty in the course share stories, thoughts, and reactions to the films and discussions in an online forum. Here is a directory to the archives of the weekly discussion. Postings were made weekly, in reponse to a weekly question, by each of four forum groups. To see the full set of comments from any forum in any week, click on that forum heading.

WEEK 1

1. Please introduce yourself to your 'team'.
2. Respond/react to: Societies view of women and sport has changed significantly in the last 80 years. How do these changes impact women today and is the culture of sport still changing?

Discussion: Forum King Forum Gibson Forum Navratilova Forum Evert

WEEK 2

How does sport reflect the tensions between tradition and modernity, or the masculine and the feminine. Which character do you most identify with? Why?

Discussion: Forum King Forum Gibson Forum Navratilova Forum Evert

WEEK 3

Racial tension and social equality are complex issues which reside through out all aspects of society- as do the other 'isms' and "phobia's" --sexism, agism, classism, homophobia, etc.

Movies can provide a snapshot of those issues and in Remember the Titans, a true story has been used to portray sport as 'an even playing field' and a place where the common goal of pursuing victory and what it will take to achieve victory, eventually trumps the racial tensions.

What makes sport an easy vehicle to shed animosities and what other vehicles are there on College campuses to "bring people together" in dialogue and deed. What are the vehicles we can use on our campus to bridge cultural, racial, ethnic, orientation divides, when they exist?

Discussion: Forum King Forum Gibson Forum Navratilova Forum Evert

WEEK 4

Director Karyn Kusama's emphasis on Diana's environment (family, school, housing projects, etc.) can be seen as a critique of those social structures Kusama called "forms of oppression and violence." However, this emphasis on Diana's environment could also be seen as a way to explain or even apologize for such an aggressive young woman.

Do you think Kusama does a better job at challenging gender stereotypes or reinforcing them by "apologizing" for her aggressive protagonist?

Is Diana's aggression somehow made more "acceptable" because she is a poor Latina? Likewise, does Kusama make Diana more "acceptable" by emphasizing such a prominent (heterosexual) love story?

Discussion: Forum King Forum Gibson Forum Navratilova Forum Evert