Copyright TORD |
I'd like to blog today about one
particular piece of visual derby culture, the league logo. A league's
logo is often their first point of contact with the public. It goes
on their t-shirts, it features on their website, it is in a very
literal way, the league's face. More generally, the logo stands in
for the league's players, telling potential supporters, skaters and
opponents what to expect from that community of players.
Copyright Montreal Roller Derby |
How do league logos represent the women
and men who play the sport? Common themes include circular logos,
skaters (often in pin-up poses), helmets, fists, wings skates and
skulls, sometimes skulls with eyelashes (as can be seen here and
here). Logos tend to incorporate themes of speed, violence and
femininity, often coloured by the 'personality' of the city in which
the team plays (i.e. the London Rollergirls). Our logos often speak
in what is assumed to be the visual short-hand of derby: girls in
skates, gorgeous gams, and potential gore. Because of this, logos
that eschew a) a circular shape, b) a human figure and c) violent
iconography often don't look like we tend to assume a league logo
should. This is why, for example, Northwest Arkansas Roller Derby
stands out from most league logos.
Copyright Northwest Arkansas Roller Derby |
Copyright Barcelona Roller Derby |
Actually, I'd like to do a few
shout-outs to leagues that, for whatever reason, choose to represent
themselves without using human figures. These leagues stand out. In
Canada, two of my favourite examples are the Forest City Derby Girls,
who represent themselves with a flaming tree and the 709 Derby Girls,
who have a damn straightforward logo. South of the border, the
Silicon Valley Roller Girls' use of eye-catching text make them look
iconic. Further afield from my laptop in London, Ontario, Canada, I
find the Barcelona logo scary, which is kind of hot. Logos without
human figures on them rather neatly sidestep the issue of how best to
represent players (who have many different types of bodies) with one,
static body.
Because one of the most common and
fraught images on roller derby league logos really is that of a
woman. Before I did my initial research for this post, I was
hard-pressed to think of leagues that had logos featuring women who
did not possess stereotypical 'pin-up' dimensions, featuring large
breasts and hips and very small waists. For a sport that depends on women
of all sizes, derby often tends to represent itself using only one
body type. But I was very pleasantly surprised to be reminded that
some leagues choose to represent themselves with logos featuring
women of a more 'weighty'* size. One of my current favourite logos is that of the Rage
City Rollergirls, basically because she looks a lot more like me that
most derby logo girls do (I also have short hair and piercings,
neither of which often crop up in derby logos, but that's beside the
point).
Copyright Rage City Rollergirls |
Of course, it needs to be recognized
that derby logos are heavily influenced by Sailor Jerry-styled tattoo
art and pin-ups more generally. Take a look at the WFTDA League page
and you'll see a lot of anchors, wings, skulls, brass knuckles and
girls drawn to look sexy by the conventions of SJ's heyday (that's
not to say they aren't sexy now, but that the boundaries of sexy are
much less narrow than this). This visual aesthetic is pretty solidly
part of derby culture. That's not to say it can't be both appreciated and questioned.
One of the most telling differences
between roller derby and, well, most other popular sports, most of
which are played by men, can be read in a logo. How often do see male
bodies in sports team logos? That's not to say that men's bodies are
never depicted in these logos (see the MLB logo and the NBA logo),
but it occurs less pervasively than the image of the female body does
in derby, and is almost never sexualized to the same degree. (Sexy
Toronto Bluejays, anyone? The fanart must exist.)
Is this a problem? I'm asking this
question genuinely. I have friends who avoid derby specifically
because of the sport's perceived sexism and friends who love derby because it is a real sport involving strong, sexy women
and no mud-wrestling. I know players, myself included, for whom being
on the track does make them feel sexy, for whom wearing fishnets and
booty shorts is a reclaiming of their bodies in the face of a culture
who would like them to wear these outfits only if they match a certain body type. How do we balance keeping roller derby empowering without
resorting to slut-shaming a whole sport?
Personally, I'm not put off by a
league's 'sexy' logo. I just wish derby had a broader definition of
what sexy means.
* A note on size: derby players and
people more generally come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from the
very slim to the very weighty. The purpose of this discussion is not
to put slim players or those with 'hourglass' figures under erasure.
I think derby logos should feature all different types of bodies!
I really dislike GTAR's (Greater Toronto Area Rollergirls) logo. What does a naked girl and a guitar have to do with roller derby?? http://midnightmatineephotography.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/gtar-logo1.jpg
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete