I like Robert Downey, Jr. and I loved the first movie but building up to the freshly-released Iron Man sequel I can’t help but hope that ‘our hero’ gets a good pasting. He’s a self-absorbed playboy who only has superpowers thanks to high tech gadgetry. He only really gets by because of a privileged upbringing, the fact he inherited his daddy’s business empire and a fortune earned from the massacre and mutilation of others. Way to hustle, Tony. What a hero. I want Iron Man 3 to be the film where Stark sits in a dark room sulking, picking at his scabs and undergoing intense psychotherapy alongside the Incredible Hulk. (The green one feels really low. Two franchise reboots met with antipathy worsened his alienation.) During therapy, Iron Man finds God and on his quest for salvation has to remove all the unexploded Stark landmines left in Cambodia before Nick Fury – he looks a little like an eyepatched Sammy L. Jackson – allows him back in the Avengers. Show us amputated children, then you can label it a ‘darker’ sequel. What’s the point of learning kung fu if it’ll only lead to a dead end job in a crèche? Lacking a suped-up armoured suit as well, I’m doomed to frustrating failure. Bizarrely enough, the character from recent comic book-based material that has most inspired me to slip into costume and go out and put the world to rights was Hit-Girl from Kick-Ass. Either the crisis of masculinity runs deeper than first thought or there’s something odd happening within my psyche. Maybe I’m finally getting in touch with my cross-dressing inner child. Alternatively, perhaps female cinematic leads are having a fresh burst of life whilst the archetypal macho hero remains stagnant. If so, then hooray. It’s healthier that little girls admire Hit-Girl instead of a Barbie doll. Outgunned by an eleven-year-old child, the prospect of the Hurl Scouts from Whip It probably has Iron Man feeling ultra-inadequate and rusting beneath tears of shame. The roller derby girls of Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut are tougher than any Marvel hero. What’s more, they’re hardcore, all-action personalities with real human depth. Finally getting to see Whip It, when Ellen Page’s character Bliss (soon to become Babe Ruthless) said, “You‘re my new heroes,” I found myself in complete agreement. What could be cooler than a high-speed contact sport that incorporates violent feminism, roller skates and homemade costumes? Give the players names like Bloody Holly and Maggie Mayhem and hold matches in disused warehouses and you’ve got something that is edgier and way more exciting than mainstream professional sport. It’s high-octane, has raw emotion, unpredictability and far from being misogynist, empowers women. This is a sport of absolute feminine rule and Whip It captures the glory of this underground subculture and builds a strong, intelligent narrative of human interest stories around it. Substance, style and fishnet stockings, plus Drew Barrymore decking anybody who gets in her way. Whip It is brilliant. Boxing flicks excepted – because the boxing movie genre is a whole historical entity in itself – the best sports films, in my humble opinion, focus on minority sports. Whip It has instantly joined such cult classics as Nacho Libre and Dodgeball in my personal Hall of Fame and, as a good genre film should, encouraged me to pursue a semi-athletic dream. Unfortunately, I’m excluded from joining Babe Ruthless and Smashley Simpson on the track because biology blessed me with a Y chromosome. Because I don’t have Tony Stark’s riches I can’t afford the necessary operations or bribe the influential people to bend the rules. Ah, well. As the headmistress in Grease said: “If you can’t be an athlete, be an athletic supporter.” Even if they don’t win (and before Babe Ruthless joins, they’re the league’s whipping girls), the Hurl Scouts are ideal role models because of their tenacity, sisterly spirit and lust for life. Those are the true superheroes: the humble and downtrodden that defy conformity and expectation despite the obstacles. That’s truly empowering, and even if I can’t play roller derby because of my gender, it inspires me to be positive and push harder at my ambitions to be the greatest lame lucha libre wrestler in Europe. James’ previous column can be found here.
