[Kateintense]

Time to mention a pet peeve, and decompress a bit of stress, only a tiny tiny bit.....still

It is past time for people who make movies to get past the super-fast, striking oriented fight portrayals, whether between women, intergender or between guys. You know, usually some form of Karate (in fact not the real thing as to form), rapid striking and flipping around of an opponent with TV wrestling outlandish aspects and hokey sound effects dubbed in. Besides the unreality of it, the worst aspect is the lack of emotion and struggle that approach can show.  There are legit fight forms, aikido for example, that can reach to the beauty of dance, but is there is a lot more personal struggle there.

Beside the WWE type unreality of high flying antics, and never showing a bruise from getting smacked with a chair the day before - it just seems not only scripted but that there is no real PERSONAL engagement of the two 'fighters'. Real grappling, or any sort of fight contest is FAST action, and it is intensely personal between the two engaged in it, with sweating and heavy breathing and slowing as things go along and you get tired. the real deal also has 'seasons' and shifts. you can start all shock-n-awe to nail someone, but get to more slow and even letting up on your efforts cuz you dont want it to stop, or a more mutual erotic dynamic can happen- far less often and less dramatically than fantasy has that  happening....not all flash bang, hit hit hit but a variety of hit and holds and lots of flailing around and things you try not working. All that would make it more human, interesting, greater dramatic impact, and sexy.

Ok, granted we are not wanting things too realistic in this, but still, this stuff is BORING and not emotionally satisfying. Maybe it is that it would take lots better actors and better stage-fight training and choreography that the budget allows, maybe the movie makers don't get the energy ans sexiness of fight. I think in part making these scenes less human also makes them less threatening to the audience

But, cut it out, it is BOORING!  there, ahhh, feel better now that I said it to folks who can DO something about it!

[wasteland1952]

Hi Kateintense;

I agree with your point.  It seems that today's TV and movies feature fights between people who are MA experts.  It's rare today to see a TV or movie fight between men or women who aren't using some type of MA skills.  And not to sound sexist, but I find it especially true when a fight is between two women.

Although I don't watch every TV show or movie out there, I can think of only one recent TV show, featuring an actual "catfight" between two girls who didn't use any MA at all.  It was the TV show "Gotham" last year when Fish Mooney had two girls fight to see which one would become her assistant.  It was a very short fight, but the build up was great, the girls were good looking, and the fight looked pretty realistic and brutal.

I'm no sociologist, but it almost seems that TV and the movies are trying to make up for years past, and the way women were seen as weak and totally dependent on a man.  Look at the westerns that were done in the 40's and 50's.  Even when there was a woman who was portrayed as fairly strong, if a catfight ensued, the women fought like....women!  Hair was pulled, slaps were exchanged, and rolling over and over was the way the fight progressed.

And, I think today's movies and TV try to mirror today's attitudes.  Watch some of the many girl fights on Youtube, or other sites.  What do you most often hear?  The spectators admonish the fighters for pulling hair.  "Pulling hair is pussy shit; or, "Stop pulling hair."  Even when the girls take the fight to the ground, there are some spectators who try to separate the girls, and have them begin the fight again, standing toe to toe, fists raised, and duking it out like a couple of guys.  The intensity is still there, but the old fashioned catfight tactics are mostly a thing of the past.

I know I'm old school, raised in the 50's and 60's, and maybe my attitude is the problem.  But I prefer to see hair pulling catfights between girls who aren't experienced MA fighters.