Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/09/ladies-in-films-win-fights-wit.html
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Doctor: The x-rays showed an oesophageal tear. lt’s commonly known as a hiatal hernia. The pain symptoms are identical to angina. Stress, coffee, spicy foods, gas. Your nerve endings get irritated. You know what that’s like. Not pleasant, but not fatal.
Oliver Rose: Could you get this hiatal hernia, say, by being squeezed between someone’s legs?
Doctor: …No.
Oliver Rose: So l’m not going to die?
Doctor: Eventually, but not today.
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Yes. But also meh: tired of Hollywood interpreting feminism as empowerment through personal armament. Remember the 80s? Rampant materialism? Reagan in a landslide? That decade could make a film like 9 to 5. That film would never be made in the 21st century.
And yes. Yes I have not yet had my warm caffeinated beverage today, thank you.
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Fun fact: this is also quite a popular fetish. Or so I hear. From people I don’t know, honestly.
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Which is likely why it’s become such a trope…
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Here’s a good rundown of the basics of the real modern sport application to the flying scissor takedown, and why it’s banned for being extremely easy to injure opponents and for being effective in the right situations. I have seen a decent amount of Wixia or martial arts films with the head versions, and I have even seen them in games featuring over the top but technically accurate grapples like Hybrid Heaven.
However, Hollywood has taken this and run with it to an extreme that includes some practical choreography (Haywire) and many more with fetishizing scissor leg locks. The reason you don’t see men do them is the same sexism, male combat in film (or TV) is hilariously exaggerated boxing full of the classic western on-punch one-KO. Part of the reason women use martial arts seen in the past with men (in genre films) is also probably to justify their ability while not “being strong enough” to do stupid bullshit punches all the time.
EDIT
Here is a short demonstration with the head takedown, I think it is mostly used to show the athletic skill required than anything.
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The Deckard/Pris fight from Blade Runner (pictured above) always struck me as bizarre and hilariously weird. I guess a “basic pleasure model” attacks guys by shoving their face in her crotch and slapping the sides of their head before doing gymnastics?
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If you want to see men do it watch pro-rasslin’ with mismatched weight classes and at least one Luchador.
That’s where all of those moves you see women doing now got popular in the US, when Turner owned WCW and they brought in the Mexican wrestlers. They had great acrobatics and that scissor-move made it believable when a little flyweight dude would lay out someone with a hundred pounds on them.
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So, if films were more realistic, they’d be more like this, amirite?
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I hate to state the obvious, but the move is popular in movies because sex sells, and women squeezing men between their thighs – even in a fight scene – is titillating to many.
Whether that’s right or wrong is a different question.
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I’m pretty sure we probably figured that out, but thanks…
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Dag nabbit, you beat me to it! Although I agree this particular move is over-used in cinema, it is still both a valid and devastating technique for a smaller person to use against a larger opponent. It isn’t some weird sort of sexy crotch obsession, but a recognition that weight classes exist. For example, at 205 lbs I have little to fear from an unarmed person who weighs 110 unless they are very very very well trained and acrobatic. The basic reason being that I can grab them and sit on them (or even just fall on them) I know this is not often seen in cinema, but it is how a lot of street fights go. I would argue that if accuracy is what we want in our flashy fights, then we need less stand-up boxing and a bit more Jason Bourne or Collateral for the guys. Is forcing women in cinema to fight like they can actually one-punch a 6’2" 200+ lb guy the answer? Also here is the same technique in a Vietnamese art that was developed under similar circumstances to Krav Maga:
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That actually does make some degree of sense; a biological robot programmed to satisfy various pervs’ sexual fetishes would naturally have a fighting style to match.
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I’ll have to watch later, but women fight scenes tend to employ more cunning, speed, and technique than just brute force. Legs are generally much stronger than arms for kicking, and wrestling type moves. So that makes sense. Hollywood fight scenes in general lack “realistic” strategy, but lots of martial arts use legs to entwine, grapple, and aid in locks like Brazilian Jujitsu, Judo, and Krav Maga (sp). If you watch MMA you will see some people employ these methods.
Of course MOST of the fancy flying around and twisting etc has little practical purpose, and I am sure some of the examples in the video are gratuidous. A lot of arts might have a drill that employs these types of moves, but they typically don’t pan out well when someone is trying to actively defend against them.
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The point is that it’s only meant to be titallating to a given group…a group that is so often offered titillation in so many ways that we refer to the addition of this titillation into every ridiculous context as “sex” selling.
There are so many other fun and intersting titillations that other groups would surely enjoy, even if it’s just a man on man scissor hold…but I also know enough to not expect this from the entertainment machine. 
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There are a lot of great women (and girls) doing fight sequences in film these days. But to make those sequences halfway believable, the actress is likely going to need to employ ninja skills. Often, the male opponent far outweighs the female fighter. Without her ninja skills, he would just annihilate her, unless you bring superpowers into the story.
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That explains why James Bond would usually defeat Jaws by jumping up on his shoulders and squeezing his much larger foe’s neck between his naked thighs. Likewise for Batman fighting Bane, Superman fighting Doomsday, Legolas fighting the Cave trolley, etc.
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I have seen it occasionally with male fighters. Most recently in an anime, but I believe JCVD used it a few times across his filmography.
Possibly Jet Li as well.
To be fair, it is (almost, if you squint) a legitimate martial arts technique. It’s just ridiculously sexualized when there’s no reason for it.
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