Essay on Baseball and Coach Carter

Ernest Rodriguez Rivera
English-070-05
Prof. Buriz
22, September 2014

My Three Inspiring Movies Americans loves movies. We watch them on the big screen, on our home theaters systems, on our laptop computers and even on our smart phones. Most movies, however, are quickly forgotten. The movies that do make an impression are those that inspire, encourage and motivate us to go beyond ourselves. these movies touch us, emotionally and intellectually. The three movies I found inspiring are A League of our own, Ray, and Coach Carter.

A League of Their Own is based on the real lives of professional women baseball players during World War II. The movies main characters include Rosie O’Donnell, Madonna, and Tom Hanks. The movie begins as the sports industry sees Americans longing for their favorite past time, baseball, during WWII. Since the men are at war sport executives decided to recruit women to play baseball professionally to help aid in the depression of Americans and the lost revenues of the baseball empire. Women however are recruited not only on their athletic ability but their physical appearance. The movie takes you the journey of two sisters who join the Rockford Peaches baseball team. It shows the journey of these women athletes and the struggles they face having husbands at war, sibling rivalry, and overcoming the stereotypes that women face in professional sports.This film addresses gender in a contradictory manner. They portray these women as athletes with the abilities of men. However, the emphasis placed on physical beauty (for example the recruiter almost turning down an extremely talented player due to his opinion of her lack of beauty) and the ‘skimpy’ uniforms make the gender divide between women and men in baseball apparent.Women are also represented in a contradictory manner in this film. They are tough and they endure bruises and emotional pain that the game and the war put on them. They are tough, like men are portrayed to be in our patriarchal society. The emphasis placed on physical beauty though almost makes the women seem objectified in a sense. The character Madonna plays makes this most obvious. Another notable female representation that I find a little disturbing is when Tom Hanks who plays the role of the coach for the Rockford Peaches makes a memorable quote, “There’s not crying in baseball” when one of the women shows a vulnerability. The use I believe is to characterize women being less strong than men. I have seen men baseball players cry though during a loss, victory, and retirement speech. Unfortunately though, in sports, male domination is still very common. Overall, I feel that this movie was empowering for women for the most part. I used to love watching this movie when I was growing up and participating in softball. It gave me a sense of belonging in a realm that is predominantly male dominated. I own the movie and it has been a favorite of mine and many of my female friends. I think it shows women that they are as capable as any male even in the most male dominated of professions.

The Reason why i've chosen the movie Ray is because not only was he a brilliant performer at his trademark piano, he was a savvy businessman who took control of his career and a musical pioneer who forged a path for others to follow. He was also a man in search of his own redemption. The same childhood tragedy that inspired Ray Charles to create so feverishly also haunted his every move until he was able to finally face his past. Ray Charles was a man of uniquely American contradiction; a dichotomous of big-city savvy and back-country simplicity, of sincerity and guile, of shouts’ and whispers. He never liked labels or barriers of any kind, so his songs transcended genres, tapping into the whole wide rang of american music and blurring the separation between jazz, R&B, country and gospel to create something original, exuberant and moving. It was said that he could just as easily make you dance as break

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