Just a Big Sexy Joke?

Abstract

In February 2011, after a year of lobbying, the UKRDA was admitted as a member of the British Roller Sports Federation (BRSF), which ‘officially recognized roller derby as a UK sport’ (UKRDA, 2011: n/p). When the UKRDA announced this news online, one participant remarked, ‘Now no one from any other sport can say roller derby isn’t a real sport’ (CeeCee, field notes, February 2011; see Breeze, 2013). While there was an emergent consensus among participants that roller derby was simply and self-evidently a real, serious, sport, preoccupations with getting taken seriously, and with how to achieve recognition from bodies like the BRSF, as well as those real and imagined others who might ‘say roller derby isn’t a real sport’, continued. Such a situation implies an ‘in-group’, which takes roller derby seriously, and a diffuse notion of ‘outsiders’ who skaters perceive as preemptively dismissing roller derby as ‘just a big sexy joke’. Getting taken seriously hinges on recognition as participants anticipate and reflect upon how they are perceived by both specific and generalized others (Goffman, 1959; Mead, 1967). Getting taken seriously means settling the question of whether or not roller derby is a ‘real sport’ and means becoming unequivocally intelligible as ‘real, legitimate, serious sport’.