Quote from: Nexus;811776... to the point I find it almost unbelievable when some say they'd feel no different about scenes where Tony Jaa is snapping backs, twisting necks and dislocating limbs willy nilly if he was doing it to 20 women in a row as opposed to 20 men.

I seriously don't. Perhaps it was a combination of my odd parents, constant international moves, and a diet of video games and man vs woman fight scenes from martial arts movies, but I really haven't picked up any sort of "woman attacks you = don't fight back" reflex.

Even now I'm playing my way through Bravely Default, where a long section of the game features female soldiers committing atrocities. I slaughtered them without a qualm for their gender (with a party that includes two women who've spent the better part of the game getting punched/stabbed/magicked in the face like the guys).

Of course I do have qualms about slaughtering humans period when it's an obvious waste of life, but it isn't my fault if they choose to waste their lives attacking me.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;811789I seriously don't.

That is honestly a little amazing to me. No bullshit. I don't think its reprehensible or should never be shown. I thought allot of the complaints about some fights scenes (like John Mclane vs the Asian assassin in the next to last Die Hard movie) were a little much but I have to admit it would feel different and more, squicky, I guess watching there hero mow down hoards of women, probably less heroic though maybe necessary.

Maybe I'm just a sexist old fart and there is no room for my my ilk in this brave new world.

Quote from: Nexus;811776The different tone and atmosphere between this thread and its sister thread over on the other place is a perfect example of why I like this board better despite 90 percent of the gaming talk being about things I have no idea about. For example, I think the current discussion of movie depictions is either incredibly disingenuous or coming from an angle that's slightly perpendicular to the general world.

But it really is a no one win situation. If fiction depicts a fight between a man and woman has if they're own equal terms with nothing held back then they're glorifying violence against women. If she's beaten then they'll be complaints of the former and that they're depicting women as weaker/less capable. If they don't use females as direct combatants they're being sexists. Basically you have to choose if you want to be shot or stabbed at that point. There's no win (except maybe to constantly script things so men fight men, women fight women and if men fight men they win handily with little apparent effort or risk).

As for men that do feel uncomfortable with the depiction of men fighting women its not really fair to ignore the fact (that unless I've been living in some odd cultural bubble for 40 yrs) that men have it drilled into them from an early age that you don't hit girls/women. Ever. Even if they are hitting you. Call it sexist, call its backwards, whatever you like it is an aspect of being raised as a "civilized" man for most of us. So most of the men, even the most open minded even feminist among them to feel uncomfortable seeing men strike women even in fiction. So do many of the women.. to the point I find it almost unbelievable when some say they'd feel no different about scenes where Tony Jaa is snapping backs, twisting necks and dislocating limbs willy nilly if he was doing it to 20 women in a row as opposed to 20 men.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhAjhoOFgoI

I think this scene would make many people much more uncomfortable if the thugs were all or significantly women. Yes, it probably make some people uncomfortable now but those would be people that either think its over the top to begin with or just dislike violence overall.

There is that scene in Armour of God where Jackie Chan fights the three black women though they are pretty obviously guys in drag.
But basically girls only fight if they can kick your arse. From Catwoman to Black Widow to Mrs Smith to the girls off Sucker Punch.

Quote from: Nexus;811792I thought allot of the complaints about some fights scenes (like John Mclane vs the Asian assassin in the next to last Die Hard movie) were a little much but I have to admit it would feel different and more, squicky, I guess watching there hero mow down hoards of women, probably less heroic though maybe necessary.

Well yeah, context is crucial. Is the man trying to reach the serum that will save his daughter's life, but is being blocked by 20 bloodthirsty and highly trained kickboxing female cultists who think she's Chosen One who will foil their "1000 years of Hell on earth" plan? Why would you hold his kicking their assess against him? In what universe is he less of a hero for doing what he had to under the circumstances?

Wouldn't that be "blaming the victim"?

Quote from: jibbajibba;811794There is that scene in Armour of God where Jackie Chan fights the three black women though they are pretty obviously guys in drag.
But basically girls only fight if they can kick your arse. From Catwoman to Black Widow to Mrs Smith to the girls off Sucker Punch.

Those were guys? I always thought they were women.

I think with any of those Hong Kong action films with martial arts, there is just this assumption that as long as you are skilled, doesn't matter if you are a man or women. I think that really makes for better fight scenes, and am not too worried about the realism angle of it, given that these are movies where the action is insanely implausible anyways.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;811818Well yeah, context is crucial. Is the man trying to reach the serum that will save his daughter's life, but is being blocked by 20 bloodthirsty and highly trained kickboxing female cultists who think she's Chosen One who will foil their "1000 years of Hell on earth" plan? Why would you hold his kicking their assess against him? In what universe is he less of a hero for doing what he had to under the circumstances?

Wouldn't that be "blaming the victim"?

It's not objectively rational but yeah, watching the guy Tony Jaa his way through the cultist, snapping arms and stepping on necks would be uncomfortable for me assuming it was done in exactly the same way as it would be if they were male mooks.

I don't mean I'd consider him a villain or the bad guy of the piece but it was be less heroic and awesome and more grim necessity if that makes any sense. And any displays of glorious heroic violence and over kill would feel more like needless brutality.

Wow, Duck Call Lass is trying to get on a moral high horse about gendered violence? That takes some gall.

I seriously don't either, like Shipyard Locked. Perhaps it is because we seem to have had a similar upbringing (my parents were/are total squares, though. But from the Silent generation, so maybe the indoctrination went lax?).

That said, since women heroes kicking a string of male goons ass is literally cliché at this point, flipping that Tony Jaa scene with female goons would have been novel. Well, except for all of the chop sockey HK action flicks I grew up with where beating back legions of people knowing kung-fu, male or female, was like breathing air. Maybe the novelty would have been a scene like that, where legions of martial art women getting beat down, having the sort of cultural cache among the American suburban "Wonder Bread" set like Tony Jaa films.

(No offense to the American suburban "Wonder Bread" set intended.)

Quote from: Opaopajr;811831I seriously don't either, like Shipyard Locked. Perhaps it is because we seem to have had a similar upbringing (my parents were/are total squares, though. But from the Silent generation, so maybe the indoctrination went lax?).

That said, since women heroes kicking a string of male goons ass is literally cliché at this point, flipping that Tony Jaa scene with female goons would have been novel. Well, except for all of the chop sockey HK action flicks I grew up with where beating back legions of people knowing kung-fu, male or female, was like breathing air. Maybe the novelty would have been a scene like that, where legions of martial art women getting beat down, having the sort of cultural cache among the American suburban "Wonder Bread" set like Tony Jaa films.

(No offense to the American suburban "Wonder Bread" set intended.)

It would have been damn novel to me and I'm not Suburban "Wonder Bread".

Quote from: Opaopajr;811831I seriously don't either, like Shipyard Locked. Perhaps it is because we seem to have had a similar upbringing (my parents were/are total squares, though. But from the Silent generation, so maybe the indoctrination went lax?).

That said, since women heroes kicking a string of male goons ass is literally cliché at this point, flipping that Tony Jaa scene with female goons would have been novel. Well, except for all of the chop sockey HK action flicks I grew up with where beating back legions of people knowing kung-fu, male or female, was like breathing air. Maybe the novelty would have been a scene like that, where legions of martial art women getting beat down, having the sort of cultural cache among the American suburban "Wonder Bread" set like Tony Jaa films.

(No offense to the American suburban "Wonder Bread" set intended.)

Yeah, even Tony Jaa does it. The big bad at the end of Tom Yum Goon is not only a lady, but a lady boy.

Quote from: Nexus;811832It would have been damn novel to me and I'm not Suburban "Wonder Bread".

I lament how much of my pirated VHS collection of HK chop sockey is on PAL, or 8+ hour long play NTSC, and thoroughly buried somewhere in storage. It's like international VCD stuff. You'll probably never see or hear of it, and if you find it in America you likely wouldn't be able to play it. It was a sad day when our 5-system int'l VCR and int'l TVs died.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;811833Yeah, even Tony Jaa does it. The big bad at the end of Tom Yum Goon is not only a lady, but a lady boy.

Yeah, but doesn't she use a pretty impersonal weapon for a bare fisted MA flick (a whip) and he ends up knocking her out of a helicopter with a big jumping which isn't grabbing her snapping her neck or something that personal. "Villain is killed by long fall" is a classic hands off death even if the hero causes it.

Quote from: Nexus;811838Yeah, but doesn't she use a pretty impersonal weapon for a bare fisted MA flick (a whip) and he ends up knocking her out of a helicopter with a big jumping which isn't grabbing her snapping her neck or something that personal. "Villain is killed by long fall" is a classic hands off death even if the hero causes it.

I haven't seen it since it came out, but I think she fought with a whip and maybe a dagger. Don't really recall how she died. Falling out of a helicopters sounds right enough. In the Tom Yom Goong II though a woman gets strangled in a fight.

In hong kong and mainland china martial arts movies female characters die all the time in fight scenes though. In Detective Dee a woman gets impaled with a bamboo shaft, in 14 Amazons plenty of the women die, in Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan, one of the main characters has her arm cut off before she is killed.

I think I could see an issue if you were exclusively having the players fight with female mooks or if the GM was dwelling on the violence against them more than is necessary. But I don't really see a problem if they just exist organically in the setting in the same way their male counter parts do.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;811841I haven't seen it since it came out, but I think she fought with a whip and maybe a dagger. Don't really recall how she died. Falling out of a helicopters sounds right enough. In the Tom Yom Goong II though a woman gets strangled in a fight.

In hong kong and mainland china martial arts movies female characters die all the time in fight scenes though. In Detective Dee a woman gets impaled with a bamboo shaft, in 14 Amazons plenty of the women die, in Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan, one of the main characters has her arm cut off before she is killed.

That's true and I was thinking that perhaps one of the reason The Protector was chosen for wider release in the US was that it doesn't have such extensive violence against women. I haven't seen allot of HK films but the difference is portrayals can be pretty surprising. Not that women meeting violent fates isn't depicted in US films but the tone is often very different.