By Michelle Reyes Boon and Dara Poizner
With the 2026 World Cup at our doorstep in Toronto, we figured it was high time for some grlish counterprogramming. We were thrilled to host a screening of She’s the Man at Fox Theatre this past weekend, and it got us thinking about the enduring significance of this film – which turns 20 this year (happy birthday, you icon).
Women in Sport
Even if you love the beautiful game, there is, shall we say, a certain hypermasculine posturing that comes with sports culture that can be extremely alienating to anyone who isn’t a straight cis man. Most of what our protagonist Viola experiences in this movie is just a funhouse mirror version of the actual lived experiences of women in sport. In a tale as old as time – the underfunding of women’s sports – the girl’s soccer team at Viola’s high school is cut. So, she takes matters into her own hands and does what any teenager with a wig and a dream would do: impersonates her twin brother Sebastian at his boarding school to try out for the boys team. The barrier Viola faces in pursuing a soccer career is not a lack of talent but, unquestionably, a lack of opportunity – and, let’s be real, overt misogyny. Her coach literally tells her "Girls aren't as smart as boys, or strong, or athletic. This is not me talking, it's a scientific fact. Girls can't beat boys, it's as simple as that." (Jail.) Viola is told she shouldn’t aspire to the career she deserves. She’s told not to dream big. But she dares to do so anyways, and through some moderate-to-severe suspension of disbelief, we follow her dream to its illogical extreme. This may not be how you or I cope with experiences of gender imparity, but boy is it fun to watch. And yes, tampon up the nose is comedy gold, but also scratches the surface of all the gendered hurdles Viola faces as an athlete. None of those boys have to worry about a period!
The film paints the performance of femininity with exaggerated frills that put it at odds with Viola’s soccer dreams. See her nightmare sequence, stumbling through a bellicose soccer match in a cake-like ballgown. Trying to become a soccer star is hard enough while gluing on fake sideburns, but Viola also has added labour that her boy teammates don’t have: the labour of being a lady. In stark contrast to playing as a boy on the soccer field, Viola performs hyperfeminity as a resistant debutante, attending an exhausting luncheon with polished women who treat her like a feral cat, and reluctantly volunteering at the kissing booth for the Junior League fundraiser. Duke’s mom is also in Junior League! Where is his degrading task? Noteworthy as well is the fact that Viola is only at the centre of this chaos to begin with because she’s covering for Sebastian who absconded to London. It calls to mind the invisible labour women disproportionately shoulder – like being the person who makes the grocery list, or keeps the peace in the family – which can certainly be a barrier to sport (or any career for that matter). In Viola’s case, she can’t put all her focus on soccer, because she’s busy quick-changing and kissing strangers at a carnival to cover for her brother and appease her mother.
A Queer Reading
With the romance plotlines centring a main character who’s actively living in drag, She’s the Man, like its Shakespearean source material, consistently plays with same sex attraction. See the tagline on the poster.
So, though not explicitly, She’s the Man has also earned a reputation as a queer film. A product of a time where trans, genderqueer, and nonbinary identities were not being authentically or earnestly represented in popular media – if they were being represented at all – it’s safe to assume that She’s the Man did not set out to be a trans allegory. But it’s become a staple in representation of gender performance and nonconformity nonetheless. In an article for them, culture writer James Factora breaks down the themes, imagery, and the surprising renewed relevance of the film as a matter of trans representation. They write: “There’s a playfulness in the movie’s approach to gender that I resonate with more deeply than a lot of “canonical” representations of transness that have since been made. [...] Until very recently, a lot of trans art that is specifically about transness has largely been characterized by excessive self-seriousness. [...] But as conditions grow more dire [...], artists in our community are turning away from respectability and toward absurdity, a shift that makes old gender swap movies feel newly relevant again.”
Dated references and jokes aside, there is clearly something about a woman absolutely determined to become a pro athlete against the odds that still captures the cultural imagination.
20 Years On
Women’s sports is booming now more than ever with the arrival of the Professional Women’s Hockey League, soccer’s Northern Super League (NSL), and the Toronto Tempo joining the WNBA. The opportunities for professional women in sport have skyrocketed, and so has public support. A national study released last year shows 41% of Canadians see women’s sports as a national investment, and as of last November, the federal government has committed to investing five and half million into the NSL. And that representation has huge potential for impact. On the NSL, Allison Sandmeyer-Graves, the CEO of Canadian Women in Sport said, “Boys know that men’s soccer matters. Girls don’t get that message. Now, in six cities across Canada, girls can go watch women play. It’s even more exciting to think about what things are going to look like five years, ten years from now.”
Women are being paid to play at the highest competitive level, and girls at home are watching. While the gap between men and women isn’t exactly closing, we are seeing a shift towards a culture that celebrates and bets on women’s sports. In 2006, we cheered for Viola to stick it to the boys and prove that she could play just as hard as they could, if not harder. 20 years later, in 2026, we’re seeing the rise of a new landscape – the one the real-life Violas helped build.