Review: Girlfight

Girlfight takes on gender oppression through boxing but ends up 
reinforcing national oppression and offering no real alternative 
for feminists. The main character, Diana, decides to learn boxing 
after she sees her brother training. But she has to go behind her 
father's back, convince the trainer to work with a girl, and 
endure the ridicule of other boxers and other trainers. Meanwhile 
no one questions training her brother who just wants to be an 
academic and is not good at boxing. This realistically illustrates 
how far we still have to go to defeat the patriarchy so that 
wimmin will be seen as capable of engaging in sports.

Diana did not get into boxing to fight against wimmin's 
oppression. Her struggles amount to fighting to do what she 
enjoys. The political highlight of Girlfight comes when Diana 
beats her boyfriend in an amateur championship fight. She doesn't 
back down and throw the fight and her boyfriend doesn't go easy on 
her because she is a girl. But dealing with their relationship the 
movie glosses over issues of national oppression, leaving the 
audience to accept that Latinos will always be poor and live in 
the projects, but at least they can sometimes find love. 

Both Diana and Adrian live in predominantly Latino projects. They 
talk about the crime in their neighborhoods without putting it in 
a social context. This makes it seem as if crime is endemic among 
Latinos -- but Diana and Adrian can escape as individuals. Adrian 
hopes to turn pro to make some money and get out of the projects. 
Finally, it's clear he's not a good enough fighter to do that. The 
movie has a typical romance culture ending: Adrian learns to 
respect Diana's boxing, and the couple stays together.

MIM calls this missing the principal contradiction. How can this 
couple have a happy ending when they and everyone else living in 
the projects with them continues to live as colonized people 
within u.s. borders?

MIM thinks all films should provide a revolutionary message. 
Girlfight voyeuristically talks about the conditions of national 
oppression within the Latino nations, specifically machismo and 
poverty. There is no discussion of the 500 plus years of 
colonialism that led to poverty. And the only reaction to the 
machismo is Diana's individualist crusade to become a female boxer 
and her brother's goals of being an artist. In this way, 
"Girlfight" portrays machismo and poverty as problems of the 
Latino nations, not a part of patriarchal culture.