re: The real Dottie lives in West Monroe

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1) It goes against the hero's journey of Dottie

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Getting beaten is a valid lesson of life. So Dottie has to be infallible to justify this as a good story? There's no way that accepting the humility of defeat makes a decent story. This game was her one chance to have this kind of success in the game for her team. Her quitting afterword and joining her family was going to happen regardless of the outcome. It does not simply become she quit because she failed. She missed her one opportunity. It happens.

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2) The quote to the grandson at the beginning

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I honestly don't even remember. It's been years since I've seen the movie. I need to rewatch it to see if I can glean a different interpretation.

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3) Penny Marshall herself said that Dottie dropped it on purpose.

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Getting beaten is a valid lesson of life. So Dottie has to be infallible to justify this as a good story? There's no way that accepting the humility of defeat makes a decent story. This game was her one chance to have this kind of success in the game for her team. Her quitting afterword and joining her family was going to happen regardless of the outcome. It does not simply become she quit because she failed. She missed her one opportunity. It happens.

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All fine and dandy, but the movie isn't about getting beaten. It's primarily about family, Dottie's current and future family. Her baseball team serves as a surrogate family until she figures it out.

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I honestly don't even remember. It's been years since I've seen the movie. I need to rewatch it to see if I can glean a different interpretation.

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I don't know the exact quote off the top of my head but it's something to the effect of:

"Sometimes you have to go easy on your little brother."

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Ah, yeah there's probably no discussion here if the author doesn't have any control over their text. (Granted that's a popular opinion, but all it means is that nothing has any meaning whatsoever.)

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Don't understand your point. So because it doesn't follow some predetermined formula that you deem to be correct story telling, the facts of the situation as they are laid out are irrelevent?

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First, stories work because they follow ingrained mythical structures in culture. Second, even if you leave open the idea that movies must not follow that structure, ALotO is not that film. It is a conventional film using conventional narrative tropes. Third, even if you want to argue that, Kit is literally the same person from the beginning all the way until the end. Remember, until they meet at the very end, they hadn't seen each other for several years.

So unless you want to argue that League is either an experimental film that flips narrative structure on its head, within which Marshall would patently deny, OR that a good story can be one where a lack of character development and a singular event make the story about said character is an effective way of getting your meaning across, then yes, the fact that that particular interpretation does not follow a predetermined formula makes those specific facts irrelevant.

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Freauxzen

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Exactly, man. I just don't see how people think she didn't drop it on purpose. It is the crux of the damn movie. If she doesn't drop it on purpose, the movie fails utterly. Dottie has in no way emerged from her competition above all mentality. She in no way different than before. In essence, war wins (in this movie, it is pretty clear that baseball is used as a metaphor for war).

Not only does this movie follow standard movie tropes, but it is undoubtedly about Dottie. Period. Anyone who thinks otherwise isn't watching the movie, they are picking their noses.

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First, stories work because they follow ingrained mythical structures in culture.

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Sure. But the story telling process isn't nearly as rigid as you make it seem. There are slight changes of perspective on old lessons and characters.

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OR that a good story can be one where a lack of character development and a singular event make the story about said character is an effective way of getting your meaning across

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The story can still be about Dottie and her development without reaching the same conclusion as you have come.

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I tend to favor audience's personal interpretations and feelings of stories. It's what is really important to me. It sort of comes down to which is the story that you prefer. Or you can simply leave it at ambiguity.

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See, I spent too much time in graduate school for this level of relativism. Or maybe that's why I left. The audience is one of the most unimportant ideas to me in interpretation. The audience's perception is only important within the frame of the author's intentions and barriers.

The problem with focusing on the audience is that:
The audience as a collective is unreliable
The individual does not have enough information to properly assess anything until the very end, and even then they may see things incorrectly
The audience will bend information to its will, popularity rules

The author sets the rules, reveals the story, and offers the meaning, the audience has no part in that and they cannot be entrusted with such a process. If I can't trust a tenured professor and a major public university when it comes to interpretation, then I can't really trust anyone.

(Note: That's an extreme opinion, molded from the fires of post-modernism, structuralism, psycho-analysis and a ongoing battle with the humanities in post-secondary education.= and beyond.)

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Exactly, man. I just don't see how people think she didn't drop it on purpose. It is the crux of the damn movie. If she doesn't drop it on purpose, the movie fails utterly. Dottie has in no way emerged from her competition above all mentality. She in no way different than before. In essence, war wins (in this movie, it is pretty clear that baseball is used as a metaphor for war).

Not only does this movie follow standard movie tropes, but it is undoubtedly about Dottie. Period. Anyone who thinks otherwise isn't watching the movie, they are picking their noses.

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That's another problem. Look at the first page, it's the "Dottie was beaten" folks that immediately invoke insanity or stupidity. I know it's half-joking, but it's an interesting move.

I bring up CHOICE because that's the most important part of the ending. Getting beaten is not a choice. Getting beaten and then giving up is not a choice. It's a forced action. Dottie made a choice to drop it.

Compare it to the very end of the Godfather. The whole movie comes down to Micheal shutting the door on Kay. Me made a direct choice. That was the point of that scene.

Now, had someone been holding a gun to Micheal's head, or said, "Hey Mike, if you devote your life to us for good, and live the mob life, we'll pay you $10,000,000 per month for the rest of your life," it fails. And so does the movie. That scene loses all it's power if Micheal doesn't choose to shut Kay out, if he doesn't choose in the face of all that is logical, to devote his life to this for the forseeable future, then the fall isn't complete. It isn't really a fall. It's a coerced action.

All great hero stories involve CHOICE. It's not about winning or losing, I think that's the focus for the other side. It isn't about athletic skill. It's about Dottie's choice in relation to her family. There is literally no other way to interpret it.

I see the audience (define the audience as myself really) as being the entire reason for telling a story. Without that the story is never actualized. A story of true depth (probably not A League of Their Own) can sometimes convey meaning that the other never even thought of intending when mixed with the perspective of the consumer. This is the true fun of fiction for me.