Yesterday, Variety reported that Ellen Page has signed on to play a roller derby queen in Drew Barrymore's directing debut, Whip It!

I'm going to ignore the Variety headline for the moment ("Ellen Page to 'Whip It!' for Barrymore") because, well, eww and eyeroll. Let's focus on the plot summary: Page plays Bliss Cavendar, a blue-haired Texan misfit whose mother keeps pushing her into beauty pageants. Bliss "finds herself" when she joins a roller derby team.

This has so much potential, I don't even know where to begin. First, roller derby? Campy, retro and almost as gay as billiards! And it's about time somebody made a roller derby flick, so I can stop mourning that A&E series Rollergirls. … continue reading

Is anything more queer (I mean that both ways) than roller derby?

If so, please tell me what it is so that I can replace the cobbled-together poster on the back of the bathroom door. Oh, wait, did I say roller derby? I meant Women's Flat Track Derby Association and its participants. My bad, mea culpa, all apologies. This is no fly-by-night women's sports league: There are teams in 20, count 'em, 2-0 states, from Seattle to New York City and everything in between. Texas seems to have particularly embraced this sport, with six different leagues registered with the WFTD Association and two in Dallas alone. I do have to say that even I find Dallas' Assassination City Roller Derby to be a bit over the top in its marketing scheme. But then I discovered that this is the norm, as most of the WFTDA leagues display a scathing, if not completely wicked, sense of humor and an unabashed appreciation for the absurd.

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