Michelle Rodgriguez impressed me enough in some military movie that I used imbd.com to look her up. That led me to Girlfight: which I liked well enough to watch half-way through a second time.
If we hear turn the other cheek on Sunday, then how do we root for the mayhem of Friday nights? I don't know: that's why we need seven different days of the week. Some people could maybe get by with only one or two different days for different moralities, different psychologies; others need more than seven. All I know, in my own case, is: Christianity seemed good in one context, Joe Louis seemed good in another. Christianity got my idealist passions up, Joe Louis got my blood passions up: way up. Then Mohammed Ali. Now I see a dozen beat the shit out of everybody movies for any one about the Passion: beat the shit out of God.
My enjoyment of Girlfight made me all the more receptive to rumors that Clint Eastwood was doing a women's boxing movie. I was all the more happy that Hilary Swank would be playing the boxer. I saw Million Dollar Baby within days of its playing locally, watched it win Oscars the other night. I liked it; but I certainly don't agree that it's Clint's best work. One thing that it did for sure though was make me want to see Girlfight again.
Half-way through, not quite to the same spot, this "third" viewing, I bail out again. I have no intention of watching the rest. I'll just look at stills of Michelle Rodgriguez instead. Million Dollar Baby shows women boxing women; Girlfight shows more co-ed than women-only boxing. I have no objection to men and women, boys and girls, working out together – if everybody is willing. Sparring is fine. Maybe amateur bouts for no big deal prize. But I absolutely cannot countenance men and women competing against each other for anything but laughs: absolutely not in a blood sport. Women can fight. Women can bleed. Women can take knocks. And obviously men can.
But women and men take enough blood knocks from each other within the family. I think they should both be spared outside the family.
For one thing, when Johnson fought Jeffries, or Clay Liston, or Ali Forman ... one has no difficulty believing that both men tried, neither was shy, neither held back: because the other had his period or something, because one felt sorry for the other. Neither held back because he had been trained to hold back since he was in diapers.
Now in war for territory, as in predation for meat, fairness doesn't matter. Wars for markets, wars for propaganda, wars for hegemony have rules. Wars for territory do not. In no way could Genghis Khan make his point better than through total extermination.
If I'm fishing for dinner, I don't care whether my lure snares a male or a female. If I want to kill all the rats in the pantry, I don't need to check genders first. If you're robbing a bank to feed your family, who gives a shit if the teller you rap with the sap is Mr., Mrs., Miss, or Ms.?
But a boxing match is neither predation for meat nor war for territory. Dominance, not annihilation, is the point. Athletic sports are kin to stags butting heads for mating rights far more than to lions killing zebras for dinner: or than to lions killing lion kittens that aren't his. A buck doesn't butt the does, he butts the other bucks.
In Girlfight Diana is supposed to fight Adrian for a championship. Diana and Adrian are supposed to be in love. What's being contested? Are we sure it's boxing?
Michelle's Diana has already knocked her father down. That's one thing. Plenty of guys have knocked their mother down. Plenty of fathers are falling down before your touch them. But male / female knocking should take place after mating has succeeded or failed. Now war can really be war.
PS This will get another session: extension, revision ...
2005 03 17 Another point about Girlfight I'll develop at InfoAll blog. 2005 03 30 I censor some rude observations: by moving them to pkBowdler blog.
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