Let Them Fight - A Brief Look Into Gender, Representation, and Capability

So my wife had to get her eyes dilated at the doctor today.  No biggie, everything's fine, but it prompted her to experiment with her vision at a distance and threw on a random film on Netflix.  What she picked is called Extraction.  A film from 2015 starring Bruce Willis ("starring" is a little generous), Kellan Lutz (from Twilight), and Gina Carano (from so many films now).
  And the experience was...irascible.  

Context Is Key - What Is Extraction

Extraction is a film from 2015 (not to be confused with the superior Chris Hemsworth film from 2020 of the same name) about a spy (3 weeks from retirement of course) captured by a terrorist organization and how his son, Harry, teams up with an old flame from the CIA, Victoria, to find him.  There's a little double cross, a few lazy car chases, some strange choices in cinematography, an entirely misaligned musical score, and a complete misuse in the majority of the cast.  ...Especially Carano.
  It's one thing to be a disappointing film.  There are many that fulfill that category.  But this one stuck with me in a deep way - a pain of missed opportunities and a wasted potential for, especially at this point, a well-established actress and powerful presence like Carano.  
To understand where I'm going and how this all feeds into the GM's Corner, we need to take a look at a little film called Haywire.

MMA Champion and actress Gina Carano in 2011's Haywire.

Where Haywire (2011) Shines

Haywire is a low-budget action film with tight cinematography, great choreography that feels real, and a raw approach to an otherwise simple story.  This is another film featuring trained agents in a military-type scenario and a female agent fighting against those that would entrap or frame her.  The film, directed by Steven Soderbergh, is confident, visceral, and wholly satisfying, but there's one scene in particular that illustrates my point the best.
  Mallory (Carano) and another character (played by the ever-suave Michael Fassbender) are moving through a hotel acting all cute and newlywed-like as they head back to their room.  It's kind of adorable, even.  But once the door closes, it's all business.  The facade falls, and they're agents on a mission.
  Fassbender throws the first punch, knocking Mallory down.  The fight is intense, devoid of music, with long takes pushed out so you can see every punch, kick, grapple, and throw in all its glory.  You forget immediately that this is a man and woman.  These are two highly trained combatants trying their best to incapacitate, and probably, kill each other.  At no point in the fight is a punch pulled or mercy given - it is a no-holds-barred drag out display of pure fighting ability.   It reveals two extremely important things.  1) Mallory isn't invincible, in this fight and many more to follow.  She gets BEAT UP in this movie.  2) Mallory is always capable.  She gets knocked down, but gets right back up and adapts to her opponents, terrain, and dozens of other active factors; you can see the turning of the tide over the course of each fight, and it's a turn of skill, not plot armor.  She uses her surroundings to startling effect, demonstrating an intelligence in battle and survivability.  This is not a character who will let you win just because the script deems it so. 

Where Extraction Misses The Opportunity Completely

I can think of two distinct moments where both my wife and I shouted at the screen.  The director has fundamentally missed the mark in every possible way when handling the character.

SCENE ONE - Carano isn't allowed to fight
Setup: Victoria takes Harry to an old female friend/contact and they go to a club to locate a perp.  The perp is a sleaze in every meaning, so Victoria makes out with her friend to get his attention.  Perp calls her over and she convinces him to head to a private room.
  Women can show off whatever they like however they wish.  Their body, their choice.  I'm not complaining about that.  
  No.  I'm complaining about what follows, and it fails on so many levels I got physically angry at my television.
Victoria gets taken back to the penthouse suite in close quarters with their perp, and two other guards.  At this point, I expect things to go south, but I'm not worried about her.  And I'm not worried because of two things.  1) She's a CIA operative with specialized hand-to-hand combat training.  She's been an agent longer than our male protagonist (who isn't an agent yet, has just been training for it).  I expect her to handle herself pretty well here, because she should know what she's doing.  2) She's Gina-freaking-Carano, and I've seen her take out a staggering number of people in a wide assortment of mediums.  And I'm not trying to typecast here; she's playing someone who can fight - I'm looking forward to the fight.
  Meanwhile, Harry gets a tip that there's an assassin on his tail.  He corners the guy in a bathroom and Victoria's cover is immediately blown before she can get any info.  Victoria starts getting beat on by three men, thrown around the room in shots where you can't see anything, and Harry confronts the assassin in a "martial arts" brawl.  This is where the problems start piling up.
We get to see Harry go brawling in a bathroom with an assassin (reminiscent of the superior bathroom brawl featuring Tom Cruise and Henry Cavill from Mission Impossible: Fallout), complete with cracking glass, burst pipes, and drenched fists...juxtaposed with Victoria getting choked and kicked on the floor.  In fact, there are long takes of this testosterone-filled fight and then short takes of the female lead getting beat on.  No disarming techniques, no creative grapples, no takedowns, no showcase of ANY of Carano's talents.  NONE of the things I've come to expect and enjoy with seeing her on screen - she actually looks bored while being beat up.
  The tide doesn't turn for her until Harry, the non-operative male protagonist, stops a punch and joins the fight.  She had to be rescued by him, and that pisses me right off.

Why is it that female agents always seem to get into these difficult scuffles and need to be rescued, and the males just have to brawl it out?  (I have always hated this trope)
  And female violence, in many mediums, tends to have an air of femininity to it - in a bad way.  Like instead of treating the female combatant as a threat, the violence toward them is pivoted to accentuate their gender somehow.  Like they're treated as a "silly girl" and toyed with first, before being a target to be eliminated.  They're thrown around, the face is avoided, they're choked and held down; they're somehow a woman first, threat second.  Meanwhile, the men get to engage in big physical fights and be the capable combatant.  
  Even the way it's shot is strange.  Harry gets wide angle shots that showcase his physicality, while Victoria gets close shots of her face, her body, and her dress.  Do you see the difference yet?

The brawl continues to the dance floor with an awkward cut, and they approach the thugs side by side.  Harry gets to punch some more, and FINALLY Victoria kicks someone (but she's fighting in a dress that doesn't allow a lot of movement - a fact that the CHARACTER directly opposed in dialogue, but was shut down), then gets grabbed from behind at gunpoint.  
...deep...breath...
Now about this fool with the gun.  He doesn't keep it on her; no, he waves the thing around like an idiot.  I'm not a MMA fighter, but I do practice martial arts enough to see specific beats where a disarm can happen, and AGAIN, I was waiting for Carano - who is way more skilled than I will ever be (and a combat-trained agent would be) - to take one of those beats and wreck this fool.  She never does.  And it looks like she wants to.
  In fact, Carano looks really uncomfortable in most of these scenes.  Like, somehow, this state is very "unnatural" for her (he writes, knowingly staring into the Void).  She stands there like a petrified flower in a cocktail dress - scared and confused.  She is then dragged off and into a car, where she proceeds to do very little to change her circumstances other than alert Harry how to follow them (still smart, just not "physically capable").

Why am I mad? 
Harry's not an agent.  He's a man.  Victoria IS an agent.  She is a woman.  Harry is free to play hero, Victoria is dragged off like a damsel, and NOT ONCE tries to fix that problem with her combat skills.  Critic says: But she was stuffed in a car, Adamus, what is she supposed to do?  Answer: the male protagonist was also stuffed into a car with four armed guards earlier in the film...and he fought his way out.  Why can't she - the trained and tested operative with two guards?  Their frame and role in the story is defined by their gender, not their skill set.  How refreshing would it have been if not only had Victoria held her own (a fact that runs in line with her skill set), and Harry brawled his way through, but his lack of training gets him caught?  OR both get to shine with both of their styles, but the INTELLIGENT villain outsmarts them by undermining their flaws, instead of victory being a contrivance?
  There's a better story here, and Carano can tell it.  Instead, she's sidelined for Lutz to shine, if for no other reason than "he's the main character."  Hollywood.  Stop writing people as bad at the job they're supposed to be good at just so the main character can be better.  Write them all as good at their job, and elevate the stakes to match them.  That's how you make memorable stories (another deep breath).

Scene Two - Why is Victoria even here?
After getting punched once in the car and therefore knocked out (with no bruise to tarnish her face), Victoria is strung up with ONE hand tied to a pipe.  One.  And she's standing on the ground with both feet.  In a large, empty room (prime real estate for a good ole' fashioned fight scene). 
  Carano is a built individual; her physical prowess is poised for display.  I have seen her hoist herself up EASILY with one arm; the lady has body control, excellent strength and power, and a keen understanding of leverage and choke holds.  So I'm still holding on to hope that I'm going to see something cool.
AND YET.
She is unconscious for the majority of the last Act.  When she does come to, she's alone in the room, and it cuts back to Lutz being stupid.  By now I expect it to cut back to her breaking free, but no, she just hangs out some more.  When a guard arrives, she instead uses her feminine wiles to "seduce" him to come closer to her (why does this EVER work in film?), and THEN does a decent take-down and breaks free (which she could have done before, and already have re-entered the story).  I AM glad she got herself out, no rescuing here...however, as a director, this dude did NOT understand what Carano is capable of.  She can do so much more than what she was directed to do.
  And when she DOES fight someone...it's a nameless thug (not the jerk that knocked her out - no, that guy fights a different thug; great, a brawl between two people we don't know or care about).  This "fight" is done in badly lit shots, with weird cuts, and strange close-ups, so you never get to SEE her fight.  She can fight.  Let her fight!

What This Has To Do With Tabletop RPGs

Surely, my rant can continue for many pages more, but I assure you I had a point, and it is rooted in this idea:

If you want to play a damsel - a fainting flower who danes to be rescued and won like a prize - go for it. 
If you want to play a warrior - someone skilled in hand-to-hand combat and who revels in the ring - go for it. 
If you're a dude and you want to play a gal, have at it. 
If you're a lady and you want to play the meanest boy in town, more power to you. 
If you want to play a gender-fluid wood elf sharpshooter, be my guest.
And, as your Director...I mean, GM...I will NEVER adjust your role in the game based on your GENDER.  Women can be warriors, men can be damsels, and heroes (and villains) come in all shapes and sizes.

And it is my job to give you opportunities to shine and show off.  If you have cultivated your character to be a serious, half-orc grappler, then I will make sure that you have opportunities to GRAPPLE.  I WANT you to show off.  I WANT you to succeed in your concept.  
  That doesn't mean you auto-win a scenario, but if you've built someone who should naturally be good at this skill, then I'm going to cultivate scenarios that allow you to show yourself to be good at your skill.  I need to give you the wide angle shots, pass you the patience to show (don't tell), and watch you turn the tide as a warrior who reassesses her situation and adapts to new data.  
  Because that's what fighting is.
And if you built a sharpshooter, then I better damn well make sure you have some opportunities to shoot stuff.  If you built a fainting noble, then by golly I'll make sure you have opportunities to react in kind!  Whatever your slice of fun, whatever your build, whatever your core concept, it is a GM's duty to provide you with a time and possibility to BE that thing.  
  This isn't to say there won't be moments of challenge, nor will I spell it out for you in meticulous detail what is possible, but all of this ties discretely into our REST model.  
I will Respect your character concept as it aligns with the setting, and I will Respect your Gender in whatever form it takes.  I will practice Empathy in your vision as you embark on this journey.  I will seek to provide Satisfying encounters where you can shine and show off.  And I will build Trust through these encounters, even as they change and evolve.

You are all Gina Carano.
I will let you fight.

See you at the table.
-Adamus