The Heart of the Game : Girls,Sports and the Limits of “Empowerment”

Sports Documentaries

In his important essay “Situating the Sports Documentary,” Ian McDonald points to the neoliberal ideologies undergirding contemporary sports documentaries. Although popular documentaries like Farenhneit 9/11 (2004) and The Corporation (2003), emerged within a post-9/11 world marked by a “radicalization of popular feeling” (p. 215), McDonald argues that the sports documentary subgenre has become more politically conservative. He states that although documentaries of the late 20th century like When We Were Kings (1996), Hoop Dreams (1994), and Pumping Iron II: The Women (1985) enabled viewers to see the political and social inequalities undergirding sport, the “dominant paradigm” of the 21st-century sports documentary is one “reflecting rather than disrupting and challenging the dominant ideology of sport and the spirit of capitalism” (p. 220, emphasis original).

Like sports films more generally, contemporary American documentaries often advance a capitalist ideology of competitive individualism in which the “American Dream” of hard work, determination, and success is linked to (White) heterosexual masculinity (Crosson, 2013, p. 104; Kusz, 2008). Commercially successful sports documentaries like Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001), Touching the Void (2003), and Murderball (2005), for example, all feature narratives about “the problem of masculinity in the modern world” (McDonald, 2007, p. 219). Kyle Kusz (2007) observes that Dogtown and Z-Boys authorizes a “rebellious” and “definitively white” model of masculinity advancing the film’s reactionary cultural politics (p. 108), whereas the portrayal of paraplegic athletes in Murderball glorifies a combative heterosexual masculinity that actually buttresses ableist premises (Cherney & Lindemann, 2010; Kusz, 2008). As Soumitra Ghosh (2013) asserts, the manner in which the film suggests that individual effort and willpower can overcome impairment reflects the “master discourse” of “hypercapitalism” (p. 43), and, as Ian McDonald says, “dovetails nicely with the logic of neoliberal individualism” (p. 221). According to McDonald, Murderball is in fact typical of the ways that new millennium sports documentaries feature narratives about individuals overcoming the odds. Presenting sport as the “route to success and the exemplar of character,” such films erase the realities of oppressive social structures and systemic barriers and promote the notion that “individuals and their attitudes” are the “key determinants of success or failure” (p. 221).

Yet, the ideologies of competitive individualism McDonald identifies in more recent films can be witnessed in earlier films as well, even those which at first seem to take a critical stance on systemic barriers in sport. Hoop Dreams, perhaps the most successful sport documentary of all time, is a chief example. Released in 1994, the film was a commercial and critical success and won the best documentary award at Sundance Film Festival. Telling the stories of William Gates and Arthur Agee, two Black inner city Chicago youths whose basketball talent leads them to dream of professional basketball careers, the film is frequently lauded for foregrounding the exploitation of African American athletes and the hardships of inner city life in the United States. McDonald (2007), for instance, praises the film for showing “the disjuncture between meritocratic ideologies of sport in a non-meritocratic society” (p. 218). Regardless of their hard work and dedication, neither Gates nor Agee achieves his dream of playing in the National Basketball Association (NBA), though they do win college scholarships. McDonald (2007) argues that the film reveals the existence of structural inequality as the boys are “forced to renegotiate their subordinate position within the racial hierarchy” (p. 218). Yet, although Hoop Dreams ends with Gates and Agee reassessing their college prospects, other critics charge that it promotes a familiar narrative of upward mobility that erases the larger social context of sport (Robbins, 1997). As Katherine Cipriano reports in her positive review of the film, “hoop dreams” is “really just the American dream—of opportunity” (p. 80); she praises how the film shows basketball as bringing about “positive changes” and as offering a route to success that Gates and Agee can either “squander away” or use “to gain success” (p. 80). Indeed, it is this familiar mythology and the film’s focus on individual, competitive success that critics like Murray Sperber (1996) protest, calling the film “an advertisement for the lottery” (p. 3). Cheryl L. Cole and Samantha King (1998) and bell hooks (2003) similarly highlight how the film masks the ways institutional racism and White supremacy limit opportunities for African Americans outside of basketball. They point to how the film’s discourses allow White audiences to take pleasure in the film by blaming exploitive individuals without considering their own role in supporting an oppressive culture. According to hooks, Hoop Dreams endorses an ideology of racial assimilation and making the “lives of poor and working class people” into “cheap entertainment,” for White audiences (p. 395).

As in Hoop Dreams, the myth of sporting meritocracy is exposed in Pumping Iron II: The Women (1985), even as power relations of gender and race are left undisturbed. The film asks the question of how femininity can or should be defined as it follows a group of female bodybuilders preparing for the 1983 Caeser’s World Cup body building competition. On one level, the film displays how “patriarchal relations of power” cannot simply be “erased by the determination and talent of the individual” (McDonald, 2007, p. 218) as body builder Bev Francis loses the competition because she is deemed too “manly” despite having the most muscular physique. Yet, despite its sympathetic portrayal of Francis and its apparent promotion of “strong women,” the film reinforces heterosexual femininity by consistently sexualizing and objectifying the women in the film, while relying on notions of racial difference to renaturalize the “difference” of gender (Holmlund, 1989). This process of heterosexualization is repeated within the larger sports documentary subgenre. According to Katherine Lavelle (2015b), for instance, the few female-centered films in ESPN’s 30 for 30 series stress women’s lack of self-control, indicate that they are incomplete without heterosexual fulfillment, and fortify masculine authority in sport. Films in ESPN’S Nine for IX series likewise undercut women’s individual accomplishments, placing them outside frameworks “ordering male sporting heroics” (Meân, 2015, p. 36) and presenting racial inequalities as nonexistent or easily overcome (Heinecken, 2018; Lavelle, 2015a).

My analysis reveals how The Heart of the Game continues these ideologically conservative patterns of representation. To examine the film, I used a discourse analytic approach, a common cultural studies method that understands the text to be a rhetorical construction. Rather than viewing the text as a direct reflection of reality, discourse analysis focuses on how a film’s content is assembled and organized with the goal of persuading audiences and legitimating a particular interpretation of the world as reality (Gill, 2007). In conducting my analysis, I examined the different choices made around editing, camera work, narrative structure, dialogue, and copy. After viewing the film multiple times, I considered the meanings generated by the interaction of these different elements (Machin & Mayr, 2012). Finally, I situated the film’s representation of characters and events in relation to wider cultural discourses and statistics around women in sport.

The Celebration of “Empowerment”

Directed by Ward Serrill, The Heart of the Game introduces audiences to novice coach William Resler, a tax professor at the University of Washington whose quirky personality and unique coaching methods transform the Roosevelt High School Roughriders into one of the top teams in the state. Over the course of seven seasons, the eccentric coach inspires his players with calls to be aggressive, to think of themselves as wolves, and to “Sink your teeth into their necks! Draw blood.” On the surface, the movie follows a familiar narrative, as a “tough-talking, softhearted coach” inspires his team to succeed (Dargis, 2006). Yet, the film’s real focus is the transformation of Darnellia Russell, a talented Black player who finds herself a fish-out-of-water after transferring to the wealthy, White school of Roosevelt. Through basketball and Resler’s support, Darnellia learns to believe in herself and aspires to attend college. The film ends triumphantly, with Darnellia leading her team to victory in the state championship.

In its marketing and content, The Heart of the Game responds to and reproduces broader social conversations around girls. Since the 1990s, cultural discourses in the United States have framed girls via two apparently competing rhetorics. The first presents girls to be “at risk,” from a patriarchal society, threatened by low self-esteem, body image concerns, drug and alcohol use, and depression, whereas the rhetoric of “Girl Power” celebrates “a ‘new girl’: assertive, dynamic, and unbound from the constraints of passive femininity” (Gonick, 2006, p. 2). Popular female athletes emerged as models of “assertiveness and strength to young women” (Whiteside et al., 2013, p. 417) at the same time sports were presented as a means to “empower” girls in a hostile culture. Feminist organizations like the Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF), for example, sought to increase girls’ sports participation by promoting the physical, social, and psychological benefits of sports for girls citing studies that show girls who play sports have lower rates of depression, pregnancy, drug or alcohol use, and higher rates of academic achievement and self-esteem (Women’s Sports Foundation, 2015a). Sports were also the cornerstone of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services initiative “Girl Power,” which, according to Donna Shalala, was designed to give girls “the confidence and resilience they need to stay away from the dangers like tobacco, drugs, and teen pregnancy and make the most of their lives [by building] vital skills and attitudes that will help girls throughout their adult lives” (HHS/Girl Power! Official website, quoted by Giardina & Metz, 2005, p. 70, emphasis original)

Similarly, the assumption that girls need to be liberated through sports is an underlying theme of The Heart of the Game and is highlighted in the press for the film. For example, in media interviews, Resler reveals that although he was initially uncertain about how to coach, he had already determined that “the most important thing that I was going do is train them to be empowered; to own their own turf . . . and keep complete control over it” (Gordon, 2006). The lyrics of the film’s theme song, “Believe It,” similarly proclaim girls’ ambition and desire for self-definition, saying “No one wants it more than us . . . how do we become who we want to be? Proud and beautiful. Focused on the prize. We were moving forward.” This thematic concern with girls’ personal and social advancement and the role of sports in strengthening girls’ self-confidence are encapsulated in the film’s closing credits. Resler is shown instructing a small girl in how to take the ball to the net and score. She appears hesitant, doubtfully saying, “I don’t think I can do it . . . it’s too far away from the hoop.” As Resler looks on, she makes the basket and proudly exclaims, “I did it!” Highlighting Resler’s inspirational presence, the film depicts sports as a means for girls to overcome self-doubt and realize their potential.

Prior to Resler’s entrance, the narrator reports that the Roughriders’ girls’ teams received little attention. Resler sets out to change this, diagnosing the problem as girls’ inhibitions against rough physical play. As Resler explains, “girls have a tendency to not to want to touch each other. And so you need to create an environment where they’re gonna touch each other and not be bothered about it.” He stuns the team with brutal workouts and demands to make physical contact. His unique training methods (such as having no offense and having his players look at pictures of wolves for inspiration) are quickly successful. Although one player confesses that she found Resler’s approach “kind of scary at the beginning,” others describe the pleasure they take in tapping into their own aggression. One player enthuses, “That’s the whole fun of it. It’s being able . . . to be physical and . . . like, knock someone down and smile after it.” Another gushes “war is fun, you know . . . seeing the girl you just destroyed—You see her on the sidelines crying . . . that’s what I live for . . . the hunt, the kill and it’s the fight!” Deborah L. Brake and Verna Williams (2008) comment on how Resler’s coaching methods “imbue the girls with a sense of their own power” (p. 203).

Indeed, the ways in which the girls enthusiastically heed Resler’s call to embrace their aggression by envisioning themselves as wolves, piranhas, and other deadly animals are praised by reviewers who see it as showing that “women can be strong, disciplined and aggressive in the right setting” (The Heart of the Game, n.d.). Resler is credited with “build[ing] girls” who are able to reject “constraining gender-based roles” (Brake & Williams, 2008, p. 203). By demonstrating the capacity of young women to adopt masculine traits of aggressiveness and competitiveness, the film explicitly undercuts gender-based stereotypes of girls as innately weak or passive and unsuited to athletic competition. This point is driven home by the inclusion of an historical overview of women in sports that draws attention to the ways in which social norms associated with gender change over time and are socially constructed. Resler introduces the team to 95-year-old Maude Lepley, who coached in the 1920s. Lepley laughingly reflects on the ways girls in the past were restricted in their play to protect them from “overexercise.” The narrator explains that, in previous centuries, concerns over female frailty led to constraining rules in which girls were not allowed to dribble more than three times, and had to stay in their own section of the court. Vintage film of girls playing in long skirts and stockings counterpoise images of Lepley cheering the Roughriders’ rough play, drawing an explicit comparison between constrictive gender ideologies oppressing girls in the past and contemporary understandings of gender, in which girls are able to embrace their toughness and physicality. Sport becomes a means by which the film demonstrates girls’ present-day freedom.

Like the Department of Health and Human Services “Girl Power! Initiative,” which praises the role of sports in providing girls the “vital skills and attitudes” they need to be successful as adults, the film presents sports as an important training ground for girls. Its depiction of how Resler gets his players to internalize the values of “competitive teamwork” and the importance of making and keeping commitments advances what Cheryl Cooky and Mary G. McDonald (2005) call “dominant corporate values” that promote success in the professional world (p. 165). Possessing these values is a form of cultural capital, as is access to higher education (Cooky & McDonald, 2005), which, the film stresses, is also enabled by sports participation. In one sequence, Darnellia’s mother April counts through the multiple college recruiting letters that Darnellia has received, whereas coach Joyce Walker reviews the different opportunities available to female athletes today, including college scholarships and the chance to play professionally. She stresses how sports open “avenues to girls,” and “put them on a stage that they could’ve never else been on.” The opportunities provided by sports are in fact realized by various Roughriders who go on to win college scholarships over the course of the film. They are similarly embodied by Walker herself, whose experiences as a stand-out college star led her to playing professionally with the Harlem Globetrotters before embarking on a coaching career. Acclaiming how contemporary female athletes can use their skills in basketball not merely for pleasure but educational and professional attainment, the film demonstrates how “the healthy, powerful female body in sport” has become “the visual image of and figure for career success” (Heywood, 2007, p. 116).

However, although The Heart of the Game presents all girls as benefiting from sports participation and is ostensibly focused on the entire team, in reality, its narrative is dominated by the story of Darnellia Russell and the role of sports in helping her escape from her impoverished background. Being a top college prospect and one of the few Black players on the team, the narrative largely revolves around the question of whether she can stay on track in school and sports and win a college scholarship. As a poor, Black female, Darnellia is framed as the girl most “at risk” and in need of the opportunities offered by sports.

Darnellia’s mother, April, had her when she was only 14 and her father has been imprisoned since she was an infant. Rather than attending the predominantly Black Garfield High nearby, April forces Darnellia to enroll at Roosevelt, where she will have greater academic prospects. Darnellia feels like an outsider, reportedly telling her former coach that she has “never been around so many white people before and I don’t know what to do.” Struggling with her grades, she is described by others as “intimidated” by the schoolwork and grappling “to figure out how to be in a white world and still maintain her sense of self” as an African American girl. She reports facing additional pressure from her neighborhood friends for attending a “white school . . . and play[ing] basketball with the white girls.” Her isolation leads her to skip classes and practices, forcing her to sit out games. Her emotional turmoil is furthered in her altercation with Hillary, a wealthy, White teammate, who talks about Darnellia behind her back, claiming that she has been receiving special treatment. Resler recounts Darnellia sobbing over the rift. According to Resler, Darnellia’s struggles stem from the fact that she “does not believe how smart she is.” Darnellia’s insecurities are explicitly portrayed as stemming from her racial and class background.

Basketball is presented as opening up new vistas in Darnellia’s life. Her desire to play is a key motivation for her to stay in school. Thanks to Resler’s tough love and his coaching philosophy of the “inner circle,” a process by which the team is made responsible for collaborative decision-making without interference from adults, she is able to work through her problems with her teammates. After an hours-long meeting, the girls resolve to “be more honest with one another” and work together as a team. Darnellia bonds with Hillary and her other teammates, making it with them to the state tournament her junior year. As a sought-after college recruit, she dreams of becoming the first person in her family to attend college and perhaps go on to the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) or become a pediatrician.

Yet, sports are not a panacea for Darnellia, who becomes pregnant at the end of the season and drops out of school before the end of her junior year. The film’s depiction of her legal battle to compete as a mother underlines the discrimination she faces as a female. When she returns to school after the birth of her daughter, she tries to go out for basketball but the school district bars her from playing because she dropped out earlier. She returns as a fifth year senior determined to play. This time, the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), the state’s governing body of high school basketball, turns her down, citing a rule that a player has only 4 years to play unless they can demonstrate a hardship. The WIAA rejects Darnellia’s claim that pregnancy is a hardship, as “she made her own choices.” A local attorney takes the WIAA to court, arguing that the decision is discriminatory because it punishes only girls for sexual activity. Although the judge agrees, the WIAA appeals and Darnellia’s future is left in jeopardy.

The film shows both the sexism and racism Darnellia confronts in her fight to play by including clips from a local call-in radio show. The callers repeatedly denounce her. One worries that if Darnellia loses her eligibility it will send the message that she should have gotten an abortion. Another insists that Darnellia made a poor decision, not in keeping the child, but in choosing “to have sex while she was in high school.” Such comments reveal how girls are judged by a sexual double standard and held responsible for sexual activity but denounced for having abortions. Her desire to play is also condemned by callers who portray Darnellia as failing to care for her child. A woman asks angrily,

who the hell is taking care of this baby? I don’t understand how a girl can go to school full time, keep up her homework, get ready to go to college, hopefully, take care of a baby. And I think it proves that . . . she and her family’s priorities are all screwed up.

The caller’s critique of Darnellia and her family and their “priorities” is telling. It links Darnellia’s circumstance to a larger family background that lacks the “right” values to care for children and to succeed in school and life, reiterating cultural discourses that have historically pathologized Black families and blamed single Black mothers for the poverty of Black communities (Greenbaum, 2015). As Patricia Hill Collins (2006) comments, the ideal of the traditional nuclear family structures notions of “real” motherhood in ways that exclude Black, poor, and single mothers, who are stereotyped as “bad mothers and . . . irresponsible if they reproduce” (p. 68). The caller’s implication that Darnellia is a bad mother for aspiring to an education, even as the caller implies education is a necessity, is a Catch-22 reminiscent of how U.S. welfare policies demand poor mothers to work, even as working mothers are deemed negligent for being absent from the home (Aulette & Wittner, 2015).

The film works to refute such views, however, by inviting viewers to see Darnellia as a good and competent mother. It includes an interview filmed for a local newscast, which highlights her ability to mother as well as play. When a reporter asks her if “it ever gets to be too much” to balance sports with motherhood, Darnellia laughs, saying “No. You do not understand. I have so much help.” April points out that “She has myself, his side of the family, It’s just a lot of help and it makes it really easy for her to do what she needs to do.” Refuting the ideal of the nuclear family, the moment displays how extended family structures are enabling to mothers. Within this network of support, the film shows motherhood not as a liability but as a strong motivating force, as Darnellia describes how having her baby made her become serious about her studies. Frequent shots of her daughter, who attends practices and plays with the team, further demonstrate Darnellia’s ability to be a top-ranked player, a good student, and a caring mother, upending stereotypes of single Black mothers as irresponsible and doomed to failure as well as notions that athleticism is incompatible with motherhood.

In the end, Darnellia emerges as victorious in her battle with the WIAA. Because of the lawsuit, the Roughriders risk forfeiting any games played with Darnellia on the team. However, the Roughriders defy the WIAA and keep her on the team. In a riveting denouement underscoring their moral victory in standing by Darnellia, the Roughriders go on to win the State Championship, winning against their archrivals even when Resler follows through on his promise to draw from the bench and play every member of the team. Outstanding performances from first-time players who excel beyond all expectations give proof to his coaching methods. The film ends in celebration, with Resler lifting Darnellia in his arms, and declaring to reporters “nobody deserves it more” than she. The Heart of the Game depicts Darnellia as overcoming the odds against her thanks to basketball.

The film’s ending, however, is less triumphant than it at first appears. Although she ultimately wins her case, plays in the championship game, and graduates with honors, Darnellia’s dream of a big-time college career is derailed. As the screen fades to black, viewers learn that she has received no letters from college scouts since the birth of her child and must attend a community college. Ultimately, WNBA rules requiring players to attend 4 years of college later barred her from pursuing a professional career (Maki, 2008). She now coaches for a community college and plays for a semi-pro team. ³ The film’s acknowledgment of such realities points to the ways that gender discrimination continues to disadvantage female athletes at all levels of sport. ⁴ The Heart of the Game rejoices in the greater self-efficacy and opportunities that sports provide girls even as it documents continuing constraints on young women’s athletic experiences.

Sport as a Corrective for the “Dark Other”

Although there is much to appreciate about the film’s sometimes subversive portrayal of girls in sport, the movie is not unproblematic. In her review of Hoop Dreams, bell hooks (2003) cautions against the ways the film makes a spectacle of poor and working-class people, despite the filmmaker’s positive intentions. Similarly, despite its attempts to expose the hardships Darnellia experiences due to her gender and race, The Heart of the Game’s focus on Darnellia’s dream to escape her disadvantaged background via competitive success in basketball often situates the film within what hooks (2003) calls “the continuum of traditional anthropological and/or ethnographic documentary works that show us the ‘dark other’ from the standpoint of whiteness” (p. 395).

Indeed, a White (male) gaze is apparent in the structure, editing, and narration of the film. Throughout, the dominant voices are male as the film’s events are chiefly presented through the perspective of Resler and narrator Chris Bridges (aka rapper Ludacris). Although White players on the team are heard from several times, Darnellia (filmed in just two separate interviews) speaks only rarely to the camera, totaling less than 3 min of screen time. The only substantial insights into her perspective are provided when she tells the director she wants to play in the WNBA and is thus focused on “trying to do good” and in the interview filmed for a local station after the birth of her child. Otherwise, her actions, motivations, emotions, and perceptions are left to other people to explain. Their recollections about Darnellia’s attitudes and understandings remain unexamined and unquestioned, even as the film presents their interpretations as unquestionable “facts” about her experience.

The silencing of Black women’s voices is a long-standing cultural practice in which “elite groups . . . manipulate ideas about Black womanhood” to discredit their perspectives and render them “other” (Collins, 2000/2009, p. 76). This silencing extends into the sports world, where Black women often encounter discriminatory treatment (Breuning et al., 2005). Given this history, it is not surprising to learn that Darnellia refused to talk to the film’s director for 2 years (Brown, 2016). Although Darnellia’s refusal to be interviewed may be read as an act of resistance, a key Black feminist principle is for Black women to voice their own self-definitions (Collins, 2000/2009). Regardless of the filmmaker’s intentions, one of the film’s major failings is that it does not give voice to Darnellia’s thoughts and feelings, even as it uses her body and abilities to center its narrative. Seen but not heard, Darnellia is rendered an object to White audiences.

A White gaze is reproduced elsewhere, in moments where a White teammate gushes over Darnellia’s “natural” athletic ability, as well as a scene highlighting her troubles fitting in with the team. At one point, Darnellia climbs into the stands to angrily confront a young man who has thrown candy onto the court. Although we later learn from Resler that Darnellia was upset over her fight with Hillary, the inclusion of this moment highlights her ire and emotional unpredictability. There is no follow-up with Darnellia about what she was thinking at that moment. Rather, the narrator describes her as simply “frustrated,” evoking stereotypes of the angry Black woman who needs guidance from Resler to learn to handle her emotions correctly and to communicate effectively. Similarly, a White gaze is evident in the film’s failure to recognize other aspects of Darnellia’s life outside of her desire to play ball. It abruptly introduces the existence of her long-time boyfriend after the revelation of her pregnancy. His presence is surprising given that there is no focus on her personal life outside of basketball prior to this. Her relationship with her boyfriend is not discussed, nor are her or her family’s reactions to her pregnancy addressed. The inattention to her relationships, interests, and desires outside of basketball erases her human complexity and defines her solely by her athletic identity.

The reaction to her pregnancy, presented exclusively through the eyes of White characters, similarly stresses the importance of her athletic status. When Darnellia drops out of school, Resler and her teammates are flabbergasted. Against sad music, Resler relates that although he reminded her that school is her “future, the WNBA . . . her view of the world is I can’t make it, I can’t get there.” Her teammate mournfully says “I don’t know, it’s really sad. You know I don’t know what’s going on in her head . . . it just really upsets me that she’s so nearsighted.” Constructing her decision as due to an ingrained sense of hopelessness and “nearsightedness,” they portray her as someone whose mental workings are mysteriously clouded and who lacks the ability to think beyond the moment. Resler sums up the view that “I really think that Darnellia’s future is very bleak . . . it’s sad.” Focusing on the “sad” feelings of middle-class White people who are confused by her choice, the film presents her decision as self-destructive, advancing a middle-class assumption that young women should focus on their “future” and put individual achievement above other concerns. Perhaps more troublesome, it sends the message that Darnellia has no prospects without basketball. In positing basketball as the only route for Darnellia to become successful or happy, The Heart of the Game presents sports as the “one location” where Black people can gain “recognition, success and material reward” even as it fails to consider how “institutionalized racism, and white supremacist attitudes in everyday American life” make options for Black attainment scarce (hooks, 2003, pp. 395–396).

The fact that Darnellia ends up succeeding in school and as a mother does little to counter the assumption that sports are central to her achievement. As bell hooks (2003) remarks, an “almost religious belief in the power of competition to bring success” permeates films like Hoop Dreams, which applaud Black athletes with an obsessive commitment to athletics and “suggest that those black folks will be most successful who assume the values and attitudes of privileged whites” (p. 397). The Heart of the Game similarly commends Darnellia for her dedication to sports, a dedication that motivates her to follow Resler’s rules, stay in school, and “do good.” Indeed, the manner in which the film foregrounds Darnellia’s imperiled status and the necessity of basketball in providing her, rather than the White girls on her team, “a way out” by instilling these corporate values signals that it is Black identity that most needs to be “fixed” via sport.

In this vein, the film follows a familiar narrative normalizing Whiteness. Despite his fiery language, Resler is depicted as a beneficent father figure, employing various psychological tactics to keep Darnellia on the team. He supports her in court, visits Darnellia at home, and plays tenderly with her baby. He holds her in his arms and comforts her when she cries. After their victory at state, Resler and Darnellia are filmed in close-up, as Resler lifts a tearful Darnellia in the air, urging her to “Be proud!” The visual speaks to how his actions have “lifted” Darnellia throughout her years on the team. Meanwhile, other people in Darnellia’s life, including her mother, grandmother, boyfriend, daughter, friends, and teammates, are rendered irrelevant to her success, appearing only on the sidelines. Resler is portrayed as a “teacher savior,” a common trope in films like Dangerous Minds and Freedom Writers that acclaim the actions of inspirational teachers or coaches who transform their students’ lives (Boyd, 2016, p. 161). Significantly, teacher saviors are White and middle-class people who enter Black and Brown spaces with the goal of rescuing poor people of color, saving them from their “dismal lives” in ways that pathologize students of color and “reinscribe norms of Whiteness” (Boyd, 2016, p. 160; Hughey, 2014). The Heart of the Game similarly presents Darnellia’s success as dependent upon the largess of her White male coach.

Normalizing Gendered Sports Discourses

Correspondingly, the film constructs sport as a male space. As I have written elsewhere, discursive appeals to female empowerment through sport often depict girls as lacking and in need of correction (Heinecken, 2016, p. 11). Likewise, the film presents the “problem” with young women as their own femininity. When Resler, in his initial diagnosis of the team, states that “girls have a tendency to not to want to touch each other,” he draws from the discourses of popular coaching manuals which frame girls as innately different from, weaker, and less confident than boys (LaVoi et al., 2007, p. 12). Applauding how Resler instills his team with the desire to “draw blood,” the film sends the message that girls lack competitive drive and champions the need for them to adhere to masculine rules of aggressive competition. In proposing the need for girls to change their playing style, the film reproduces a long history by which sport has been divided between “male” types of play and moderate “female” kinds of play, with the female model viewed as inferior (Cahn, 2015).

Male control of sport is reinforced by the way that Resler is positioned as “fixing” the problem with female athletes by unleashing the girls’ aggressive potential. Even his development of the “inner circle,” in which players communicate among themselves, was designed by Resler to prevent parents from “soiling” the “magic” thing he has inspired. As one player explains it, “we’re the only ones who are out there on the court, so he has to instill the ‘inner circle’ kind of philosophy for us.” Although, on one hand, the “inner circle” appears to negate Resler’s power as a coach, her passive word choice is telling. That it is Resler, the primary narrator of the film, who “has to instill” the philosophy, points to Resler as the activating agent. The freedoms and abilities enabled by the inner circle are determined by and contingent upon his creativity and permission. By focusing on Resler, and his role in transforming a team that apparently would otherwise lack the right skill or attitude to succeed, the film situates sport as a male arena and suggests that female liberation through sports is dependent upon men.

Furthering the notion that sports is a male realm is the film’s choice to focus on Resler, a novice male coach, rather than a highly qualified female coach like Joyce Walker, the coach of the Roughriders’ archrival Garfield High. The film never stops to consider how Resler, whose only qualification appears to be having daughters who attended Roosevelt, got the job. Such omissions reflect ongoing inequalities in the real world, where women, particularly women of color, have limited coaching opportunities. Among head coaches of women’s college teams, for example, only 43.1% of coaches are women, whereas African Americans make up less than 7% of head coaches (Caple et al., 2017). ⁵ The lack of female coaches sends messages about who has the ability to lead and potentially contributes to girls dropping out of sports (Flanagan, 2017). Lauding the accomplishments of a White male coach, the film likewise indicates that the professional expertise of a Black woman is less significant than the untutored instincts of a White male with no athletic experience.

In addition, despite its outward endorsement of girls’ competitiveness, The Heart of the Game presents female athleticism in very traditional ways by emphasizing the necessity of teamwork. On one hand, teamwork is a fundamental value in sport, and the team’s championship win after deciding to defy the WIAA in support of Darnellia and play every member of the bench is a feel-good moment highlighting the benefits of cooperation. On the other hand, the narrative stress on teamwork naturalizes a collaborative style of play for women and girls. During the Roughriders’ successful first season, for instance, they have higher attendance than the boys’ team. Young male fans are interviewed, who explain their interest by pointing to the fact that boys play in a more selfish fashion, whereas girls “don’t argue,” “use their heads,” and are focused on “winning” as a team rather than individual glory. Although it is refreshing to see males praise female athletic skills, it is important to note that such discourses have played a key role in justifying women’s sports participation as acceptable and distinct from men’s. As Leslie Heywood and Shari Dworkin (2003) observe, a guiding assumption of women’s sports is that “it is the female athlete who is (or should be) innately more ‘cooperative’ than her male counterpart” (p. 60). Michelle Helstein (2005) points out that the glorification of female teamwork reflects the characteristics of “care, interdependence, and compassion” that exemplify normative femininity (p. 1). As Helstein and others have argued, “the imperative to teamwork” is harmful for presenting female athletes as a uniform group and erasing important differences among them (p. 7).

What happens to female athletes who channel their competitiveness toward individual achievement? In telling the story of the sexual abuse of one of the Roughriders by a private coach she has hired to help her win a college scholarship, the film intimates that such athletes will be punished. After the end of Resler’s second year of coaching, he is shown reflecting on how Devon, a senior on the team, tried to play a “role bigger than life.” As Resler comments that her attitude seemed designed to mask some kind of “anguish,” the camera zooms into a close-up of a newspaper photo of Devon on the court, a visual technique commonly used to introduce the reconstruction of a crime (Jermyn, 2003). The camera similarly zooms into a color photo of a smiling Devon leaning intimately into coach Tony Giles’ shoulder, as the narrator observes that Devon is “spending more and more time with Giles” and that “his growing influence over her leads to a deterioration in her relationship with Resler.” In a cut to Resler, he indicates his disapproval of Giles, stating that the Roughriders’ emphasis is on “teamwork. Working as a group—whereas she was being taught that she had to be the star of our team in order for her to get a college scholarship.” Cutting to footage of Devon disagreeing with Resler on the court, the voiceover informs viewers that Devon has begun “to argue openly with Resler about his coaching tactics.” On camera, Devon shows herself to be Giles’ willing acolyte, praising his organization for teaching her to stand out as an individual. Interrupted by a phone call from Giles, she leaves the interview, giggling, and is heard asking Giles what he is doing later. Devon is shown as rejecting Resler and his methods in favor of Giles.

After the Roughriders fail to advance to the championship, in part, the film insinuates, because of Devon’s poor performance, Resler describes how she had been blaming him for the team’s failure. He says that he was unable to resolve the conflict prior to her leaving for college, where, it is revealed, she breaks down, quits the team, and drops out of school. As the off-screen narrator discloses that Giles had been abusing her, Devon, filmed from above, jumps repeatedly in slow motion, shooting toward the basket, a visual choice symbolizing her desperate yearning to achieve. After the narrator reports that Resler stood by her during the 18-month investigation, an older Devon is shown reading a prepared statement confessing to the trauma of the abuse, whereas the visual segues away to a yearbook picture of a younger, happier Devon. The closing image of Devon’s yearbook photo recalls how crime shows use both images of victims and criminals to frame stories (Jermyn, 2003), putting murder victims, terrorists, and mass shooters under the same level of surveillance. Such framing situates Devon ambiguously as both victim and offender. Indeed, despite praising Devon for her strength in coming forward, the film positions her as complicit in her abuse, driven by her desire to succeed and rejection of Resler’s coaching authority.

Of particular note is how the film sets up a tension between two coaches, one who enforces the ethic of teamwork and the other who teaches an individualistic mind-set. Devon is presented as seduced, literally, to the wrong side, as she chooses Giles over Resler. The manner in which the film links individual ambition to sexual transgression and the victimization of young women recalls the discourse of early and mid-20th-century female physical educators, who fought to limit female athletes to participatory forms of play due to their belief that competitive sports were overly arousing and exposed young women to sexual exploitation by male coaches and others (Cahn, 2015). In fact, as the recent scandal in U.S. Women’s gymnastics makes apparent, the sexual abuse of female athletes is not uncommon (Brackenridge, 2001). Celia Brackenridge (1997) asserts that sports are “a peculiarly active site of social exploitation” (p. 115), as respected and popular coaches are able to wield excessive power and control over the athletic and personal lives of young girls (Parent & Demers, 2010; Stirling & Kerr, 2009). However, rather than truly exploring the contexts and pressures that enable male coaches to abuse ambitious female athletes, the film insinuates that Devon’s downfall was caused by her refusal to obey Resler and play cooperatively. Notably, Devon is depicted as redeeming herself by coming home, like the prodigal daughter, to Resler and the Roughriders’ cooperative world. Returning to Roosevelt to coach the freshman team and later coaching youth in South Africa, she gives over her individual goals to support others. Once she has assumed this more appropriate role, Devon disappears from the narrative.

Conclusion

Ian McDonald (2007) points to the importance of sports documentaries that possess a “political ethic” and challenge myths of meritocracy by showing the “possibilities and limitation of sport in overcoming deep-rooted relations of power” around gender, race, and class (p. 217). To a certain degree, The Heart of the Game demonstrates this political ethic. Even when foregrounding girls’ athletic talent, it usefully documents some of the challenges they continue to face, such as discrimination against pregnant athletes and the dangers of sexual abuse. However, it also reproduces conventional notions of gender and sport, including the imperative of collaborative play and notion of sports as a male space. Although its focus on Darnellia counters the erasure of Black female athletes in other sports media (Carter-Francique & Richardson, 2016), the film’s critique of the prejudice she faces is undercut by a White gaze underlining the film’s structure and narration.

Moreover, the film’s celebration of sports participation as a sign of female emancipation is questionable. As Sarah Banet-Weiser (2015) cautions, the increased visibility of girls in discourses of empowerment often “presumes equality” obscuring “other ways in which marginalized constituencies are disempowered” (p. 190, emphasis original). Comparably, in its overall presentation of the Roughriders as representing a new kind of aggressive female, unfettered by limiting gender norms of the past, the film fails to acknowledge numerous inequities that continue to face female athletes in terms of chances to play, pay inequalities, as well as media representation. ⁶ It disregards many ways that girls are still deemed as “less-than” and discouraged or barred from pursuing sports (Cooky, 2009) and ignores how, more than 45 years after its passage, Title IX is not fully enforced across the country and is under assault from those who think the law hurts men’s teams (Bryant, 2012). Most importantly, it infers that if girls want to participate the opportunity to do so is widely available. It does not consider how access and resources vary between different groups of girls.

For instance, differences among girls are covered over in the film’s focus on Darnellia’s struggle to play after having a child, which is figured as a problem arising from her sex rather than her race. However, despite Title IX, the U.S. law making it illegal for schools that accept federal funding to discriminate on the basis of sex, it is race and class that most limit girls’ sporting opportunities in the United States, which are mainly open to White, middle-class girls (The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and The National Women’s Law Center, 2014). Many girls of color face barriers such as money, time, transportation, as well as racial discrimination, leaving them the minority of sports participants at both high school and college levels. Yet, the film never examines the structural blocks that lead to Darnellia’s unique status on a team composed mainly of middle-class White girls (The Aspen Institute, 2017; Brake & Williams, 2008; Breuning et al., 2005; Lapchick, 2017; Sabo & Veliz, 2008)

Inequalities of race and class are also covered over in the presentation of the ongoing rivalry between Roosevelt and Garfield, which builds to the film’s climatic moments at the state championship. The film’s portrayal of the Roughriders as underdogs against the Bulldogs’ taller players is dubious when considered against the real-world racial and economic inequalities shaping the public school system, in which girls attending heavily minority schools such as Garfield have only 39% of the opportunities to play available to their counterparts at White-dominated schools like Roosevelt (National Women’s Law Center and the Poverty & Race Research Action Council, 2015). Considering these statistics, the Roughriders’ victory over Garfield is a case of Goliath beating David, as the team from the Whiter, wealthier school defeats a team composed of girls of color from Darnellia’s own neighborhood—many of whom are her friends.

In fact, the framing of the Roughriders’ victory over the Bulldogs as a personal triumph for Darnellia—ignoring how it comes at the expense of girls from her own neighborhood—reveals the limits of the kind of female “empowerment” promoted by the film. As originally formulated, empowerment is about collective social action to change “oppressive power relations” (Riordan, 2001, p. 282). Yet, as multiple critics note, popular discourses of female empowerment have sidestepped its cooperative aspects to emphasize individual self-efficacy and personal transformation. Directing attention away from “structural explanations for inequality” (Gonick, 2006, p. 2), such discourses instruct individuals to focus on self-improvement and “to identify themselves, rather than surrounding social conditions, as the problem to be fixed” (Bay-Cheng, 2012, p. 714). Similarly, despite its promotion of teamwork as a key value of girls’ sports, at its heart the film’s narrative foregrounds the hard work and determination of an individual who overcomes discrimination, competes successfully against others, and triumphs over the odds. This competitive narrative of individual transformation is in conflict with feminist goals of collective social change. Although it presents sports as a “way out” for Darnellia, it is clear that this empowerment need not extend to all Black girls in her community. Reflecting the neoliberal ideologies typical of 21st-century sports documentaries (McDonald, 2007), The Heart of the Game demonstrates how the contemporary American sports documentary may fail to truly challenge social inequalities.