Wednesday 3 July 2013

Now for some art

So one of the ladies I used to skate with back at VDL (Cruel-Roller De'Ville) is also is in the States now, going to cartoon school in Vermont. Roller made a comic about the state of Men's Derby in Vermont. It looks like this:



The merby issue is an interesting one. There are no sports I can think of which are predominantly female oriented that don't also have an element of the athlete doing things that look good-- the "looking good" ones I had in mind were gymnastics, figure skating and cheerleading (hell, there are few sports I can think of which are predominantly female oriented at all). I am totally on the fence about whether or not merby poses a threat to derby as we know it. Recently, the best mens' derby league at the moment (Your Mom) beat Gotham at a private scrimmage, and there was a lot of talk of the men coming in to take our sport away or whatever. I don't think that's the case, but I can see the worry if you're not willing to share the sport or whatever.

On the other side of the fence, I also know some men who think "Merby" is a derogatory term. I'm not sure exactly why but maybe it goes along the line of "moobs" and "murse" as well. To be fair, I don't see it as derogatory but it's not great; you could just call it "derby" for everyone without needing to make that distinction. It's like, why do you need to say "female doctor" or "female parliamentarian" or something when they are just doctors and parliamentarians?

Roller's full comic is here.