This Queer History Month, 'A League of Their Own' Deserves a Spotlight

'A League of Their Own' was created by Abbi Jacobson and Will Graham.

(Spoiler alert: Minor spoilers for A League of Their Own (2022))

In 1943, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) was created after men started getting drafted during World War II. In 2022, one of the players Maybelle Blair came out as gay at the age of 95 during the premiere of Amazon Prime’s A League of Their Own.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for these young girl ball players to come to realize that they’re not alone and you don’t have to hide. I hid for 75, 85 years, and this is actually, basically the first time I’ve ever come out,” she said as the audience cheered.

Like Blair, everyone deserves to find a space and moment that makes them feel safe. For many queer people, this safety came from a show, A League of Their Own.

It revamps the classic 1992 American sports comedy-drama of the same name, but its approach and the kind of stories being highlighted is different.

Taking Queer Stories Beyond Tragedy

It’d be unfair to claim that queer storytelling hasn’t evolved a lot in the past decade but positive queer stories are still scarce. Even within those stories, queer characters often fall victim to tragedies or are used as tokenism in a predominantly straight storyline.

A League of Their Own, created by Abbi Jacobson and Will Graham, makes the decision to focus entirely on queer joy and resilience. Their decision to do so is made even more impressive by the fact that the story is set in the 1940s when there were extremely dire consequences to being outed (as several queer content set in that time period would point out).

But ALOTO wants its audience to look beyond that bleak reality and focus instead on the idea of found families and community, and above all else, the resilience that comes from love.

Many fans (yours truly included) pointed out that they were surprised when both main characters of the show were queer. Almost every person I’ve talked to who has watched the show at least once, exclaimed, “Wait, that's gay too?!”

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Kay, 18, recalls, "When I first started A League of Their Own, I went in with zero idea what it was about, I only knew that D'Arcy Carden (who I adore) was in it and that she played a lesbian. I was soon completely invested in every storyline, which is credited to the extremely good writing by Will Graham and Abbi Jacobson."

"But the aspect that blew my mind the most was how real the show's portrayal of queer people is - there was no playing into stereotypes and Carson's and Max's discoveries of queer places reminded me of when I went to a queer bar for the first time with my friends. I can't even begin to imagine how many people have found and are finding a sense of community in the ALOTO fandom."

Kay

This is primarily because of how often TV seems to be structured to be made palatable to the majority. Trolls online often say things like, “Everything is gay now,” and the entire time they’re talking about one gay or lesbian character in a story that isn’t even about them.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is being lauded (and criticised) for becoming more inclusive for queer scenes that last 6-7 seconds of its entire runtime (Eternals excluded) even when they seem to be shot in a way where they could easily be edited out. You can’t edit out the queer stories in ALOTO.

ALOTO follows Carson Shaw (Abbi Jacobson) on her journey of discovery (of both her sense of self and sexuality) after she becomes part of a baseball team, the Rockford Peaches. The women in the team, especially one Greta Gill (D’arcy Carden), then become a part of the community she lacked back at home.

The show also brilliantly explores how Carson and Greta take different approaches to their queer identity based on their life's experiences – Carson’s is all about exploration and happiness while Greta is concerned with safety and rules.

ALOTO isn’t denying reality – it has been and still is very dangerous for queer people to just exist and find happiness – but pop culture would often have you believe that it’s impossible.

ALOTO (2022) Centers More Stories That Matter

Carson Shaw isn’t the only protagonist on ALOTO. Her story runs parallel to Maxine Chapman (Chanté Adams), a Black woman who is a star pitcher but doesn’t even get to try out for the AAGPBL because of her race. Through her story, the show explores how corrosive racial inequality can be and how important it is to see Black love on the screen.

Cinema hasn’t been kind to Black people, especially when it comes to family.

There have been stereotypical portrayals of Black men as fathers in pop culture as far as the eye can see but ALOTO shows Black families as strong, supportive units, with their own set of problems that they tackle together.

When Max meets her uncle Bert (Lea Robinson), she, too, is confronted by new aspects of her identity to explore, while also finding her own community. Bert's character is one of the most honest and sensitive portrayals of a transmasculine person in ages.

To see a character like Bert build a happy life with his wife, while not ignoring the struggles he faced to get there, is going to be important for generations of trans kids who rarely get to see themselves represented in media.

ALOTO's sixth episode, titled ‘Stealing Home’ is a perfect (albeit gut-wrenching) encapsulation of how well the show’s makers understand queerness.

In the episode, we see Greta finally opening up to a possibility of safety and happiness with Carson which leads to her setting her rules aside for a bit. We also see Max take larger strides towards welcoming Bert into her life and finding what fits best for her.

Before the episode’s heartbreaking (but important) climax, we see every queer character find a sense of joy – with their partners and within their community – and when this bubble is brutally burst, one can only blame the world they’re in, not them or their identity.

We’re Queer and We’re Here

It’s not uncommon for bigots to treat the queer community as something of a ‘trend’ in an attempt to discredit the community’s place in society. However, stories like A League of Their Own prove that these stories have always existed but now, finally, have a safe space to be showcased.

While ALOTO strives to show its audience that queer and trans voices have existed much before the events at Stonewall, the show makes a point about how harmful homophobia or transphobia have always been.

By focusing solely on queer joy, it shows viewers not simply what homophobia is but what it destroys in its wake.

Heather, 27, says, "A League of Their Own is the show that I needed nearly 15 years ago when I was outed by a “friend” in high school. At the time, the amount of representation I could access was queerbait-y and problematic at best but I clung to it. There was rarely joy in that media but what choice did I have? I was lonely without a real queer community around me and I was still closeted at home."

"Joy. Joy is something we so rarely see with Queer people in media. They are always getting hurt, breaking up or dying! But ALOTO shows people being happy and in love and sure there is heartbreak and sadness, thats just a part of life. We’re not asking for a utopia here, we want it to be realistic. And this show captures that. There are Queer people in love, and Queer people with platonic love."

Heather to The Quint

"Community is so important to Queer people and this show does an incredible job at capturing the real community we have always been creating for ourselves. Through this show I have been able to find a little community of my own with some of the most wonderful, kind, funny and talented people on the internet," she adds.

In A League of Their Own, Greta Gill spends all her time creating a shield of hyper-femininity because it protects her from being seen as ‘queer’. It’s one of the rules she uses to keep herself safe and yet, the same femininity means that she must deal with unwanted advances from men or catcalling from the stands.

Through her character and those of Lupe Garcia (Roberta Colindrez) and Jess McCready (Kelly McCormack), ALOTO explores how femininity and masculinity play a role in the way queer people are perceived – for instance when Jess almost loses her spot in the team for not wearing make-up or Greta pointing out what the 'real purpose' of the makeover exercise is.

And even then, it tells a story of queer resilience. Like the scenes between Max and Bert & Gracie (Patrice Covington) and Greta & Carson meeting Edie (Stephanie Erb) & Vi (Rosie O'Donnell), the show represents hope for queer people across the spectrum.

Despite the night’s events (in episode 6), Jo (Melanie Field) stays put even though she and Greta are so used to running, because Jo deLuca has found a space for herself outside of her friendship. Greta and Carson both still find a safe space with each other and beyond. And Max dances the night away and also gets the girl.

Despite all her rules, Greta is always willing to fight and put herself at risk for the people she loves. She also finds a community and purpose through the league (and love and a future to look forward to).

Jess and Lupe find brotherhood in their time together.

Max truly understands her gender identity through her relationships with her mother and Bert, while shedding perceptions that both of them have about her even if it means cutting some familial ties and joining others.

As bell hooks had said, “Queer as not being about who you're having sex with, that can be a dimension of it but queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”

A League of Their Own (2022) isn’t interested in telling queer stories for the sake of it or exploiting trauma for its goal. It isn’t interested in making the real-life experiences of queer and/or Black people palatable to a majority.

It’s interested, instead, in telling the stories of real people like Maybelle Blair or Jackie Ormes (the first African-American woman cartoonist who inspires Gbemisola Ikumelo’s Clance Morgan) or the numerous Black women who played baseball in factory league teams in the 1940s and 50s.

And it does so, and does so perfectly. A League of Their Own is streaming on Amazon Prime.

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