Catherine Colegrove – The Arena: Masturbation or Liberation?

This talk began life as a commentary on the movie - I should say the Roger Corman classic movie - The Arena. Then I actually watched The Arena more carefully and decided that indeed, although I did rather enjoy it, it wasn’t a film that I was particularly interested in analyzing at length. But watching The Arena did bring up a question that I am very interested in investigating: why do we like to see women fight? This presumes that at least a few people, perhaps even some in this very room, besides me do like to see women fight and, given the popularity of recent movies featuring ass-kicking babes such as Charlie’s Angels, both regular and full throttle, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith and other Angelina vehicles, I feel pretty safe in this presumption. So I’m going to dispense with The Arena analysis in pretty short order and move on to a more general discussion of the problems and possibilities raised by chicks with swords, guns and lethal roundhouse kicks.