What's The Deal With Airline Foo...I Mean Catfights

Ahhh the wonderful world of beer commercials, where everything is innocent and sexy (or innocently sexist?). When most guys picture two girls fighting, a scene like this pops into their head. To me, that's ok -- I can at least understand why something like that would be awesome to watch. The real problem, however, is that real catfights never -- and I mean never -- look like that. So, why are people -- especially males -- still infatuated with the concept of two females beating each other up. Though I may have seen a catfight or two or three in my days, I still don't really get it.

Yesterday, I went to a Wizards game at the Verizon Center to watch the Cavaliers get their asses kicked. I had a great time, but I couldn't get over the fact that the girl behind me was perhaps the most annoying person I had ever encountered. She was loud and obnoxious, and at multiple times spewed racial epithets and other annoying banter. Though she clearly wasn't trying to be directly offensive with her words, her detestable presence eventually made the stranger next to her -- a young black girl around her age -- tell her to shut up. That really set the loud one off. I wasn't sure if there was any way that she could have gotten more annoying, but surely enough, there was.

The next 10 minutes was filled with an overdose of squirming, high-pitched squabbling and repetitive, uncreative shit-talking. This seems to be a mandatory prelude to any catfight, though it's ugly, irritating and boring. In the end, neither girl "took it outside," but if they had, the ensuing rumble surely would have looked very little like the beer commercial. Instead, it would be two girls who were once attractive now trying to beat each other up with punches, scratches and hair pulling. No matter how you look at it, they both would have come out less cute than they had gone in.

Despite my knowledge of these facts about how annoying the buildup to a catfight can be, and how rarely an actual catfight is anything more than graceless, flailing destruction, I can't deny that I would have trouble turning away from two girls engaging in fisticuffs. Some jackass from Esquire argues that any man who likes to see women fighting is "unconsciously hoping to see footage of a woman being murdered," but that is completely absurd. Though I would never encourage a catfight, or ever knowingly admit or even agree that they are "fun" to watch, there is something about human nature that makes the pitting of one human against another an exciting, if not entertaining, spectacle. Girls are no exception, and in a world where men's boxing is highly televised and violence is often glamorized, I guess it shouldn't be surprising that every once in a while, some girls harbor a specific desire to beat another one's ass. For those who watch, the same basic brutal nature that makes fighting of any kind exciting is still in play, it's just that these combatant have boobs...and vaginas...so...that makes it better, right? The fact that its something different than the normal man-on-man combat at least counts for something.

In the end, I'm not surprised that people would stop and watch if they saw two girls fighting on the street. It's a rare and unusual display, and human's aren't very good at restraining themselves from watching things that could be considered "guilty pleasures." What baffles me, however, is the romanticizing of catfights. They're not hot, they're not attractive and they're not sexy. If you haven't ever seen a girl fight and you happen to stumble upon one at some point in your life, don't expect to see shirts getting ripped off, or the altercation having an erotic conclusion. But, if you're a female and you plan on getting in a fight with another girl soon, maybe, just maybe, do the crowd a favor. Ok, or not -- please don't beat me up.