[500 Word Essay] Violence Against Women in Low-Budget Martial Arts Films

Photo credit
Lionsgate (2015). Absolution. Retrieved from IMDb.

One of the most
recurrent and unpleasant trends in low-budget action movies is
violence aimed at female characters. This isn’t unique to my
particular film niche, but its prevalence in direct-to-video kick flicks is telling of how readily viewers accept and expect to see
women treated violently onscreen. We’re talking about largely
independent productions which highlight fighting arts designed for use by anybody, but often,
these films maintain a status quo whereby unanswered physical aggression towards
women is a matter of course. I’ll try to briefly convey why this is
a problem and how it might be rectified.

[For clarity:
When I mention violence towards women, I’m referring to instances
where a female character is physically abused by another character
(typically male, though sometimes another woman). I usually don’t
count instances where the woman is an active combatant, though there
are problematic examples of that, too (e.g. the fight between Brandie
Rocci and Darren Shahlavi in Bloodmoon (1997),
reminiscent of a domestic violence episode).]

I’m not suggesting
that such instances of violence can’t be appropriate within a
film’s context. However, what makes the bulk of them disagreeable
and problematic are not only the societal norms they perpetuate, but
the effects they may have enacted on the DTV film-making scene. An
overabundance of female-directed violence probably contributed to the
rarity of women becoming physical players in action scenes (can’t be a victim and a hero at the same time, here), which in
turn makes actresses less likely to rise within this subgenre.
There’s no shortage of capable women in the field, but most aren’t
particularly well-known because they’re rarely portrayed the way
their male counterparts are.

Speaking of which…
Though male characters are more often on the receiving end of
violence in these movies, they don’t contend with the
above-mentioned detrimental effects. Men are much more likely to be
portrayed as fighters, period. The vast majority of these
films are headlined by male protagonists, and there’s no shortage
of successful male performers who got their start being beaten up in
fight scenes. There are no social stigmas decreeing that men should
generally be portrayed as helpless victims, and in a genre where
physical violence is the norm, that counts for a lot.

Dealing
with this issue isn’t as easy as finding the new Cynthia Rothrock, as
even movies which feature a powerful woman in the lead are often
still saturated with violence directed at other women. I also don’t favor doing away with this sort of violence completely, lest it
limit the kind of stories that could be told. I think a more sensible
approach would be to simply level the playing field by regularly
casting women in not only starring roles, but also physical
supporting roles – have women play more enforcers, lieutenants,
teammates, or even bystanders who can throw a punch. By subverting societal expectations, we’d not only
diminish the degree to which such films perpetuate unhelpful
prejudices (e.g. women are helpless in the face of violence), but
also open the film market to a greater variety of butt-kicking
talent.

Some films that
have already applied this concept
relatively well: Contour (2006), Ninja
Apocalypse (2014), Tekken (2010), Honor and Glory (1993), Xtreme Fighter (2004)