Since its modern inception from the mind of Leo Seltzer in the 1930s, roller derby has existed in a space between sport and entertainment where American notions of gender and equality could be debated and simultaneously reinforced, according to Michella M. Marino. In Roller Derby: The History of an American Sport, Marino uses roller derby to examine ongoing contradictions in the American imagination about two relationships: that between gender and “true” sport, and that between “true” sport and capitalist entertainment. Marino is especially interested in how roller derby freed women by allowing them to compete with men on equal terms in a “full-contact” sport, a fact that ultimately undermined the legitimacy of the sport in the eyes of many Americans. Although roller derby rules effectively liberated women athletes to participate fully in a “rough,” physically demanding sport, roller derby's marketing, particularly in the late 1940s and the 1950s, also perpetuated traditional, white, heteronormative concepts of feminine beauty in order to prove that women's participation had not ruined their womanhood by masculinizing them. Marino's examination of this tension in roller derby over the definition of femininity in terms of sport was compelling.
Marino's history of roller derby is the first of its kind since the emergence of the feminist “DIY” reincarnation of the sport in Austin, Texas in the early twenty-first century. Utilizing a vast collection of oral-history interviews of first-generation derby players and their children (some of whom were also professional roller derby players), Marino outlines the history of roller derby with narrative ease. She even participated in a roller derby league herself during her research. While Marino's primary-source-driven methodology is rooted in the discipline of history, she also adeptly uses the physical-education theories of early feminist Eleanor Metheny as a tool of analysis.
Marino masterfully weaves together a chronicle of roller derby starting with a brief but necessary explanation of the emergence of roller skating in the nineteenth century. She describes the initial iteration of the sport born out of the dance marathon format of leisure activities meant to be a diversion from the strife of life in the Great Depression. As the country emerged from World War II, Leo Seltzer endeavored to legitimize the sport and keep it afloat financially just as television changed the landscape of sports entertainment. In the middle chapters, Marino artfully continues the narrative of the sport, simultaneously analyzing Americans’ shifting concepts of femininity, masculinity, and beauty in postwar affluence as manifested in the evolution of roller derby. Relocation of roller derby to the West Coast in the 1950s, when it moved toward scripted theatrics and television syndication under the direction of Leo Seltzer's son Jerry, was, Marino argues, a turning point. While it was temporarily financially viable and even spawned a competing skating league, the business model was unsustainable and both leagues collapsed in the mid-1970s. The book closes with roller derby's rebirth in 2001. Since then, the sport's new generation of innovators has expanded roller derby globally. Derby participants continue to grapple with issues of gender and representations of female sexuality in sports, though. Some leagues are women-only, whereas others are open to men and women, and still others are overtly LGBTQ+ friendly.
Although roller derby is a unique sport, Marino's work demonstrates that it provides a rich site for unpacking pervasive contradictions in American popular culture about gender, race, and identity. Her writing style and clear organizational structure make the text easily accessible for undergraduate students. Future scholarship on roller derby could expand on issues of race and sexuality, as Marino admits, but as a broad overview of the history of the sport and its significance in American culture, this book serves its purpose well.
