Strong women in movies are still the anomaly

[narya]

That's a great quote, Alatar.

I also like this one from Justice Ginsburg: "People ask me sometimes, when — when do you think it - will it be enough? When will there be enough women on the court? And my answer is when there are nine."

We don't bat an eyelash when there is an adventure story with one or two women (LOTR books, The Italian Job, Oceans Eleven, any James Bond movie). And we might even praise the strong woman character. But when will we have an adventure flick where the leading actors, and the whole cast, is 50% women, or 99% women? And not be relegated to the pink aisle of movies?

Oh wait, there's Charlie's Angels.

I really need to get out more. Or get Netflix.

Or wait until real life becomes egalitarian.

[Alatar]

Don't forget Ghostbusters!

[Frelga]

Was it good? The premise (as I understood it) of "like the original but with women" wasn't enough to entice me, but now I can't stop listening to Ellie King's song.

[Primula Baggins]

We watched it as part of our New Year's Eve film fest. It was funny and well worth the time. Not iconic like the original, but those are some really funny women. Plus Chris Hemsworth as the gorgeous but brainless secretary.

I'm also realizing that my definition of "iconic" weights heavily toward "I liked it a lot when I was young." Some movies in that category hold up when I revisit them. Some don't.

[narya]

Just watched Hidden Figures. That was great! Strong, smart women who carried the day! And men who, after a little education, realized how strong and smart they were. And Jim Crow . I spent part of a summer in the South in the 60s, wondering how such an abominable system could have happened and been supported.

We could have gotten to the moon a lot sooner if we had appreciated all of our talented citizens.

[anthriel]

There was Mr and Mrs Smith.
Not a great movie, but certainly Mrs Smith could smack down Mr.

You know, this leads me to a bit of a tangential thought.

As many of you probably do not know (because I have been rather scarce here of late) my darling little girl anthling has taken up MMA (mixed martial arts) with a vengeance. She is an AMAZING fighter, and trains for hours 5 days a week. She comes home with bruises and swellings and limps and bumps, and goes back for more because she loves the sport. At 5'9", she is hardly a small girl, but 95% of her gym is male. Most of the people she "rolls" with (my mind MUST be better disciplined, it does tend to drift on terms like these) are men. Many are large men. She does well within the confines of her sport.

And her constant anthem is that women are being taught... through movies, anime, TV shows, etc... that they can all "smack down" on men. And that, she says, needs to stop.

While she feels like she herself might have a chance defending herself from a random drunk attacker ("Anyone can get in a lucky punch" she says. "But if can get them on the ground? Yeah, I probably can put them out". I can't tell you how proud I am of her), most women would not. Brute force, which men have more of generally speaking, will prevail. She teaches self-defense to women, but the premise is always to break a hold, or distract the attacker with pain, to GET AWAY. Not to defeat. To flee.

She hates all the roundhouse kicks to the head that women are shown giving in movies and such. She just feels like presenting that idea, that women can out-fight men on an average day, is misleading and potentially dangerous.

[Impenitent]

Anth, I completely agree with that!

With regards to that movie, I was speaking a little tongue in cheek, but in the real world, most women don't outweigh men, don't out-reach men and don't out-muscle men -- and, on the whole, women are socialised not to be physical in confrontation.
When I did self-defence classes, we also were taught to disengage and run. There are some women - well-trained and well-practised - who can beat a male assailant, but on the whole we do women a dangerous disservice in encouraging them to think all women can be trained to do it.

(As an aside, at our final assessment, I disregarded all I had been taught and found myself kicking my 'assailant' - actually one of our trainers - in the head in a berserker rage. I shocked myself.)


Posting on phone via Tapatalk

[Frelga]

Disengage and run was what I was taught, too. Well, in part. The instructor was a police officer. We trained with boys but did not spar with them (beginner class, none of us had much control). He trained the boys to compete and the girls for self defense, to inflict maximum damage in minimum number of blows and then run without checking for signs of life.

But it always bugs me when movies show a woman who is not a trained fighter punches a man in the face and just knocks him down. In reality, she'd probably break her hand without doing much damage to him.

I had that problem with Peggy Carter in the First Avenger movie. In the TV series, her fight scenes are much more realistic, with her bashing people with the nearest heavy object ("They are still removing the staples.")

[anthriel]

I'm not editing my post above, but it should have read "lumps and bumps". Although my anthling does limp, too, more often than I would like.

Imp, I knew it was tongue in cheek! Your words just triggered a dormant, and only tangently related, thought.

[yovargas]

Really like the idea of anthling kicking much butt. Perhaps literally.

[anthriel]

She does, yov. She completely dominated the first two matches I saw her compete in. In one match, her opponent briefly lost consciousness. My anthling's response? "She should have tapped out."

Apparently.

[Maria]

She hates all the roundhouse kicks to the head that women are shown giving in movies and such.

Kicks to head height are very slow. Never a good idea. The obvious counter is to catch the leg.

As an aside, at our final assessment, I disregarded all I had been taught and found myself kicking my 'assailant' - actually one of our trainers - in the head in a berserker rage.

Was the trainer on the ground?

My pet peeve with women in fight scenes is how scrawny the woman usually is when shown beating up a man. There's just no muscle under her skin. How do they think the blow is going to land with any sort of effective force? The only exception to this is those skinny women who have supernatural strength of some sort. I bet Anthy's daughter doesn't have stick thin arms.

I also hate fight scenes that go on for minutes. If the people involved are experts, then any blow that lands ought to cause injury.

[Sunsilver]

"I bet Anthy's daughter doesn't have stick-thin arms."

Maria, that's a MAJOR pet peeve of mine, too! When the actress who plays Wonder Woman in the most recent flick started training for the role, the thickest part of her arm was the elbow joint! And that's pretty much par for the course for models and an awful lot of the actresses out there. There is still a major taboo against women 'bulking up' enough to show any sort of muscle! They have them lifting these puny 5 and 10 lb. weights, over and over again.

[Is tempted to post that picture I have of Sassafras during her body-building days...]

I recently joined the gym at Base Borden, and was pleasantly surprised that as a result of my job, and previous jobs that had involved using my upper body, I could still do 12 alternating bicep curls with a 15 lb. dumb bell.

Watched "Winter Soldier" last night, and totally agree about those fight scenes that go on forever, without anyone getting hurt. Oh, and especially when Cap was getting blown up, and running through machine gun fire with nothing but his shield to protect him, and emerging pretty much without a scratch... After awhile, you're just going 'ho hum...can we PLEASE get on with the story??'

[Impenitent]

As an aside, at our final assessment, I disregarded all I had been taught and found myself kicking my 'assailant' - actually one of our trainers - in the head in a berserker rage.

Was the trainer on the ground? [/quote]

Yes, I had broken his hold and then somehow managed to get him to the ground and started laying into him.

It was quite frightening to me, to be honest, because I couldn't remember/work out how I did that. I recall breaking the choke hold but nothing much of the process after that until I realised I was kicking the guy in the head. He was wearing a helmet and protective vest, so no harm done except to my psyche.


Posting on phone via Tapatalk

[anthriel]

No, my daughter does not have stick thin arms. She is actually quite broad shouldered, naturally, and all the exercise has emphasized that. And she's got some guns on her, yes she does.

Impy, I totally understand that sort of berserker moment! My daughter says this is quite common in newbies; they panic and flail. She says that if she can wait that out somehow, they exhaust themselves in minutes. She wins.

She talks about 90% of the challenge of her sport being mental, and I believe that. If someone were choking me, to be able to logically assess the situation and choose how to break that hold rather than panic would be beyond me. My lizard brain flares up pretty fast.

Sunny, that is impressive! I can't do anything like that. You are very strong!

[Sunsilver]

Goes back to my nursing days, mostly...

I sometimes see nursing friends post stuff like this on FB: "So you went to the gym and lifted weights after work.. that's nice.

I lifted patients all day long!"

My first real nursing job was doing night duty for a man with M.S. I had to get him into bed (had a Hoyer lift for that) undress him, do percussion therapy on his chest, then settle him for the night. I also had to reposition him several times during the night. That sometimes mean pulling him up in bed when he slipped down too low. You'd lower the head of the bed below the vertical, straddle his body, put your arms through his armpits, and HEAVE!


Normally, doing this sort of thing for a patient that can't help with it is a 2-person job. Every single nurse who worked that job had a gym membership. They needed it!

[Frelga]

This tweet by @laura_hudson made me go Aha!

"One reason why female characters are often so bad and poorly developed is that male writers treat “female” as their defining characteristic"

[Lalaith]

Aha, indeed!

[Primula Baggins]

Yes. "The most important attribute of this person is the way in which he/she differs from me, because I am the prototypical human."

[Frelga]

This whole thread is vaguely related but it is a thing of beauty. And actually an effective use of the Twitter thread format.

https://twitter.com/vandroidhelsing/sta ... 1572192256