Color Barriers In The Film: The Brooklyn Dodgers

A film transpired in the 1940s, focused on the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey, refusing Major League Baseball’s notorious color barrier by signing legendary player, Jackie Robinson. Robinson, originally a shortstop from the Kansas City Monarchs, was challenged in a variety of ways when stepping onto the field for his debut with Montreal, then to the MLB Brooklyn Dodgers where he made world history. Given this period, Robinson was not comforted by other Black baseball players on the field. Instead, being tested on a day-to-day basis by White supremacists, he was told to play the game having the guts not to fight back. Robinson accepted this position and led the Brooklyn Dodgers to win its first World Series title. The road

Prejudice, the open and overt beliefs, attitudes, or opinions against a particular race or another identity, usually by a person or a smaller group, is transparent throughout the entire film. As Robinson breaks the color barrier in the MLB many individuals, teammates, coaches, and fans despise him for it, despite it being Branch Rickey who wanted a Black man to make their debut. When the Brooklyn Dodgers faced the Philadelphia Phillies, the coach blatantly expressed his hatred towards the idea of a Black man playing in a White man's sport. The coach, Ben Chapman, made racial comments while Robinson was up to bat, saying “leave your hat on the ground, maybe somebody will throw some money in it for ya,” implying that Blacks are poor. In addition, Chapman had signaled for his pitcher to purposely aim the ball at Robinson while up to bat, instead of playing the game fairly and throwing strikes. He even made spiteful references to Robinson, telling him to go back to the cotton gin and calling him a brown monkey. In almost all the games Robinson played he would experience some form of prejudice. Whether he was hit by a pitch, escorted off the field by a police officer midway through the game, or booed at by the crowd, he was never fully accepted as a player. All of these scenes of Robinson playing baseball were

That is, the unequal treatment and perceptions of individuals and groups, specifically females, that are produced and embedded into institutions. Within the MLB institution, not a single woman worked for it. Managers were men. Coaches were men. Sportswriters were men. The announcers were men. Everything and anything that revolved around the baseball games had a man doing the job. Instead, women were portrayed as having typical women-like jobs. Ray Robinson, was the average stay-at-home wife, and mother. Lucy, a young White woman, was Robinson’s babysitter for their firstborn child. And even in some scenes of the film, women would be mentioned in conversation because of their exceptional cooking skills. It was very stereotypical that the women had the household jobs, caring for their families, while the men had jobs outside of the house, supporting their families. What this truly demonstrated was the concept known as the glass ceiling effect. Glass ceiling is the barriers that women face in the workplace that prevent them from reaching a higher position. In this film, barriers prevented women from working in the sports industry. They were unable to reach their full potential, solely because of their gender. Whether the women wanted to work in the sports industry or not, they were simply not given the opportunity. Despite Robinson being able to