More on Female Violence in the Media

Last Friday I wrote a post about the prevalence of female violence against men in the media and the double standards regarding it versus the portrayal of male violence against women. Then later in the weekend, I saw the first episode of Farscape for the very first time (yes, I realize that it came out eleven years ago). Early on, there's a scene where a human man from Earth is in a cell in an alien ship with a figure in a flight suit and helmet. The person takes off their helmet, revealing a female human face. The man goes over to talk to her and the woman apparently thinks he's a deserter or spy and proceeds to attack him by kneeing him, punching him, knocking him to the ground, and standing over him with her foot on top of him. Naturally, she suffers no consequences for her brutal assault, whereas in TV and film, any man who merely hits a woman will have something bad happen to him, usually at the hands of the woman he hit and probably involving a groin kick.

Now, if the roles were reversed, even today feminist blogs would still be ranting about this as evidence of the "prevalence" of "violence against women" in movies and TV. Instead, this kind of assault is viewed as empowering grrl power, even though the man basically did nothing wrong. Indeed, it seems to be a requirement that if a woman is to be shown as a "strong, empowered woman" she has to beat up one or more men. The only exception I can think to this trope is in Starship Troopers (the movie, not the book) when Dizzy fights a drill sergeant for the right to join his training unit... and ends up loosing (though the drill sergeant respects her and ends up accepting her into the unit).

I've noticed that a lot of this grrrl power and glamorized female-on-male violence comes from movies and TV directed at nerds, such as sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book films (such as in Iron Man 2 - discussed today by Elusive Wapiti at The Spearhead). For a while I've been thinking that Ferdinand Bardamu was correct when he called gamers and nerds manginas over at The Spearhead and that I was wrong when I defended them.

Movies' Female Violence Double Standard

In modern American media, with the exception of video games (which are unsurprisingly hated by the establishment) the standard relationship between violence and gender looks something like this:

Male on male: entertaining, amusing
Male on female: abusive, sexist
Female on female: hot (especially if they are scantily clad)
Female on male: empowering, humorous

Despite the feminist whining about "violence against women" in the media, male on female violence much rarer than female on male violence in modern movies. If it is present, it is usually either used to show how evil a villain is or is used in a fight scene that the female character wins (usually unscathed). As TV Tropes notes, it is possible to discern the villain and hero in most fight scenes based on gender alone. Note that there are some exceptions to this model, such as Inglorious Bastards, but that isn't exactly an average movie.

The white knights of both the liberal mangina and chivalrous conservative variety out there will probably argue that "violence against women is always wrong" and spout out something about not hitting women and respecting them. But it's interesting to note that the people who essentially laid the foundations for our society, the ancient Greeks, did not have this taboo in their myths. Greek mythology was full of antagonistic goddesses, evil queens, and even had an entire nation of villainous women. Pretty much every Greek hero ends up fighting and killing a female villain at some point. Contrary to their portrayal in feminized popular culture, the Amazons were not heroes in Greek mythology, but were villains and several of the Greek heroes (Achilles, Heracles, and Theseus come to mind) fought them. Somehow I doubt we will see any movies involving Heracles killing Amazons and "stealing the girdle" of their queen.

Anyways, what got me thinking about this topic was watching the Iron Man 2 trailer, which towards the end shows Scarlett Johansson's character beating up a bunch of male security guards. Naturally, most members of the current generation of young men, after thirteen to seventeen years of feminist indoctrination, probably thought that scene was "badass." Somehow I doubt modern American women would consider Heracles killing Amazons to be "badass." They'd probably complain to their congresswoman.

I've noticed in the past couple months that female violence against men is common in movie trailers. Hot Tub Time Machine's trailer showed a woman slapping a man in a bar, Kick Ass's showed a young girl killing a dozen men, and Death at a Funeral's showed a black woman punching a white man. Naturally, in any cases, the reverse would never be shown in a trailer. I'm sure feminists and "family values" conservatives would unite to condemn it. They did last year over the fact that a mere 11% of the violent acts on TV are committed against women.

Also, it's worth noting that those trailers are available for viewing on MTV's website. This is the same MTV that, when a woman got punched in the face in a bar during an episode of the reality show Jersey Shore, blacked out the punch and ran a public-service announcement saying "Violence against women in any form is a crime" and giving the number to an abuse hotline.

That there is a double standard regarding to portrayal of male-on-female and female-on-male violence in movies and TV is unsurprising. We live in an era of double standards.

Politically Incorrect Old Movies

I enjoy watching many older movies and one thing I notice is how despite the content restrictions placed on movies prior to the mid-1960s, they often contain political incorrectness that would either get them never made today or would cause people to picket theaters showing them. Today it's acceptable to show dozens of men being graphically killed in action films and show completely gratuitous sex scenes and nudity in any R-rated film. Yet, if you happen to offend one of the myriad victim groups or show something that the elites object to, expect to be badgered by myriad liberal or religious conservative activist groups.

Last night I watched Battle of Britain, a 1969 film. There's a scene where a British pilot is shot down over London and parachutes to safety. A young boy witnesses this, runs into his house, and returns with a box of cigarettes, offering one to the pilot.

If that had been scene had been in a modern movie, the reaction would have been enormous. Various "public health advocates" would have been decrying the fact that the film glamorized smoking. Liberals would rant about Big Tobacco corrupting children. Even the religious right would find something to find offensive (they always do).

Speaking of old movies in the modern era, the 1950s film The Dam Busters is being remade, produced by Peter Jackson. They are running into trouble because the name of the squadron's commander was "nigger." Of course, the studio will probably have the remake be much more violent than the original was, yet they probably won't be able to say the word "nigger."