So whenever i would watch movies and see The Badass Female Character fighting in various ways, something about it always bugged me. I just assumed it was internalized misogyny that made me dislike characters like black widow and Tauriel and tried to make myself like them.
Then I was rewatching Mad Max Fury Road the other day and I noticed that nothing bothered me about watching Furiosa fight and I realized the problem wasn’t watching women fight in movies that got on my nerves.
Watching the stereotypical Badass Female Character she always has these effortless moves and a cocky, sexy smirk on her face as everything is easy. Watching Furiosa, she grunted and bared her teeth. Her fighting was hard and it took effort and it hurt like fighting is supposed to. For once her fighting style wasn’t supposed to seduce the audience it was to be effective.
I wasn’t disliking these characters because they were women I was disliking that their fighting was meant to remind me they were women. High heels and shapely outfits and not showing effort or discomfort because it’s more attractive to effortlessly lift a long leather clad leg over your head rather than rugby tackle someone.
It’s the same with the Wonder Woman movie too. Fighting is hard and it takes effort, blocking bombs and bullets with a shield makes her grimace and bare her teeth with the effort it takes. She’s not flip kicking bombs she’s yelling and straining, not because she’s weak or bad at fighting but because that’s what it would be like.
I really hope we’re moving into an era of women having fighting styles designed for realism and not how hot it looks for the men in the audience.
I was once in a class teaching about safe sex and relationships. Me and the female teacher got into a small conversation in the middle of class when she started to talk about society’s view on the genders. She told me that “there are no female role models in media. They all only feed off of the idea that being masculine is the only way to be strong” and I understood what she meant but then it reminded me of the characters from the Alien movies. In Aliens, there’s two significant female characters, Ripley, and this other girl who acts like “one of the guys” because she handles big guns, has huge muscles, and short hair. Her “just cuz I’m a girl doesn’t mean I’m not cool” thing was really annoying as apposed to Ripley (I honestly think that was intentional). This was what I thought she was talking about, so I mentioned some actually good female role models, like Ripley.
Ripley was a character that showed that pure determination and grit is what makes you a survivor, and they even used “mom powers” to influence her determination. It wasn’t forced. She’s a picture perfect female role model to me. As I explained this to her, she proceeded to tell me that her clothing was too masculine and that’s why she’s feeding into the patriarchy.
She’s in space hun. Do you expect her to be wearing a dress and high heels in space?
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