A League of Their Own movie star Rosie O’Donnell clarifies the film’s lack of gay representation. The film A League of Their Own was directed by Penny Marshall. It was released in 1992 and focused on the evolution of the first female professional baseball league. It is loosely inspired by the creation of one particular team, the Rockford Peaches. O’Donnell plays Doris Murphy, the third baseman for the team. Other actors in the film included Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna, and Ann Cusack.
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A League of Their Own soon became a modern classic sports film after it was released. Now, the film has been adapted into a comedy TV series of the same name. The series was co-created by Will Graham and Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson, and stars Jacobson herself along with Chanté Adams, D’Arcy Carden, Gbemisola Ikumelo, and Dale Dickey. Unlike the '90s film, the A League of Their Own TV show is unabashedly queer, showing representation of gay characters and relationships frequently among the teammates depicted in the show. O’Donnell also makes a brief appearance in the TV series.
O’Donnell explains the disparity between the representation in the two A League of Their Own entities in a recent interview with Late Night with Seth Meyers. When they were shooting A League of Their Own, it was the early '90s. O’Donnell characterizes this as “a different time” where “nobody was out.” Marshall did not have the opportunity to show the representation that did exist in real life due to the lack of representation and acceptance of gay people. Through a story of meeting one of the real members of the Rockford Peaches, O’Donnell showed how this lack of representation did not in fact represent reality. Rather, some of the women she met had been in (whether they would openly say it or not) queer relationships for decades. Check out the full quote from O’Donnell below:
“When I watch the show, I can’t believe we’re able to have actual representation. You know, when we did the actual series, we would meet the original members of the Peaches. And they’d be like, you know, 88, and say ‘uh, this is my um roommate Betsy.’ I’m like ‘oh hi, Betsy, um obviously you played shortstop.’ And she’s like ‘yeah I did,’ and I’m like ‘okay, and how long have you guys been roommates?’ ‘Oh, 52 years.’ And it’s just, society has changed so much. People don’t realize, they say, why didn’t Penny [Marshall] add that? Well, in 1991 when we were shooting it, nobody was out! I mean, KD Lang wasn’t out. It was a different time. And I couldn’t really believe where we have gone in the 30 years, although there’s a lot more to go, and I think representation is the first step, I think Abby Jacobson hit it out of the park, so to speak, in this League of Their Own thing. She really did.”
While neither A League of Their Own is based directly on real people, the story is still inspired by true events. From O’Donnell’s account, not only is the TV show an extremely satisfying push for representation, but it is actually a more effective representation of reality. The real women behind this baseball league includes a lot of gay women, and the A League of Their Own TV series clearly showcases that.
The representation in A League of Their Own is a positive push that can leave people feeling seen as more accurate and open stories are being told. O’Donnell herself is openly gay, and from her interview, one can tell how much this personally means to her. She, along with other stars like Ellen Degeneres, was on forefront of celebrities coming out in the '90s and early 2000s, when gay marriage was not legal in most places in the US, and when being gay was not nearly as widely accepted as it is now. To see such an evolution in O’Donnell’s lifetime, through one story with A League of Their Own, appears to touch her deeply. A League of Their Own is proving to be another important step towards fair and accurate queer representation in the media.
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