How Women MAist are Portrayed...

[disgruntled]

i have very strong opinions on this topic. it really annoys me that comercials, printed ads, movies, TV, etc... don't portray women as serious MAist (with some exceptions if they are asian).... either the women knows MA well and it is made light of as a turn on, or she is just taking MA for fitness or self-defense....... rarely do we see females protrayed as serious MAist.

the thing that bugs me the most is that when you see a man in a martial arts flick, they tend to be guys that have studied MA for a long time and have experience.... whereas when it is a female, they tend to be unskilled and taught stuff just for the movie. and it really annoys me. you can even tell in their techinque that it is just rehersed stuff and they have no real concept of MA and what they are doing.

and i see this in my own life... i am almost scared sometimes to tell people that i am interested in MA. i usually get a sexual comment, or a a little less frequently a comment about beating someone up. even at class i know i am under-estimated.

don't get me wrong, i am NOT a feminist and do not want this to turn into a discussion about how men keep women down, because that argument is a little trite, and questionably true with all the men hating feminists now days.

i just want to vent and see if what you all experience.... maybe the trend is changing and i just need a new perspective.

[sirdarksol]

Not all females in martial arts are only taught for the movie. The reason this happens in a lot of American movies is that very few women have both the training in acting and the training in martial arts. I've seen a few movies with female martial artists (and male martial artists, as well) from America, and the acting was horrible.
In Asia, there is an actual call for martial artist actresses, so there people who train for this cause. Michelle Yeoh is an example that most people probably know. So Close (excellent movie, see it if you haven't), the Vampire Effect, and House of Flying Daggers are all examples of movies that actually focus on female martial artists.

However, you're right that American movies focus on attractive women who have a following, and then bring in a trainer to teach them the moves they'll need to know for the movie. Milla Jovovich has learned quite a bit of movie-style martial arts over the years of portraying Alice in Resident Evil.

[disgruntled]

but then what kind of message does that send? that my years of training and dedication amount to nothing more than a weekend camp?

i was finally forced to watch Kill Bill (horrible movie!) and i found that Uma moved in a very mechanical fasion... you could tell that she did not understand MA or the technique and foundation behind the MA that she was doing.... then people look at that and think that that is what MA is. and further.... they belief that you can learn MA in a weekend camp the way that movie stars do. and i do find this equally annoying when male actors do this too, but it is not as common i find. and if they are trainned in some MA they are branded as action stars not MA stars, which i am prefectly fine with. i would have no problem with Kill Bill (other than i hate the movie) if it was advertised as an action flick, but it was advertsied as a MA flick with a main actress that knows nothing of MA.

i don't mean to totally belittle actors (although i am biases because i think they have way more respect in society than they deserve), they do train hard for their movies, but it will never equate the level of skill of a real MAist.

[sirdarksol]

Note that I'm not excusing this, just pointing out what happens. I prefer Asian martial arts movies when I'm in the mood for a martial arts movie, because everyone in those movies is a martial artist, not just someone who's received a crash-course for the movie.

Oddly, Kill Bill was billed as an action flick around here. Of course, I've seen
something billed as a comedy here and a drama in Europe, so I know that different countries bill different movies differently.

I think that, in the end, the issue is with the perception of the idiotic masses. I've seen interviews with some of the movie stars (we'll go back to Milla, because I really like the RE movies) where they're saying that they are so humbled by the fact that they know nothing about combat when they're in these fight scenes.

The masses, however, tend to only see that Milla can kick Nemesis' ass, or run up a crate, bounce off a wall, and deliver a wicked-cool roundhouse to a zombie-dog's head, and presume, then, that Milla is an awesome martial artist.

What is at issue is that so many people don't know about the dedication, or that there is a huge difference between effective martial arts and pretty martial arts. Of course, the movies aren't helping this, but I can't really hold entertainers at fault for this, because we, as the entertained, should know what fiction is (and, indeed, you and I do, but I know a guy who once said "Piranhas could so get into the Mississippi by swimming through the ocean, it happened in Piranha")

[Jewel]

I really don't see many women portrayed as very skilled martial artists either. There are some exceptions of course, but I definitely see more skilled men in movies than women. This could merely be due to a lack of stories being written about women martial artists of course.