Against Tiny Kung Fu Women: A Polemic
Okay, this has come up a couple of times in conversations that I’ve had. It’s part of the reason why I actually…am bothered by Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s come up when I’ve talked to friends about upcoming Wonder Woman movies. Judith Berman mentioned something like it on the Black Gate blog, recently. And it came up again when I saw the promo for this week’s episode of Burn Notice, and Gabrielle Anwar was walking around on the beach in her bikini, then knocked some guy out and took his gun.
This irritates me. I will explain.
Now, before I do that, I want to be clear: I am NOT going to talk about attractiveness. I’m going to put some pictures up here, and compare the state and shape of the bodies in question, but this is not because I think one is better looking, or one is some kind of feminine ideal or something. That is not the point of this post. I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with Gabrielle Anwar.
What I am saying is that there is something wrong with the idea that Gabrielle Anwar can beat up a giant hairy Russian guy. Here, look:
This is Gabrielle Anwar. She is VERY skinny. I couldn’t find a picture of her in her bikini on the beach, but she’s skinny in that picture, too. Now, she’s got excellent abs–you’d call them “ripped,” or something–she clearly is healthy and in good shape. But she has no muscle mass, at all. Look at the size of her head, compared to the width of her torso. Notice how her head looks really big? That’s because she’s not carrying any muscle on her latissimus dorsi muscles. Look at the size of her forearm at the elbow compared to the size of her forearm at the wrist. Notice how it’s basically a straight line? That’s because she’s got very little muscle in her flexors and supinators (those are the muscles in your forearm that let you twist and grab things–absolutely essential muscles for any kind of martial art).
Now, you can see the muscle in her forearm, but that’s not the same thing has having muscle-mass. That just means that she has very little fat and, in this case, is actually using that muscle for something. If you look at her arms and legs, too, you’ll notice the same thing. They have very little mass on them at all.
For comparison, look at this:
This is Laila Ali, a professional boxer and the daughter of Muhammed Ali, himself a boxer of some repute. Notice some of the differences: Laila’s forearm is much wider at the elbow than it is at the wrist. Her neck looks thicker and her shoulders look bigger, partly because they are, and partly because of the development of her trapezius muscles: they make a longer line between the top of her neck and her shoulder, because they’re bigger. Her head looks much smaller compared to the size of her torso, because her torso is bigger.
She is not “cut” the way Gabrielle Anwar is, but her limbs carry a lot more mass on them.
This is important. Look, it is true that things like judo, aikido, and chin-na can use momentum, leverage, and joint structure to enable a very small person to beat up a very big person. But these things don’t actually make strength irrelevant. If judo didn’t require strength, judo practice wouldn’t be completely exhausting. Chin-na requires an enormous amount of forearm strength to make those joint-locks work–have you ever seen a chin-na practitioner’s arms? They have forearms like Popeye.
Just making a fist and punching something with it builds up muscle in the forearms. Actually kicking something with your leg builds up muscle in the upper thighs. And that muscle is important. No matter how good your technique is, if you can’t also hit someone hard, you won’t hurt them. In fact, it doesn’t even make sense to separate strength from technique–every fighting style that actually trains you to fight (I’m excluding things like T’ai Ch’i from this particular example) trains as much to build muscle as it does to use that muscle correctly.
Ample muscle on the limbs and torso is important for all kinds of reasons; in addition to making your strikes stronger and enabling you to do better joint locks, it absorbs impact and makes you tougher, it enables you to perform you techniques more smoothly. Having muscles on your limbs is absolutely essential to being a competent fighter, no matter what your style is. That is why every competent fighter in the world has muscular limbs.
Now, I can accept that there’s going to be a certain amount of nonsense in TV fighting. I can, when pressed, even accept that Sarah Michelle Gellar and Eliza Dushku are, in the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, competent fighters because of their magic powers. I don’t like to do that, but I can.
There is, nonetheless, a limit. Gabrielle Anwar can’t beat the crap out of anybody, much less the gigantic Russians I keep seeing her fight. She has no muscle in her neck–a solid punch to the face would give her whiplash. Any one of them could fall on her and probably break her arm.
Having Gabrielle Anwar beat the crap out of giant Russians does a disservice to a lot of people. It does a disservice to regular women, who watch a show like that and think that just being scrappy and knowing some Tae-Bo means that you can beat up anyone. It does a disservice to the women who actually can fight, and actually have worked hard to be able to do it, by suggesting that it’s just some secret trick, and not years of hard work and development that lets you beat up a Russian. It does a disservice to the no-doubt innumerable actresses that could have been cast in that role and do have the physiognomy to play it. And it does a disservice to Burn Notice, by making the whole thing seem god-damn ridiculous.
I know, I know. Maybe she was hired because she was a great actress, right? We can’t just hire Laila Ali, because as good a shape as she’s in, she can’t act. Whatever. It’s true that you can’t really teach a lousy actress to be a good actress–but it’s actually pretty easy to get a skinny actress to build muscle. Even people that have really fast metabolisms can do it; you just eat a lot of protein and do weight-bearing exercise. That’s it. It’s pretty straightforward. And if you’re going to have a badass chick in your TV show–and I’m definitely in favor of badass chicks in TV shows–then you have a responsibility to make sure that you’re doing it right.
February 6, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Rhona Mitra was moving in the right direction: http://www.wallpaperez.net/wallpaper/movie/Doomsday-Rhona-Mitra-1516.jpg
She got knocked about in some decidedly not-cute ways in that movie, and her fight against a big strong guy didn’t look totally ludicrous.
February 6, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I think that’s definitely true. I am in favor of continued work along the Rhona Mitra model of badass chicks.
February 6, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Yes, you are right (and also we all agree that Rhona Mitra = good). BUT! If I can mount a limited defense of Gabrielle Anwar: her character was initially introduced as much more likely to use weapons – in particular, explosives – which made her size a moot point.
Unfortunately, allowing that trait to resurface in a weekly series would require her to be murdering people pretty regularly in order to be of any use. And this show has a bit of an A-Team issue going on – lots of guns fired, but very rare that the heroes actively kill.
So they’ve had to up her character’s competence as a “brawler,” despite her weighing like 80 pounds, which they probably hadn’t taken into account when they hired Anwar.
(Last night she shattered a vodka bottle over MC Gainey’s head. Gainey’s a BIG guy, and all I could think was, “Where did she muster up the arm strength to hit him so hard as to SHATTER the bottle? This woman is MAGIC!”)
February 6, 2009 at 3:21 pm
They have still done a poor job. This is bad writing, bad producing, either way you look at it.
February 6, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Don’t get snotty with me.
February 6, 2009 at 4:27 pm
!!!
I LOST MY JOB! YOU STILL HAVE TO BE NICE TO ME!
February 6, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Aww, I’m sorry. You know what cheers me up? When I’m down? Some lightly entertaining television, like Burn No-
…like “Leverage.”
February 6, 2009 at 8:47 pm
[...] Against Tiny Kung Fu Women: A Polemic « Threat Quality Press [...]
February 6, 2009 at 9:57 pm
The magical tiny ninja woman is tough character. I really like this character in small doses. I find it extremely entertaining to watch a tiny woman such as Summer Glau, Miho in Sin City, or Batgirl flip about the place like a crazy ballerina and spin kick dudes heads off. It’s a funny trippy silly character, the whole contrast of what she looks like what she can do and what she does.
But then they start showing up everywhere. And they start crossing over from silly universes where martial arts involves energy blasts and becoming common entry in relatively realistic places like Burn Notice or Alias. And then I agree, it gets annoying and makes things feel silly when they should not.
February 6, 2009 at 10:54 pm
“…like a crazy ballerina…”
That might be the only remotely feasible explaination here. Maybe she was using her super-core to stabilize, allowing a temporary advantage over the big guys. Ballet does build-up rarely used muscle groups. “Renegade Irish ballerina” is all you can give her, though…
February 7, 2009 at 1:13 am
Hi, I wandered over here via a pingback from the Black Gate site. I mostly agree with this with some reservations. I’ve trained in aikido for 25 years–and in the “harder” style from the Yoshinkan dojo (and I am female). Some of the great masters of aikido and aiki-jujutsu, its parent art, have been very small men–5 feet and under. The founder of modern aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, was too small to meet the height requirements of the Japanese army. The founder of the Yoshinkan, Gozo Shioda, couldn’t have been more than 5’1″ and was skinny and a chain smoker to boot. I saw him demonstrate and took a clinic with him a year or two before his death, when he literaly hobbled onto the stage–and then trashed his 26-year old uke, who was about 8 inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier. Shioda-sensei was not using strength or agility, but focus, timing, and precision.
The saying in aikido is that you need only be able to generate 15 pounds of pressure for effective technique–whether joint locks or throws–and that is true up to a point. It really refers to upper body and specifically hand and arm strength. What you do need is very strong lower body, especially quads and glutes, and whatever all those little muscles in feet and ankles are that balance you and help generate the power of the pivots and body shifts through which you unbalance a moving opponent. Also strong trunk muscles to transfer momentum from legs through your center into the arms that are usually the point of contact. If you can generate 15 pound in your arms you can bring your whole body weight into play, plus, in a dynamic technique, the momentum of the pivot et al. and the momentum of the opponent’s own weight and velocity.
Some muscle development in shoulders and neck is probably more useful for taking falls (and getting hit in the face by beginners). Lollipop women will have a hard time keeping tucked and, on forward rolls, with collapsing arms. But too much muscle development is detrimental, too. Men who do a lot of weight training tend to get too stiff and top-heavy. Aikido favors a low center of gravity, which allows a more balanced stance. Too strong a grip on your opponent, too, “freezes” you. There’s a story about a bandit who had defeated many samurai. Someone asked him his secret, given that he’d had no training. He said that he tapped the samurai’s sword with his own and if the other person was gripping hard, knew his technique was no good and went ahead and killed him. If the other person had the correct sticky-but-not-hard grip, the bandit could tell the samurai knew what he was doing and ran away.
February 7, 2009 at 2:21 am
Aha! Dancers as fighters! Both Summer Glau and Michelle Yeoh had no fight-training or martial arts experience, but are both skilled dancers. So in both cases, despite a lack of physical presence, their ability to memorize fight choreography as dance moves really paid off in terms of ass-kicking believability, in spite of size.
February 7, 2009 at 10:22 am
@Judith: Aha! I knew bringing up aikido was going to get me into trouble. I will accept certainly that a character can be a very small Japanese man (or, in my experience, a slightly overweight Jewish man) if and only if it is ALSO plausible that they be an aikido master.
Because–now, your experience with aikido is probably much more extensive than mine, so I’ll yield to that if you disagree–that experience has suggested that aikido, in practical application, has an extremely steep learning curve. That is to say, you have to be very experienced with it in order to use it effectively in a fight, and very experienced with it to completely obviate the strength and mass of your opponent.
And, in any case, Gabrielle Anwar is clearly not using aikido in Burn Notice, but rather the standard, pared-down form of jiu-jitsu that’s usually used in movies and television shows to indicate extensive fighting ability.
Also, all of my aikido sensei (haha–well, both) had really gnarly forearms.
And, I suppose while I’m talking, I should say that I quite enjoyed “Awakening” in Black Gate 10.
February 7, 2009 at 10:25 am
@Jeff: In fact, one of my big complaints about Firefly/Serenity was that I never really found Summer Glau’s fight scenes to be especially plausible.
But, this may have been prejudice from my related and growing disdain for Joss Whedon’s Magical Teenaged Girls.
February 8, 2009 at 10:36 am
First of all, there’s no question that you’re right: in the real world, size matters. In the rare situations where size stops mattering, muscle mass remains a factor.
That said, I think you’re overreaching when you say a disservice is being done to anyone other than the viewers. I don’t really think there are large numbers of women out there who see a thin, scrawny actress knock out a six-foot tall KGB agent and think they could do the same.
There MIGHT be some who think they could if they took a self-defense course… but I expect they’ll learn better pretty quickly. In the process, they’ll also most likely learn to defend themselves more effectively. You can do a lot of damage to anyone, for example, if you’re willing to go for the eyes. Would this strategy work against a trained martial artist? Hell, no: they’re going to be ready for that kind of thing. But, in the real world, the majority of “bad guys” weren’t trained by the KGB.
February 8, 2009 at 11:24 am
On Buffy, I was always more bothered when Xander took down a vampire. Buffy has super-powers, which is a perfectly acceptable excuse as far as I’m concerned. But when a normal human wrestles a magically-enhanced creature that supposedly has the strength to punch through walls and snap bones like twigs, well, that seems a little odd.
But then, I like Buffy, so I’m willing to cut Whedon some slack.
February 8, 2009 at 11:31 am
This seems apropos:
http://aintitcool.com/node/40036
February 9, 2009 at 5:37 am
[...] aid in the production of a pearl of wisdom. I have been distracted, however, by a self-labeled polemic on the topic of fictional women as kick-ass fighters that referenced my post of two weeks ago. [...]
February 9, 2009 at 12:07 pm
@erin: I absolutely agree with your issues with Xander’s slaying abilities. At least in the early seasons. In the later ones, he had an obvious weight advantage. HEYOOOOO!
(That was mean and completely without provocation. But it was right there, I had to take it. More seriously, by later seasons I could accept his capabilities as a byproduct of more experience.)
February 9, 2009 at 1:40 pm
It seems that the frustration is not in seeing a small low muscle mass woman beating up a large man, it’s the way the shows have her do so by basically overpowering the guy.
There’s a lot of things a small low muscle mass woman can do to really hurt a big guy, especially if she has some basic weapons. These things just don’t involve trading blows at all, and only can take up about 3 seconds of screen time.
Buffy always worked for me just in that they made it clear that regardless of muscle mass, she had super strength. To accurately reflect her strength level she’d have to be pumped up like Lou Ferigno times 5, so the difference between her having stick arms and Laila Ali arms seemed pretty irrelevant. Much like no matter how pumped up they draw Superman, it has absolutely nothing to do with his ability to carry a mountain.
This doesn’t work for River so much, as she’s depicted as kicking ass purely due to mastery of technique, and is repeatedly seen taking skull cracking blows to the head.
February 9, 2009 at 2:08 pm
@Zak: Yeah, but part of the problem that I have with River is that, for the kind of fighting that she’s doing–that is, strike-oriented fighting–part of training is learning to apply strength to the technique. Unlike Aikido or Tai Chi, where the better you are at it the less work it takes, things like Tae Kwon Do or kickboxing or Shotokan or Kung Fu rely on the development of strength as well as the mastery of technique.
But in fact, my trouble with both River Tam and Buffy Summers has less to do with their plausibility, which I recognize as being obviated by the premise of the show–it has to do with the fact that I’m bothered by them on principle. I’m bothered by the fact that the only time it’s plausible for women to be formidable opponents is when those women have magic powers. I think it undermines them as characters, and I think it undermines the achievements of women who actually know how to fight.
February 9, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Your thread title “Against Tiny Kung Fu Women” keeps making me picture 6 inch versions of Gabrielle Anwar and Summer Glau flipping all over the placing, kicking gigantic Russians in the head while squeeking.
February 9, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I work on a show called IN PLAIN SIGHT that’s basic premise is “the Ass Kicking adventures of Witness Protection agent Mary McCormack”
Mostly I’ve been pretty pleased at the way they handle her. She beats some folk up, but basically does so by hitting them with weapons or using guns. Although it’s an actiony show that’s currently in it’s second season (and I haven’t seen all of it yet), so far they seem to have avoided having her straight up bad ass ninja her way out of any confrontations.
Also, Mary McCormack, while certainly not possessing a fighter’s body, at the least is not anorexic and has fairly broad shoulders.
February 9, 2009 at 4:20 pm
@Zak: This is true! I like In Plain Sight, and also like Mary McCormick, and the way her fight scenes are handled, a lot.
I especially like the fact that any time she is about to go and do something dangerous, they have her pull her hair back.
February 9, 2009 at 9:44 pm
They should just give women on tv eye beams.
February 10, 2009 at 9:07 am
In Braak’s own words:
“I’m bothered by the fact that the only time it’s plausible for women to be formidable opponents is when those women have magic powers.”
Okay, now I’m a little confused. If we’re talking about Buffy, then the only characters who are formidable have super-powers (regardless of gender). The concept behind the character originated from movies of super-powered bad guys preying on helpless women: giving a female powers to match theirs in no way diminishes women.
In the case of Firefly, they did a pretty good job with having Zoe be badass without giving her exceptional physical strength. While she occasionally got away with something she shouldn’t have, most of the time she won through competence, precision, and weapons – and absolutely no magic. The only magic character was River, who didn’t manifest any hand-to-hand ninja skills until the movie. And, yeah, that was a bit ridiculous. I think Whedon wanted to show off the actress’s dancing skills, and (while I actually like the action scenes in Serenity) I’ll certainly admit they were problematic.
Personally, I’m more bothered that he repeated himself than anything else.
February 10, 2009 at 10:07 am
@Erin: I actually liked Zoe, a lot. I wish there had been more Zoe.
And, I’ll admit this, and I know that I’m in the minority on this, it is the very premise of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that bothers me. It didn’t used to, but in my old age I have become more and more irritated with people being heirs to magical super-powered legacies, and found myself wishing that I could see more people taking on terrible enemies through cunning, training, and skill.
So, I understand that the basic idea of Buffy is a reversal of the traditional trope, but it still pisses me the hell off. I don’t think that it necessarily diminishes women as powerful story characters, but I find myself lamenting the fact that she would be stronger if she didn’t have super-powers.
It’s like, remember when Superman gets zapped by Darkseid’s Omega beams, and he’s all “AAAARUUUGGHH!” but he survives? And you’re like, “Well, he is invincible.” And then Darkseid tries to shoot Batman with the Omega beams, and Batman leaps around like a maniac and eventually puts a parademon in the way of the beams and survives?
February 10, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Except for when he doesn’t:
http://heroesnhunks.com/wordpress/2009/01/15/batman-is-dead-for-the-second-time-in-months
February 10, 2009 at 2:07 pm
*sigh*
Why is everyone so contentious with me?
I JUST WANT TO SAY RIDICULOUS THINGS WITHOUT BEING CHALLENGED AT ALL! WHY IS THAT SO CRAZY?
February 10, 2009 at 8:27 pm
“And, I’ll admit this, and I know that I’m in the minority on this, it is the very premise of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that bothers me. It didn’t used to, but in my old age I have become more and more irritated with people being heirs to magical super-powered legacies, and found myself wishing that I could see more people taking on terrible enemies through cunning, training, and skill.”
LIES! I remember you making similar observations years ago. Contrary to what you NOW claim, you have been CONSISTENT in your preference of trained vs. magical heroes.
So there. What was my point again?
Oh, that I’m a fan of both traditions, and, ah… apparently… you’re not. At least quite as much. So… take… that.
February 11, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Well, I’ve been more vehement about it, lately. (See my related problems with Iron Fist.)
February 12, 2009 at 10:26 am
I’ll forgive Buffy and Firefly their illogic — Buffy actually gave us an episode where the heroine’s powers were taken away, and she still managed to triumph. I’m even all right with Serenity, as River’s fighting style was very “move fast, dodge, and strike vulnerable spots” and most of her blows were delivered with her feet, where strong thigh muscles come into play.
What I find annoying are things like “Charmed” or the Zorro sequel, where previously sedentary women are shown spontaneously breaking into battle for no apparent reason and winning over multiple opponents.
February 12, 2009 at 10:36 am
@Mac: This is also a problem. Especially when Alyssa Milano doesn’t just beat up a bunch of guys, but does it using insane kung fu moves.
February 12, 2009 at 8:24 pm
*smiles* As a “tiny” kung fu woman I’ll concede that on occasion size does matter. When a guy who weighs twice what I do gets me face down, there’s very little left I can do. The trick is not to get in that position in the first place. But like any fight between any combatants – there are so many variables to be considered as to make generalizations ridiculous.
Re: Chin-na
Actually it doesn’t take a lot of forearm strength. The very point of some of the holds in the practice are that you’re focusing on joints – which take almost no pressure to break, damage, or otherwise disable. Properly applied they cause a great deal of pain.
The moves themselves are not hard to learn – what’s tricky is the reaction time and the presence of mind to use them in a “panic” situation.
February 13, 2009 at 4:12 pm
All right, all right. The Chin-Na thing was clearly an error on my part. I only learned Chin-Na in the context of my kung fu style–there, the sifus were all densely muscled, and they kept giving us exercises (here, hold this spear at one end and lift it over and over) that built up forearm muscle saying things like, “It’ll help with your Chin-Na.”
Anyway, the point that I’m trying to illustrate I think is this: “Properly applied they cause a great deal of pain.” The better you are at them, the less muscle you need to make them work right, yes. But why wouldn’t you build up muscle for techniques like this? Or for any other technique? Where are you training that has both an eye towards seeing you get into fights AND that discourages you from building muscle? Saying that you don’t need muscle to win a fight, you just need good technique, is a little bit like saying “I don’t need a seatbelt; I’ll just drive well.”
And I’ve mentioned before that just the act of punching or kicking a heavy bag is going to build up some muscle. Certainly more than certain very, very skinny actresses have.
April 17, 2009 at 10:09 am
I do agree that most of the TV, and movie fights between a female, and a male are not realistic. After all, it’s Hollywood, and the “sexy but deadly” female martial artist genre sells well!
June 3, 2009 at 9:46 pm
I have to say, as a thin woman, and after more than 20 years of weight lifting, 10 years of triathloning, and now beginning in kung fu (3 months), I am offended that you don’t realize that every woman’s body mass is different depending on her body make-up and genetics. I am thinner than that Gabrielle person, and consider myself stronger than most women. I don’t have the kung fu skills at this time, but just wait a few years. I’ll bet my strength would astound you then.
Never judge someone by how they look
June 4, 2009 at 10:42 am
Of for fuck’s sake, really? You really think that there are absolutely NO NEVER IN ANYWAY general principles that can be applied here? You don’t think that promoting the idea that women, no matter what they do, no matter their backgrounds, and no matter their jobs, ALWAYS have to be rail skinny is actually problematic for human culture? That it may not be WORTHWHILE to recognize the fact that strength is a function of the cross-sectional area of muscles, and that therefore it’s not only not wrong, but sometimes beneficial to acknowledge the fact that women CAN have muscles, and sometimes even SHOULD have muscles?
Or is this just you imagining that I am talking about, and am in some way interested in, what you personally are like?
June 29, 2009 at 9:55 pm
Wow! You have some serious anger issues, dude! You FULLY didn’t get what I was pointing out. Haven’t you heard of Bruce Lee? Very thin guy who packed a mighty punch. I have that type of body on a woman’s frame ……..naturally thin. I am NOT promoting that women have to be thin. That just happens to be my God given frame. Plus, it’s NOT just a function of muscle mass. The muscle must be well trained, with strong bone density, healthy ligaments, tendons and joints, and it must be directed from a well rounded person, with proper training, proper intent and someone with positive energy. It’s very clear you have no idea what that’s all about!
May 22, 2010 at 1:04 am
I am familiar with Bruce Lee. Familiar enough to know that, a few years after he came to San Francisco and exhausted himself kicking people’s asses, he devised a new workout routine and gained thirty pounds of muscle, going from about 130 lbs to 160 lbs. That’s why Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon is actually visibly bigger than Bruce Lee in Green Hornet.
Anyway, good job missing every possible point. I can only assume you’re doing it on purpose, since it defies belief that someone could misunderstand me so thoroughly by accident.