Lady Ballers: Airball, by Tyler Smith

As a critic, I don’t begrudge a movie having a point of view. I may disagree with it – indeed, I might even condemn it – but I believe that every film deserves its day in court. This should not be, I think, a controversial stance, as critics have been more than willing to have academic discussions about such films as Battleship Potemkin and Triumph of the Will, movies that served as literal propaganda for two of the most monstrous regimes in history. These films are studied less for what they represent as much as how they represent it. It helps that the films are actually well-made; it better allows the viewer to move past their contemptible origins and focus instead on their artistic achievements. When such films have achieved nothing artistically, there is very little to keep us from focusing on the films’ message and whether we agree or not. This is most certainly the case with Jeremy Boreing‘s Lady Ballers, a virtually laugh-free satire of trans athletes participating in female sports. Presented by conservative website The Daily Wire, the film’s misanthropic tone, unlikeable characters, uneven pacing, questionable casting, and various self-indulgences leaving very little to suggest that it is anything other than a blunt political statement intended only for those who already agree with it. 

Perhaps that is the problem. When you make a movie solely for your most sympathetic audience, you begin to take their forgiveness for granted. As such, you are less likely to put in the work that you otherwise would were the audience more broad. The result is a movie of shrugs and dismissals, utterly convinced that anybody who might challenge it can be easily written off as wrong-headed. There is no need for improvement when you tune out anybody that suggests you need it. 

Lady Ballers attempts to inoculate itself against criticism the same way a Michael Moore or a Seth Rogen might: by rubbing our faces in so much silliness that we look like fools for taking its messages seriously. Of course, this does not mean that the film is not message-focused; only that it has no interest in actually starting a discussion. It makes its points, then immediately crouches behind the comedy shield to discourage scrutiny. 

The story involves a has-been high school basketball coach (Boreing himself) who attempts to reinvigorate his career by exploiting changing attitudes towards women’s athletics. By dressing up male players as women and having them identify as trans, the team can dominate the WNBA and reap the financial rewards in doing so. This results in the brutalizing of female players on the court, often met with enthusiastic acceptance from a liberal crowd that sees nothing wrong with this. 

Like anything else, there are laughs to be mined from this concept. But it requires a steady directorial hand to make sure the tone is just right. Sadly, Boreing is unable – or unwilling – to navigate such a tightrope. Instead, he tries to find humor in the histrionic, directing his cast to scream and flail around in the hopes that the audience will confuse volume with comedy. 

It doesn’t take much time to see that the film’s biggest influence is Rawson Marshall Thurber’s Dodgeball, another over-the-top sports comedy. But where that film features an ensemble of affable, goofy protagonists, Lady Ballers is full of screeching, misanthropes who are not only unlikeable, but unsympathetic. Playing these misfits is a roster of Daily Wire contributors instead of real actors. It’s a bold strategy, to be sure, but it doesn’t quite pay off for them. Instead we have awful characters played by people with no idea of how to imbue them with anything more.

But then, the film doesn’t have any real incentive to be anything more. Its audience comes in already fully prepared to embrace it, no matter how many artistic hurdles they have to jump. In this way, Lady Ballers is really no different than the documentaries of Michael Moore or the recent films of Adam McKay. It does not attempt to engage the audience, but instead to lecture half of it while giving the other half a pat on the head. These could be talked about in the same sentence as the propaganda films of the 1920s and 30s. But, whereas those films were trying to manipulate the audience, this film, and those like it, isn’t even that ambitious. It is not interested in convincing its intended viewers of its point of view, but in congratulating them for already having it.