The Catfight Confession

      There was a time when it _wasn’t_ widely presupposed that every woman was an indestructible goddess who could trample on armies of men and scarcely notice their bones breaking under her feet. There was a time when it _wasn’t_ widely presupposed that every woman was really a lesbian at heart because men were so boring. Those two suppositions are now deeply enough entrenched in the entertainment media that, if two women in a movie are shown fighting each other now, this is highly likely to be either a titanic battle of super-Amazons, or the prelude to a lesbian sexual encounter, or both scenarios in one.

But physical fights between women were depicted in movies _even_ back when women were assumed to be heterosexual and _weren’t_ assumed to be invincible super-warriors. It follows that the early popularity of “catfights” just _might_ have had some cause _other_ than goddess-fantasies or lesbian fantasies.

What, then, was the other, earlier motivation?

Consider: if two heterosexual women who _aren’t_ clones of Xena the Warrior Princess get into an altercation serious enough to ignite their tempers, but _not_ serious enough to cause either to feel any desire to kill, maim or disfigure the other, they might get into some kind of scuffle without any bloody blades or secret fists of death. They might exchange slaps, grab each other’s shoulders in a shoving match, or even wrestle a bit. When this was SHOWN IN OLD MOVIES, the whole point was that it _wasn’t_ anywhere near to being mortal combat. And if the two women wrapped their arms around each other and rolled around thus clinching, it didn’t mean they wanted to have sex; it meant that they had an unspoken agreement not to punch, kick or strangle each other (at least not initially).

The idea of a catfight which _doesn’t_ need to be taken seriously can entertain me without the female combatants having to end up as lesbian lovers. The two women can be _sexy_ even without _having_ sex, and they can be depicted as angry without either of them being in danger of being killed by the other.

Only once in my entire life, when I was around twenty years old, have I witnessed two women-- or rather, two teenage girls-- physically fighting each other for real, in anger. The girls involved were not at all sexually attracted to each other; they appeared to be fighting over a boy. They were NOT elite-special-forces-trained supergirls ; but they seemed equally matched in strength, and they sure did want to hurt each other, though their wild mutual flailing wasn’t very efficient. The teenage onlookers were enjoying the sight, but neither of the actual fighters was having any fun. They both seemed to be crying at the same time as they fought; each was trying to hit the other, yet at the same time was trying to keep the other away. (Certainly no _hugging_ involved!) Their anger had pulled them into this, and neither girl _could_ stop.

I did not stand watching for as long as my above paragraph might seem to indicate. It’s possible to get a distinct impression of a situation in three or four seconds. I was not one bit entertained by what was happening; I was horrified. So I did what none of the stupid, yelling kids around them thought of doing.

I _stopped_ the fight. I thrust my straightened arms in between the girls, then with an outward movement of my hands, I pushed them away from each other.

Here, by the way, there was no support to be found for the invincible-goddess notion. I have never been physically big or athletic; each of those girls was close to me in size and weight; but I moved them both at the same time as easily as if they had been five-year-old children.

The fact that they _didn’t_ leap right back at each other once I  withdrew my hands tends to convince me that, once an outside force had separated them, they lost their wild rage very quickly. In the circumstances, I had no opportunity to try to reason with the girls at length; but _maybe_ they came away understanding that an adult had cared about _preventing_ them from injuring each other.

Repeat after me: Joseph took NO PLEASURE AT ALL from seeing this real-life catfight.

When I watch a pretended catfight in a movie, I know that the _actresses_ are not really hurting each other; but that’s not good enough. I can only _enjoy_ seeing the pretended catfight if I also know that the _characters_ are not being hurt in the story. A bloodless tussle that vents the characters’ emotions is like a brief glimpse of a world where there _aren’t_ any deadly feuds demanding blood. And loss of the combatants’ clothing is not necessary.

If any simulated fight between women _does_ involve “real” injury (that is, real _within_ the story), I can only enjoy it if it works like a proper good-against-evil fight between men. Thus, if Harley Quinn were so stupid as to attack Wonder Woman, I would take satisfaction from seeing Wonder Woman put Harley Quinn out for the count -- but only the _same_ satisfaction as from seeing Batman put out Joker’s lights. I would never call it a catfight,  precisely _because_ it was too serious a fight to be called that. There would be no pleasure for me in seeing Harley Quinn get the upper hand over Wonder Woman.

For me, viewing a make-believe catfight is like being IN play-fights as a child; the pleasure is dependent precisely on _knowing_ that it’s a game of sorts, not a death-duel.

This relatively gentle sense of fun has been lost by those who want to see women in movies hacking each other into gory meat with swords, and call _that_ a “catfight.”