Girls Can’t Surf

Girls Can’t Surf is a documentary that takes a deep dive into the troubled waters of women’s surfing in the 80s and 90s. Featuring interviews with surfing greats such as Jodie Cooper, Frieda Zamba and Pauline Menczer, alongside archival footage from interviews, news reports and more, it highlights the depths of institutionalised misogyny in the sporting world and celebrates the athletes who challenged the status quo and made huge splashes in the industry as a whole and paved the way for future generations of women surfers.

It’s a fairly long documentary, clocking in at just under two hours, but it makes excellent use of every minute to paint a detailed and comprehensive picture of the state of women’s surfing during the period, covering the depths and breadth of discrimination along a series of axes, including the intersection of misogyny and homophobia, as well as the ways that sexism interacted with the mechanics of capitalism through things such as the gender pay gap and the constant presence of the male gaze in marketing.

It also does a great job of balancing interviews with archival footage to keep things engaging, but more importantly to give the frank and powerful testimonies of the various women featured in the documentary the narrative space they need to breathe. The editing on the archival sections is dripping with the vibes of the 80s and 90s, providing some fun visuals that contrast effectively with the absurd and upsetting situations described by the athletes, juxtaposing the idealised images of bygone eras with the troubling realities of discrimination and disrespect.

Overall, Girls Can’t Surf is a brilliant documentary that manages to be both entertaining and informative, examining the misogynistic underbelly of the sporting world, representing the uphill struggles that these athletes had to overcome and commemorating the women who overcame them. It’s also a film with valuable lessons to teach about the importance of organisation and unity in the face of institutional prejudice; timeless lessons for sure, but also ones that feel particularly poignant in our current socio-political climate.

Umar Ali

Girls Can’t Surf is released nationwide on 19^th August 2022.

Watch the trailer for Girls Can’t Surf here: