As a hard-core Roller Derby fan, who also happens to like Drew Barrymore, I was delighted to know that she was directing her first movie and that it was going to be about the fastest sport on eight small wheels. It's frankly puzzling to me why modern Roller Derby is unknown to so many Americans, and doesn't get regular coverage in print or broadcast sports news. Maybe the movie would get more people into those venues ranging from 25,000-seat stadiums to small skating rinks, where hundreds of teams battle it out for local championships, and all-star teams from cities as diverse as Grand Rapids, MI and New York City compete for regional and national championships. I hope it does. But it will send some there with wrong impressions.
Admitted, it's a funny, exciting movie, with good acting, and in my opinion, it shows that Drew Barrymore has paid her dues and done her homework. It does capture some of the Roller Derby culture, and the kind of personal epiphany that becoming a "rollergirl" (some of them start in their 40s or 50s) represents. This guy tells that side of it very well http://news.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/localnews_story.asp?z=35&a=420294 so I won't go into detail here.
On the plus side, the movie shows that Roller Derby is a sport, with real strategies, not just a race, and that it has lot of enthusiastic followers, that in its modern rebirth it's played mostly by women, that you can get close and know the players as human beings, and that it's LOTS of fun.
Now, here's what I think needs to be added. Most Roller Derby now is skated on flat tracks, not banked tracks. The most serious action is in the Women's Flat Track Derby Association, WFTDA. Just try Googling it and see how many thousands of sites come up. Rollergirls are more likely to be professional or business women than servers in fast food restaurants. I've met Roller Derby skaters who were lawyers, artists, psychologists, and physicians, but I can assure you that they would treat a derbygirl who happens to work in a fast food joint like a sister.
It's a rough sport, and injuries can occur, including, unfortunately, very serious ones occasionally, but rollergirls aren't allowed to trip, punch, or wrestle each other on the track. A lot of what you see happening as a routine part of play in Whip It would be stopped immediately with the perpetrators being sent to the penalty box or even thrown out of the game. Also, I can't imagine a league taking in a 17-year-old without knowing her true age and getting written permission from her parents. Oh, yeah, the rollergirls I've known don't depend on a male coach to do their thinking for them.
So here's my recommendation: Go see Whip It, then go see Roller Derby. Take in a couple of matches and learn a little bit about the rules and strategies of the game. (After all, if you knew nothing about baseball or football, the first game you see would make no sense to you at all.) Try to meet some of the skaters. Then if you want to see some of the best Roller Derby in the world, get yourself to Chicago and watch the Windy City Rollers in action. (OK, maybe I'm a LITTLE biased.)