Women on wheels: Roller derby grows up

By Katjusa Cisar
Special to The Capital Times

Panic hit Madison's roller derby league the day before its April semifinals. The fire marshal was cracking down on crowd capacity at its upcoming bout, reducing the limit from 1,000 to 600 people. More tickets than spaces had been sold, and the league fired off e-mails and blog posts urging fans to show up early or risk getting shut out.

An hour before the doors opened, a long line had already formed across the parking lot of the Fast Forward Skate Center on Madison's south side. A few popped open beers while they waited; many others lugged lawn chairs so they could sit trackside later, close to the action. In the end, the Mad Rollin' Dolls had to turn 60 ticketholders away at the door, along with anyone unlucky enough not to have bought a ticket in advance. Interest should be even higher for this Saturday's finals.

Even though league players say they've been very happy at Fast Forward, talk of finding a bigger venue is circulating. Before the capacity limit crackdown in April, fans sat or stood on every available space at the rink, including on top of a bank of lockers.

Not bad for a sport that just four years ago many people associated with hula hoops, polyester suits and other charmingly outdated trends.

From fad to phenomenon

Back in 2004, when the Madison league started, roller derby was still an alt-culture oddity. Gen X women who preferred reading Bitch to Cosmo were resuscitating the sport, which had fallen from popularity since its flashy heyday in the '50s and '60s. It was all part of the Third Wave feminist movement, which emerged in the '90s as a backlash against hippie-era feminism and focused on sex positivity and self-empowerment. Those who embrace the philosophy have reclaimed "girlie" activities like knitting, baking and burlesque from their sexist, man-pleasing roots.

The Madison league, which consists of four teams -- Vaudeville Vixens, Reservoir Dolls, Quad Squad and Unholy Rollers -- was one of the first leagues to spring up around the country. Today, every major city has its own league, and teams are now starting up in smaller cities like Beloit and Appleton.

This October, the Mad Rollin' Dolls are also hosting the Women's Flat Track Derby Association's Eastern Regional Tournament at the Alliant Energy Center, where the 12 top leagues from east of the Mississippi will battle each other before the national tournament a month later in Portland, Ore.

Roller derby's re-emergence and swift rise in popularity comes as a reaction to the "monotony and homogeneity of our culture," said the Unholy Rollers' Anne Schuelke, 27, who goes by the roller derby name of "Wildberry Punch."

"I think our society can be very isolating. You go from your car bubble to your cubicle bubble to your home bubble," Schuelke said. (Roller derby) is a really awesome community. There's not a whole lot of opportunity in the adult world for that."

Like the trend of buying locally grown food or shopping at locally owned shops, roller derby stresses individuality and a grass-roots, do-it-yourself attitude. Each player chooses her own unique name, and many women sew their own flair onto outfits ("Allie Gator" wears a sparkly alligator tail). Every team has a theme. The Unholy Rollers are "vampire biker chicks." The Derby Liberation Front, a team in Seattle-based Rat City Rollergirls' league, assembles its look around a guerrilla warfare theme.

"There's a real realism behind derby. It just doesn't hold back. That really appeals to people who grew up in the '80s," said Nicole Olthafer, 28, an online training manager by day and "Darling Nikki" on the track.

Roller derby is one of the few contact sports available to women, and many players say the game appeals to them as an alternative to a world that has gotten "too safe and too careful." Tess Rutz, 32, was appalled when she heard that her friend's niece couldn't play tag on the playground because the elementary school had banned the game for fear of injury or lawsuits.

"Culturally, I think athletics are being discouraged," said Rutz, aka "Amazing Disgrace" of the Reservoir Dolls. She remembers it being "social suicide" in middle school for a girl to be athletic. Almost 20 years later, when her friends admonished that people "couldn't do exciting things after 30," she "felt really compelled to try out (for the Mad Rollin' Dolls). As I got older, I felt a loss of identity because everyone was like, 'Don't do that.' This is a sport for women who can't be told they can't do something."

Feminists in fishnets

Roller derby (like other Third Wave feminist endeavors) has gotten flak for misusing sexuality in a gratuitous, pseudofeminist way. Players constantly have to account for and fine-tune a balance between sport, aggression and sex.

Roller derby players everywhere usually dress up in short shorts or miniskirts, wear fishnet stockings and flaunt an exhibitionist attitude. Catfights have been known to break out on the track, and Madison's league used to serve spankings as a penalty for breaking game rules. In the team's bio, the Vaudeville Vixens are "decadent, exotic and love to be at center stage. Don't be fooled by their 'good girl' charm ... these tough, smart and sexy Vixens are bad girls at heart ..."

Chezarae Dixson, 23, "had a really hard time" with the sexualized aspect of derby when she first joined the Unholy Rollers as "Mack the Knife" two years ago. "My team sometimes called me prudish. I wasn't roller skating to show off my ass," she said. Her perspective has slowly changed: "I've grown into my derby self. Now I don't view it as putting myself on display. It's amazing how derby makes you comfortable with your body."

Players defend the outfits as a chance for each woman to express individuality.

"It's not the feminism where you're burning your bras. It's neofeminism," said Olthafer, one of the Vaudeville Vixens. "Sure, you dress up in crazy outfits, but it's really forward-thinking."

Besides, she added, football players wear "tight sexy pants" and put on a show when they score a touchdown but still manage to be taken seriously.

Others, like league founder Colleen Bell, aka "Crackerjack," blow off criticism of derby's use of sexuality as a bunch of "anonymous blah blah."

"We appreciate their concern, but we've got it under control," she said with a tone of good-natured exasperation. She puts 30 to 40 hours a week into the Mad Rollin' Dolls now ("It used to be double that") and travels around the country training rookie leagues. The "playful toughness" of roller derby is essential to what it's about at its core, she said.

Disbanding the fight club

Despite their defense of derby's bawdy theatrics, players say that the sport's focus has shifted in the last few years from in-your-face exhibitionism to serious athleticism.

"You want to be a good sportswoman. You don't have to throw a tantrum. I don't think we've really had a fight this year," said Olthafer.

Schuelke agreed that there's been less fighting: "People used to allow themselves the opportunity to fight, but now we're like, 'That's so dumb.' "

"The direction toward more athleticism has centralized the membership's focus," said Becca, aka "Mouse," a reflective 26-year-old who wears a bullet on her necklace and refers to roller derby as her "calling." She doesn't want her last name printed because she said that roller derby players have been stalked and harassed. She's been with the Mad Rollin' Dolls since the beginning and is a fan favorite. It's easy to see why: it's hard to take your eyes off of her when she's ripping around the track, deftly weaving through and dodging around the other team.

New leagues whose players lack strong skating skills play up the sexy side of derby initially to build up their fan base, Mouse said. "It's hard to stick with that and be taken seriously. The longer people are on a team, the more they play up the sporty side."

The faces in the crowd

Anne Enke, a history and women's studies professor at UW-Madison, said roller derby is "part and parcel" of the emergence of other women-run athletics. Derby succeeds as a feminist statement because "there isn't a single message, like, 'We're putting ourselves out there for the consumption of heterosexual men,' " she said. "I don't think they are advocating anything specific."

Instead, a Mad Rollin' Doll's "performance" sends a complicated, three-pronged message about athletics, sexuality and gender, Enke said: "It's a big lesbian sport, a family sport, a middle-aged sport. Part of what that says to me is that they are speaking to a huge cross-section. It's one of the things in Madison that draws an exceptional diversity of gender identification."

The crowds at roller derby bouts range from 5-year-olds to grandparents, but they are conspicuously almost exclusively white.

"We've talked about that and about doing more advertising in the neighborhood that we're in," Schuelke said. Fast Forward is just off of Allied Drive, which has many minority residents.

"(Race) is a huge issue in Madison, let alone in derby," said Cherie Hohs, aka Busta Crimes, a 30-year-old school social worker. "We have long-range plans to get more diverse groups."

Hohs said one of these plans is to reach out to local schoolchildren. A group of roller derby women recently spoke to a group of third- to fifth-graders at Marshall Elementary about "positivism and sportswomanship." Some of the elementary students attended a bout recently and "thought it was the coolest thing ever."

Looking forward to the Eastern Regional Tournament in October, along with a possible venue change, several players say they expect the fan base to swell and attract a wider audience in the next year.

"Our fans are part of the phenomenon. It's contagious," Hohs said.