Atlanta Rollergirls set to start new season
Roller derby puts these girls on right track
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
It’s easy to focus on the ripped fishnet stockings and hot pink wigs, the Goth makeup and tattoos, the cleavage and smack talk, and all those great noms de skate: Deja Bruise, Bullie Jean King, Reba Smackentire, Sk8 Outta Compton.
Not that the Atlanta Rollergirls don’t like to focus on those, too; they know what brings in the paying customers. But they also know that, somewhat improbably, roller derby has helped some of them in their other, off-track lives.
ALLEN SULLIVAN / aesullivan@ajc.com
Emory University biomedical science graduate student Alana Reed (left) cheers after receiving her team sash. Reed, in her first season as ‘Surfer Rosa,’ said roller derby provides relief from the stress of her university studies.
Frank Mullen
The Atlanta Rollergirls are back in action Saturday, and this year they’ve added an all-star team that will play against teams from other\uFEFF cities.
Season opens 5 p.m. Saturday (doors open 4 p.m.) and runs through Sept. 26. Tickets $12 per bout, $20 for both. Yaarab Shrine Center, 400 Ponce de Leon Ave., Atlanta. www.atlantarollergirls.com
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“I was just applying for a new job, and I had to go through salary negotiations for the first time. Which was a really terrifying thing for me,” said Amy Ellis, 24, who skates as Thunder Enlightening.
“Because of roller derby, I knew I could push people over, I could hit people. I just felt a confidence in myself as a woman in a workplace that’s run mostly by men. I wasn’t as intimidated as I would have been before derby.” Ellis negotiated a higher starting salary for her new job as a project manager at an Atlanta ad agency.
Roller derby as personal growth spur — who knew?
This Oprah-on-wheels effect will not necessarily be displayed Saturday, however, when the Atlanta Rollergirls league starts its fifth season with two matches, one an all-star bout between Atlanta’s Dirty South Derby Girls vs. Pittsburgh’s Steel City Dirty Demons. That second match is the big change this season — Atlanta is fielding its first all-star team to compete with other cities.
They’ll be returning to their home in the Yaarab Shrine Center, where the league’s four teams — the Toxic Shocks, Apocalypstix, Sake Tuyas and Denim Demons — roll on Saturdays, often to sell-out crowds.
“A lot of the women who join derby are the kind of women who don’t make women friends easily,” Ellis said. “They’re not girly. We have lots of different types of women, but they all have that inner strength and drive.”
The power of positive wheeling can take many forms. One veteran admitted to having had a drug problem when she started skating, and the game gave her something more positive to connect with. Another had been in the hospital after being beaten by her husband, Ellis said, but left him after adopting her new, tougher persona. “It’s hard to explain how having that many women support you can change your life,” she said.
The new roller derby, which has only the most tenuous connection to the grim sport of the past, is about amateur women having fun with a post-feminist, bad-girls-in-air-quotes sensibility. They skate on a flat track instead of a banked one, which means they are much closer to the audience and don’t go as fast.
“There are always people who remember it from the ’50s through the ’70s and think of it as fake wrestling on wheels,” says Angela Ward (who skates as Tanya Hide), Atlanta’s league president.
“There’s all types of women who get involved in this,” said Tina Bradley, a physical therapist at Rockdale Medical Center. They include teachers, college students, a minister, a geneticist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and moms. The audience is as diverse as the skaters, ranging from intown hipsters to suburban families.
“My parents are very excited — they’re going to be at all of my bouts,” said Rebekah Falkler, a systems analyst at Georgia-Pacific and a rookie who will skate as Regreta Garbo.
Barbara Tushbant, who’s been rolling since 2004 as Elle Beaux, said that “for the most part we get along very well. But we are a group of 70 women and sometimes there’s going to be some reee-er!” she snarled and swiped a clawed hand, making the universally understood sign for “catfight.”
“When we’re on the track we’re out for blood,” she added, “but when we’re off the track we’re out for beers.”
