Thinking about @Lexialex's Very Accurate Thread from the other day about women made to look like bad fighters and reinforce shitty tropes in move fight scenes. Quick thread here on big movie fights that IMHO don't do that and why I like them/think they work.
@Lexialex (TW for cinematic violence, particularly fight scenes involving women. If that's not your bag feel free to mute this thread or unfollow.)
@Lexialex I've always loved loved LOVED the way Linda Hamilton's fights were choreographed in T2. They center around one of my guiding principles for outsized people in fights/defending themselves: pick up something solid and bash a mofo.
@Lexialex She looks utterly credible in all of these encounters and everything she does makes sense. Picking up/using the bludgeons, targeting vulnerable areas (nose, neck, knee, etc.), using leverage/creating distance. Love the palm heel strike, and the uppercut-style blows in general.
@Lexialex And just the little details, like taking time to tie her long hair back.
@Lexialex Next up, one of my favorite roles/movies featuring warrior-goddess Angela Bassett, as private security specialist Lornette "Mace" Mason, saving Ralph Fiennes' ass in STRANGE DAYS.
@Lexialex The pistol disarm is sick, and I love that she doesn't use sexuality to distract the goon, she uses simple psychology. She uses her lower center of gravity and works on lower levels against her taller opponent. She looks strong as hell, but again, totally credible.
@Lexialex IMO the John Wick franchise does a great job in general with its women combatants (not perfect, but still), but for me the best example is still from the first movie, Keanu taking on Adrianne Palicki's Perkins.
@Lexialex I like her breaks a lot, but the reason I chose this one is Hollywood fight choreographers LOVE (over)using body/leg scissors when they're working with women. They always add ridiculous acrobatics and usually sexualize the scissors. This scene doesn't do any of that crap.
@Lexialex I just love that Palicki is liked a pissed off spider monkey and there's none of that Mr. and Mrs. Smith flirty tension horse shit. They're just two assassins trying to neutralize each other.
@Lexialex John Wick folds pretty naturally into Atomic Blonde, with our woman combatant going from antagonist to protagonist in the exchanges.
@Lexialex This is a good example of hyper-stylized, what we think of as a modern "Hollywood-style" fight scene, as opposed to the simpler, more reality-based stuff I posted earlier in the thread. But they don't treat Charlize any differently than they would treat Keanu.
@Lexialex And I mean, you don't NEED to. I've stood next to Charlize Theron. She's physically way more imposing than Keanu. And I think she's actually taller with more reach than he is.
@Lexialex Everything I wrote about Atomic Blonde pretty much applies to Haywire, altho I think Gina Carano looks even more credible than Theron, and not just because she's a trained, professional fighter.
@Lexialex Carano looks more credible (to me) because of how they treat her in relation to her larger opponents. The size/strength differential is more accounted for, and everything that happens in relation to that makes sense. Also y'know, I love knife work, obviously.
@Lexialex I want to end on two women fighting, which is way harder to find than it should be in mainstream American movies (and I'm not fucking posting any Tarantino clips). This an old fave featuring Rachel Ticotin (love her) vs. Sharon Stone in Total Recall.
@Lexialex Kicking-based fights/martial arts can be difficult to make look realistic/credible, and I think they get the job done here.
@Lexialex Verhoeven is weird, man. Dude obviously has some heavy baggage, but he's done a lot of good work with non-sexualized parity in his flicks. If you think of like, the locker room scene from Robocop, or even Starship Troopers. I guess he just has some strange disconnects.
@Lexialex Anyway. Those are my takes on where/how Hollywood fucks up women in fight scenes, and what a fairly simple thing it is not to do that with a few guiding principles.
