The Second Version

12/04/07

Kickass Movie Chicks

During the Easter weekend I was more busy with eating and drinking up in my village than blogging, then some personal issues occupied most of my thoughts... finally I'm here to write again. NOT about the wretched leftwing-rightwing controversy tho.

Your typical movie chick, when it's not a whining little girl/damsel in distress, does kick ass. Come on, you don't need a list of characters to realize it; they're everywhere. I don't think ass-kicking chicks are an evil in themselves, but I'd politely ask directors and screenwriters to try to keep things in the realm of possible.

The point is, only the strongest women can compete with average men; the average man is bigger, heavier and stronger than the average woman - and usually can overcome one pretty easily - if sufficiently motivated.

What about martial arts training, you may ask. It helps, definitely - but other factors can override that advantage. Real-life street fights are messy, confusing affair in which there is little time and room for fine technique and brute force tends to dominate (that's why I'd like to find an instructor for free-fighting). Realistically, a very combative woman can get away from one or two not-so-though men. A really though woman may also knock out one or two untrained and not very strong men, but that's about it.

Of course all of the above applies when firearms are not involved; a woman who can handle a pistol effectively is exactly as lethal as a man.

The latest case of annoying kickass movie chick I was exposed to is Guinevere from the ridiculous King Arthur flick (when I wish for the good guys to die before the end, it means the movie has utterly failed). She starts out almos plausibly, as bow marksman (markswoman??). Almost, because I can't quite believe that a skinny woman like her can pull a bowstring with the same strength of a burly male warrior. That means less energy stored in the bow limbs, thus less kinetic energy to the arrow... well, you get my drift.
But then Guinevere proceeds to slaughter dozen of men in a melee battle.

Yes, a skinny girl with no armor and one or two shortish swords is shown killing several grizzled Saxon fighters, armored and shielded, in the middle of a battlefield. And she emerges with barely a scratch. Sorry, my disbelief cannot be bought so cheaply.

At least in some movies it is made the clear that the kickass chick looks like just any human cute girl, but in fact is a genetically modified/alien/cybernetic war machine (See: Serenity, Alien 4, Terminator 3). Well, if the story being told is good and the plot remains consistent with the premises, then I'm OK; it's part of the suspension of disbelief that is necessary to enjoy many works of fiction. But a story in which characters change their defining qualities with plot requirements is an insult to my intelligence.

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