Shauna Cross says she spent her high school days running laps as punishment in gym class.
'Whip It' screenwriter Shauna Cross
She wasn’t a poor athlete. She just “had to find the joke, to say something funny,” Cross recalls.
The skill proved prophetic when she strapped on the skates as Maggie Mayhem, a budding Roller Derby star and outlet for the fledgling screenwriter.
Her curious skill set came in handy when she sat down to write “Derby Girl,” the novel that inspired the film "Whip It."
The film, directed by Drew Barrymore, hits DVD and Blu-ray shelves this week. Ellen Page stars as Bliss, an adrift teen who finds a second home when she joins the local roller derby team.
Cross says she originally took up roller derby for a healthy alternative to trendy workouts like Pilates.
“It was the perfect elixir,” she says. “Do some ass kicking when you’re getting your ass kicked as a screenwriter.”
She quickly found a home with her squad.
“I’m a very girly girl. I don’t have tattoos. I don’t look like a derby girl,” she says. “But that’s what I love about the sport. You can create a different persona … I was really taken with that.“
“That’s why I’m a writer,” she adds.
Cross saw a different side of Barrymore on the set of their new film project.
“The real Drew is smarter, sharper and more calculating [in person],” Cross says of Barrymore, who makes her directorial debut with “Whip It.”
“It’s inspiring to see how her success is not an accident. She works really hard,” Cross says. “In this business it‘s good for girls to have other role models.”
The two were on the same page regarding “Whip It,” They didn’t see the film as a broad comedy in the vein of “Dodgeball.”
“She wanted to show the real derby,” she says of Barrymore. “The real thing happening in the sport was kind of cooler than that.”
She also thinks roller derby represents a new chapter in feminism, one which empowers women to take charge of their lives.
Feminism often operates under “the historical umbrella” of victim hood, she says.
“Women at the end of the day are so much more powerful than we give ourselves credit for,” she says. “We are one another’s best advocates and worst enemies.“
Roller derby simply reflects that new reality.
“You can be bad ass and still wear makeup. It‘s a little more open [now],” she says.
Christian Toto is a veteran journalist and film critic whose work appears in The Denver Post, The Washington Times and PajamasMedia.com. He blogs on film at What Would Toto Watch?
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