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| Most 12-year-old girls are not superheroines. |
One of my favorite dopey complaints from the Men’s Rights crowd is that action movies featuring ass-kicking women are “unrealistic” because real women are too dainty to do all that ass-kicking shit. On The Spearhead today, W.F. Price aims his withering contempt at the new film Hanna:
The ass-kicking chick flicks are getting more and more ridiculous as time goes on. In “Hanna” a girl is raised by her father to be a vicious killer somewhere in the arctic. Hanna is played by Saoirse Ronan, an Irish girl with a sweet smile who looks about as tough as a bunny rabbit. Nevertheless, we are supposed to suspend disbelief and accept that this waif is capable of breaking necks with a single blow.
Even worse, in the trailer for the film, young Miss Ronan is depicted doing … pull-ups! “In general, women can’t do pull-ups,” Price complains, “and the vanishingly few who can don’t look much like Saoirse Ronan.”
Price does have a point. Real women can’t do the things that female action heroes do in films. Angelina Jolie may be a deeply scary woman, but I’m pretty sure she can’t take out entire boats full of trained assassins by herself, or jump from truck to truck on the highway to escape pursuers in cars, as she did as super seekret double (triple?) agent Evelyn Salt. Also, to the best of my knowledge, Sarah Michelle Gellar has never really slain even a single vampire. And there is no such thing as an indestructible cheerleader.
But here’s the thing, guys: All that crazy shit that male action stars do? Real men can’t do that either. Matt Damon is pretty buff, and I’m pretty sure he could take Angelina Jolie in a fight, but he’s not actually Jason Bourne. Christian Bale doesn’t put on a batsuit at night and run around town taking out baddies with his bare – well, gloved — hands. Toby Maguire can’t swing from building to building, or stick to walls; if he were bitten by a radioactive spider, he’d need to go to the hospital. Arnold is not the Terminator.
Also, and I hate to be the one who has to break this to you, guys: professional wrestling is fake.
I know it might be tough to take all this in, guys, so here’s Captain Kirk fighting a very slow-moving alien monster on planet Not-Very-Far-From-The-Studio. Kirk has a little trouble with this one but in real life, I’m pretty sure William Shatner could take down an alien monster, provided it moved as slowly as this one.
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>I love this post in a way that isn't natural. I write a blog about feminism and nerdy stuff and I am pimping this post out in tomorrow's link post so hard. I haven't seen Hanna yet but I'm looking forward to it and this only make me want to see it more.
>Women can't do pull-ups? I'm a woman of average strength, and I can do 8 pull-ups if I work on it even a little bit. Granted, almost every man could do pull-ups with my weight since I'm tiny, but "women can't do pull-ups" is just a bizarre claim to make. Anyway, did I really just read a post where someone was forced to explain that movies aren't real?? There are some truly spectacularly stupid people out there.
>Fuckin' liberal Hollywood media, making women out to be people. If I see one more movie with a woman who's not just a passive cumdumpster, I'm going to go my own way!And this time I mean it!
>I think that YouTube clip is mis-titled. It should read, BEST fight scene ever!
>@Marissa: LMAO agreed.
>MOVIES AREN'T REAL?!?!?You've all just ruined my day.
>I hate to say I agree with the MGTOWers, but the "ass-kicking cutie-pie" trope is one that bothers me as well. I find that hollywood movies will very often cast a female lead with traditionally "male" traits (or traits that are celebrated in men) such as using violence as mediation, aggression, revenge, etc and call the character a "feminist" character. I'd like to start seeing female leads that celebrate female qualities because these pseudo-empowered female leads are off putting to every community, even if for different reasons.More on this here: http://www.feministfrequency.com/2011/04/zach-snyders-sucker-punch-is-a-steaming-pile-of-sexist-crap/
>My rough guess is few of these guys could do as many pull-ups as any random woman at the gym that goes three times a week. Considering that 75% of the people I see at the gym are female, that's something to consider. MRAs defeated by female beauty standards that make fitness more of an imperative!
>Renee, I disagree that strength and aggression are "male" traits, or that kindness and empathy are "female" traits. In general, I'm opposed to gender essentialism. Men can be kind and gentle, and women can be strong and aggressive. Not just can, but often are.Your attitude, though you mean well, ends up stigmatizing women with "masculine" personalities. One of the biggest struggles in my life is that I've got certain personality traits considered "male", especially a certain bullheadedness, a tendency to intellectualize my problems, and an insistence on rationality over anecdote and feeling. I look to feminism to support me even though I'm a gender nonconformist. In fact, feminist exists precisely because many women are gender nonconformists in certain ways, and thereby had a need to protest a system that pushes conformist structures on us.Plus, I think muscular ladies look awesome.
>That alien monster is wearing what looks like sparkly brocade. That makes that whole description-defying fight sequence even more… unique.
>Pretty funny, David. 🙂 Bill's not a particularly smart guy, that's for sure.
>I'd like to start seeing female leads that celebrate female qualities because these pseudo-empowered female leads are off putting to every community, even if for different reasons."Celebrating female qualities" is not feminist. Amanda's already covered this ground so I won't repeat her.The feminist thing to do is to portray a female character as an individual. Which means that some women are going to be ass-kicking. I've known ass-kicking women. I had a girlfriend who could hold her own in a knife fight (not that we ever got into one). Whereas some women are going to be peaceful and nurturing.Typecasting every single female character into a nonviolent role isn't helping feminism.
>Yeah, I worry a little bit that a natural result of highlighting the "nurturing qualities of women" is, you know, that super creepy video from yesterday ("Dear Woman"?)
>They dare deny the awesomeness of characters like River Tam and Toph Bei Fong?That's just wrong.
>On Toph – interestingly enough, Katara is also a fairly strong character who uses more stereotypically feminine attributes, to the point of being a water bender and a healer. And you can contrast her with Azula, who's probably one of the most aggressive and ambitious characters in the series… and then further contrast Azula with the peaceful, tea-drinking Uncle Iroh. So maybe it doesn't really matter if a female (or male) character is displaying "stereotypical" gender traits, if the character is complex and strongly written. Toph, Katara, Azula and Iroh are all strong in their own ways.
>Muscular women *do* look awesome.I wish more female action heroes looked muscular.
>Only thing that bothers me – is a 100lb super model carrying 200 pounds of artillery.CHAAH – RIGHT…Or a 100 lb woman throwing a 250 lb man over her shoulders.The only believable woman villains (discounting "super heroines/villains") that I can think of…That one woman from James Bond with switchblades in her shoes. Whenever she fails, her government electrocutes her. Ugh – cannot remember the Bond movie.
>Also, to the best of my knowledge, Sarah Michelle Gellar has never really slain even a single vampire.OTOH, there's a well-known legend among Civil War buffs that Mary Todd Lincoln once took out an entire Confederate cavalry brigade with a samurai sword and a handful of throwing stars.
>"I had a girlfriend who could hold her own in a knife fight"Am I a bad person for finding this a desirable quality in a partner? 🙂 Although in my case it's my wife, who desperately wants to get a Mosin-Nagant rifle ever since I told her that 7.62×54 Russian is more powerful than the .308 bolt action her dad taught her to use.
>I can't believe none of the MRAers have made the connection that Saoirse Ronan is the same actress that played Briony in "Atonement." You know, the one who falsely accused a man of rape. I'm sure they'd have no problem believing the "bunny rabbit" would be guilty of the crime of all crimes. So…bunny rabbits are not supposed to be represented as capable of physical exertion or aggression but if a bunny rabbit were to accuse a man of rape falsely then, OMG, all rape accusations are false because we KNOW what bunnies are all like really. These bunnies intentionally DECEIVE us with their diminutive bunny goodness, lulling us into a false sense of security on purpose to throw us into jail. It's edifying to see what the MRAs accept as "natural" femininity and what they don't. MRA dudes, please stop judging women based on their appearances–it will put an end to so much of your own pain and ours.
>"I had a girlfriend who could hold her own in a knife fight."Yes most single mothers are quite capable of disarming their children when they play with kitchen knives.
>EWME (or EW, if I may)–machete-wielding bunnies FTW!Please, please, please give me a troll response. I so need to open a can of bunny smackdown today.
>What David, you mean that if I get hit by a car I can't get a metal skeleton that prevents me from feeling pain (but not other sensations) either? Thanks for destroying my life goals.
>Yeah, Avatar: The Last Airbender, had great characterization all around. I just picked Toph as an example because she's the little blind girl who could take on a roomful of muscle-bound men by herself. Clearly, the suspension of disbelief needed to believe that would be too much for MRA minds to comprehend.As for River, well, I think Wash said it best:"Start with the part where Jayne gets knocked out by a 90-pound girl 'cause… I don't think that's ever getting old. "
>Darksidecat, technically you can, there is a condition where you don't feel pain but it's caused by spinal nerve lesions. It's actually a big disadvantage. Pain indicates that you know when you are hit. Fear of pain makes you dodge and roll with punches. Having no pain just means you will get more injured than normal.