Arielle explained the rules in this video.
- “Girls just want to have fun”? In the 1930’s, roller derby was fake, like wresting games: it was just a show to please the audience. In the 80’s, it was like in the 80’s: spandex and neon clothes. And at the beginning of the 2000’s a group of girls in Austin, Texas started to play again, in a real sportive way, while keeping the fun and crazy part. The movie Whip it with Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page popularized it as well.
- Scary names. Girls create their own names – Margareth Trasher, Baby Ruthless. I didn’t know that the referees did it too! It’s too subtle for me to get this kind of jokes which refer to US pop culture for most of them, but anyway, it sounds really cool.
- Tattoos and mini-shorts. Girls had a lot of tattoos, but it’s pretty common in the US. Their outfit was less funky, contrary to what I thought, but they were still pretty cool: taxi for the girl of New York, and Boston Massacre girls looked pretty badass without too much hot-craziness.
- Let’s skate! I thought that roller derby was always on a banked track, but actually there’s also a league of “flat”.
- A game for mean girls? It plays fast, it seems to hurt, there was a lot of elbows and butt kick. But it also seemed pretty fun! Girls fell but got up right away. When we congratulated them at the end of the game, everybody seemed pretty cheered up, even the Bostonians who lost. They hit our hands, and it was pretty rough.
