Re: "I mean, feminism is okay and everything, but..."

What is it that's so unsettling to the patriarchy about a girl being able to beat up the whole football team?

I'm not saying this is what you meant. I'm just interpreting the statement as it came across to most of the other people at the table.

Of course it's slightly implausible. But people fly in movies, too.

That a woman with sufficient expertise can hold her own against a single similarly-trained man is no longer up for debate, having worked its way down to the basest forms of pop culture - to wit, the "chixploitation" film.

However, the formation of groups whose purpose is physical violence is still very much the domain of men. The football team is the small-scale example; the large-scale example is rather obvious. So even if physical dominance over women is no longer guaranteed on an individual level, if some woman goes and gets herself martial arts training, at least the football team, that inviolable shrine of male power, can still keep her in her place. Right?

Not so, says this movie.

And what of the She-Hulk, throwing tanks around like Frisbees? I submit that the She-Hulk isn't a woman in any meaningful sense. She's a wo-man, the Hulk with boobs. It's right there in the name. She's the She-Hulk.

Hilary Swank was neither physically anomalous nor hypersexualized. She wasn't the She-Karate Kid. It's worse than that - she's the Next Karate Kid. Men are on their way out, says the movie's title. Ralph Macchio is a thing of the past.

And of course that's scary to the male power structure. But hey, if you can't beat 'em, sexualize them. So along comes Tarantino the very same year with Uma Thurman's "Fox Force Five" monologue. I don't think it's a stretch to connect that particular scene with the fact that we've since had two Charlie's Angels remakes.

Julie-San, we hardly knew ye.