A League of Their Own: Deep Thoughts About Bittersweet Feminism, the Threat of Girl Athletes, and What's Wrong With Dottie and Kit's Rivalry

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There's no crying in baseball!

This week on Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t, Tracie returns to the 1992 Penny Marshall comedy A League of Their Own. Both Guy sisters loved the unabashed feminism and women-centered storytelling of this film when it debuted, and much of movie holds up to their Gen X nostalgia. Marshall lets the audience see how being part of a team creates a sense of belonging and self-worth, how women must excel as an athlete and a lady to be taken seriously, and how putting any kind of qualifier before the word "athlete" becomes a threat to the status quo.

But the feminism isn't entirely joyful, in part because this isn't just 90s era pop culture, but historical fiction based on a real baseball league. And unfortunately, the real-world misogyny Marshall illuminates via feel-good feminism hasn't gone away. It's alive and well and continues to devalue women's abilities, skills, and contributions even in 2026.

Don't worry! There's no need to run to catch this podcast. Just put on your headphones and listen in!

Tags

deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, feminism, pop culture, women, film, comedy, gen x nostalgia, storytelling, movies, cultural commentary, penny marshall, baseball, classic movies, film analysis, nostalgia, 80s and 90s movies, geena davis, tom hanks, analyzing film tropes

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

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