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| Posted By: Kent Posted On: Apr 15, 2004 Views: 336 | On Topic from the UK Guardian Ladies who punch The scraps in Footballers' Wives are only the latest in a tradition of catfights on screen. Why is the spectacle of feuding females so popular? Simple, says Gareth McLean - we all get a kick from watching women fight Thursday April 15, 2004 The Guardian So, Footballers' Wives has flounced off with Tanya and Amber at each other's throats, false fingernails poised to puncture too-tanned flesh. It is a state of affairs to which we have become accustomed. While whole weeks went by without a whiff of a football pitch (though fouls and dribbling were never far away), there was barely an ad break that wasn't preceded by an escalation of hostilities between the two women. Tanya, retro-fitted as a 1950s air stewardess, seduced Amber's man; Amber got Tanya arrested for drunk driving; Tanya barred Amber from the annual team party; Amber fashioned a Tanya-esque voodoo doll (and apparently worked her dark magic, judging by Ms Turner's Abba outfit at the aforementionedshindig). And then there were the actual fights. Not so much fisticuffs as slapfests, the Amber-Tanya tussles were in that telly tradition made famous by the spats between Dynasty's Krystle and Alexis. Never mind the moon landings, who could forget watching those Denver doyennes slugging it out in the Carrington mansion lily pond? While half the fun was to be had wondering if the pair's stunt doubles were actually men, there's no questioning that the other half was derived from watching the hair-pulling, blouse-ripping and wrestling of two grown women in shoulder pads. In a survey of Dynasty's most memorable moments, the fracas between Krystle and Alexis came second only to the Moldavian church massacre and above the time Adam tried to off Jeff by having his office decorated with poisonous paint. Indeed, if these campy catfights hadn't been so popular, they wouldn't have cropped up quite so often in the soap's nine-year run. The popularity of such affrays points to what, for some, is a discomfiting truth: there is a real thrill to be had from watching women fight. Of course, it's enormously satisfying to watch a woman take on a man - and win - but this doesn't often happen outside shows such as Buffy and Alias. In mainstream, realistic dramas, women are the victims of violence and rarely triumph unless they adopt extreme measures required by the plot - such as when Beth and Mandy Jordache stabbed Trevor in Brookside. Two women fighting each other, on the other hand, is seen as more comic-book. It's more fun to watch. Paul Marquess, executive producer of The Bill and Family Affairs and the man who dreamt up Footballers' Wives, goes further: "It's something primal." He says there are manifold reasons for the bitchfight working so well as a device on TV. "When you write two women arguing, you can really go for it. Men are much more buttoned-up and resort to violence much quicker, so women having an altercation lend themselves more readily to drama. Women are supposed to behave themselves - I've never seen my mother hit anyone - so the transgression of them misbehaving is more exciting than it would be if it were two men fighting." As if to prove Marquess's point, Coronation Street's cobbles have lately been littered with warring women, with the tabloids eager to lap up the "exclusive" pictures of punches thrown. Karen and Tracy have gone two rounds together, once at the former's wedding and again at the christening of Tracy's daughter, Amy. Meanwhile, Karen and her mother-in-law, Liz, engage in verbal violence whenever they share the screen, culminating in a slanging match to rival any between Ena Sharples and Elsie Tanner in years gone by. Janice and Cilla have even come to blows over that prize specimen of manhood, Les Battersby. Daran Little, one of the Street's best writers, agrees with Marquess, arguing that, "It's compelling watching two women articulate what they really think of each other. They rake up old hurts and dredge their memories for things that men would have dealt with ages ago and moved on." And, of course, the way women fight is more visual. "With men, it moves to punches being thrown very quickly and that's that. With women, it's a longer process: you can start them off verbally and then get into pulling hair, kicking and slapping. When Sally and Natalie had a fight, they were rolling around on the cobbles and it looked fantastic." Little says that bitchfights make sense in soaps as it's a genre dominated by strong women. "This lioness mentality means that many women fight to defend their young or their man. In 1965, there was a legendary ruction between Ena and Elsie during which Ena smashed Elsie's window with her handbag. It ended with Ken Barlow and Arthur Lowe stepping in to split up the women and that's an ending you'll see a lot - men stepping in to separate two feuding women. As the fights are often over a man, they'll let the fight continue for a while before stepping in. It appeals to the male ego to be desired, so to have two people fighting over you is a bit of a kick." So is the slew of bitchfights gracing our screens simply due to their dramatic potential and the perception of them as harmless fun? Certainly, Coronation Street, with its Etam-clad fighters, is infinitely more enjoyable than EastEnders' dreary diet of blokey gangster action. But there's more to it than that. Whether it's imbroglios involving Footballers' Wives or altercations between oil baronesses, the frisson derived is the same. It's voyeuristic. There's something about Mary bashing Mary that gets an audience going and it's by no means a phenomenon confined to modern television. Back in 1939, Destry Rides Again, starring Marlene Dietrich, caused quite the scandal with its girl-on-girl violence while the best bit of the first Drew-Cameron-Lucy Charlie's Angels film was the ruckus between Natalie (Diaz) and Vivian Wood (Kelly Lynch). Kill Bill Volume 2 is due out later this month and, after dispatching O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu again), Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) stands between the Bride and Bill. It may simply be a coincidence that both Liu and Hannah's characters have names that echo their femininity, or, knowing Tarantino, it may not. Admitting a fondness for bitchfights may be dangerously close to confessing an interest in bikini-clad women mudwrestling. Google the word "catfight" and you will be bombarded with all manner of scopophilic offerings, from Campus Catfights ("Sexy women fight in front of an audience of screaming college students") to South American Amateur Apartment House Catfights (and it doesn't get more niche than that). It comes down, as most things do, to sublimated desire. It's not just the male ego that gets a boost - as Little details, the male libido gets one too. In America, an advert for Miller Lite beer was screened during the National Football League playoffs. In it, an argument between two women descends into a fight during which their clothes are ripped off, leaving them in their underwear. Described as "a lighthearted spoof of guys' fantasies" by the beer's brand manager, the ad concludes with one of the women suggesting to the other, "Let's make out." While the advert attracted predictable criticism, its stars, equally predictably, became darlings of US men's magazines. Not to get all Freudian on you - and certainly not suggesting that secretly I want to see Karen McDonald and Tracy Barlow getting sweaty - but there is something in this theory. "There's something sexy about bodies in action," says Leora Tanenbaum, author of Catfight: Rivalries Among Women. "It amplifies the sexual objectification women undergo." This goes beyond the lesbian-themed reveries so beloved of heterosexual men and beyond simple spectacle. Tanenbaum argues that the notion of two women in competition has long been a tenet of patriarchal culture "from the biblical story of Sarah and Hagar to fairy tales like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty". "Women fighting confirms the stereotype of women as inherently catty and negates the stereotype of being caring, sharing and co-operative. It's a dynamic that is very alluring: people want to see how it will play out. And if women are fighting each other, they're not challenging men." Tanenbaum says that women themselves are complicit in the catfight phenomenon. "We regard each other as rivals rather than allies. It's a learned behaviour that's compounded by a societal double standard when it comes to competition. Boys and men learn that it's acceptable to be ambitious but girls and women learn the opposite. Thus, we learn to hide our ambition and develop underhand, sneaky methods to advance it." Even Sex and the City isn't the bastion of female solidarity you might have assumed. "It's about a group of women who are loyal to each other, but it's them against the world." Whether it's the fictional exploits of Tanya and Amber or the "real life" feud between Victoria Beckham and Jordan, female rivalries thrill in a way that disputes between men don't. They're certainly more spectacular - in the original sense of the word - and less likely to end in violence. There's definitely misogyny, internalised and otherwise, involved in our delight at bitchfights, but there's also something celebratory about them. Two women in verbal combat is a glorious thing, almost a tango. Whereas men quickly resort to throwing punches, women issue withering insults and give dirty looks that can curdle milk at 40 paces. More interesting, more articulate and more attractive than their male counterparts, it's the women - the Tanyas and the Karens - who get all the best lines. Even when they're punctuated with punches. What's not to like? |
| Posted By: wiseguyly69 Posted On: Apr 15, 2004 Views: 332 | Hmm, pretty good stuff Nothing ground breaking here, though I enjoy Tanerbaum's comments. This author seems to have done some homework, and I liked his experience of Googling Catfights. Surprisingly, he didn't mention the real nasty garbage that comes out of that search. Yours in burning out days and nights Wiseguy |
| Posted By: Dio Posted On: Apr 15, 2004 Views: 329 | Very interesting How d'ya find that one? Can you post the link for the article. Thanks Dio |
| Posted By: Harry Posted On: Apr 15, 2004 Views: 314 | RE: On Topic from the UK Guardian Here is the link Dio. http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1192120,00.html P.S. Someone named Andy had already posted the link on Barb's Board. |
| Posted By: Kent Posted On: Apr 17, 2004 Views: 289 | couple more links I got these links off of Barb's board: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page3/story?page=turner/girlfights http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page3/story?page=turner/umathurman The one that posted first (at the top of this thread) I actually saw mentioned on a site that I read often that has nothing at all to do with FvF topics. The fellow that posted it just noted that he had read it and thought it was interesting. -Kent |