Why is martial arts movies less popular today?

Yes, martial arts are about violence. However, it is also about controlling violence as much as possible. And that is something that most people in India refuse to see, much less accept. And that creates a major barrier to making Indian Martial Arts popular within the country.
 
If no one has said it before, we didn't have the UFC or other MMA promotions back then. We actually believed that what we saw Bruce Lee or Van Damme do on the big screen is what it would look like in real life. Now we know that it doesn't. Simply asking people to suspend disbelief in order to enjoy these movies wouldn't work, because they're not in the fantasy or sci-fi genre. They're presented as realistic action movies.
 
They have been done to death - virtually every movie and TV show has martial arts choreography. It is no longer a novelty to see the mystical martial arts moves on the movie screen. James Bond, Jason Bourne and even Keanu Reeves are all masters of the fighting arts these days 🤣
 
This kind of reminds me of a study I heard about in the 2000's. It has always been un-PC to say that someone sounded a particular race when they spoke. However, there were participants in a study where they spoke to several people on the phone, and were asked to guess the race of the person that they were speaking to. On average, they guessed correctly with an 85% accuracy.

If you say that someone "sounded black" or "sounded white," you'll typically be asked to describe what black or white sounds like. It's one of those things that you can't define, but you know it when you see it. Or hear it.

I would say that the same thing applies to words like "manly" and "masculine" (or even "womanly" and "feminine"). We may not able to describe or define the terms, but we know it when we see it.
 
Speaking of MA movies. Does anybody else watch the “Hi-Yah!” channel? Part of my Sling package. Nothing but CMA! Currently watching “the thousand faces of Dunjia”. After that the movie “unity of heroes” is scheduled.

Also, does anybody remember Rodriquez’s El Rey channel of a bunch of years ago. Lots of white haired masters there. Too bad he couldn’t sustain the channel. Great stuff!
 
Speaking of MA movies. Does anybody else watch the “Hi-Yah!” channel? Part of my Sling package. Nothing but CMA! Currently watching “the thousand faces of Dunjia”. After that the movie “unity of heroes” is scheduled.
I'm personally not a fan of modern CMA movies (like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), but I'll watch the hell out of some Brucesploitation movies from the 70's and 80's.
 
Yep you are in hot water now. I'm tired of the slang WOKE being misused because to me it shows a real lack of understanding.

Here's the meaning of WOKE. It simply means that a person was being taken advantage of but now the are aware and can no longer be taken advantage of.

Examples: Getting out skilled in basketball the person winning say " don't fall asleep on me" the person losing catches on to the offensive press an say "I'm woke"

Your wife is cheating on you and your friends have been telling you this for 3 years. Then you see with your own eyes the truth and you say "I'm woke"

Woke or being woke has nothing to do with any of that noise people are being fed. There is no WOKE GENERATION. It is simply a phrase that is use to admit that you were being taken advantage of, and now you are aware of that.

This is what it means and is why your statement about underwear makes no sense.
Currently, the word WOKE is the latest cultural appropriation.
 
This kind of reminds me of a study I heard about in the 2000's. It has always been un-PC to say that someone sounded a particular race when they spoke. However, there were participants in a study where they spoke to several people on the phone, and were asked to guess the race of the person that they were speaking to. On average, they guessed correctly with an 85% accuracy.

If you say that someone "sounded black" or "sounded white," you'll typically be asked to describe what black or white sounds like. It's one of those things that you can't define, but you know it when you see it. Or hear it.

I would say that the same thing applies to words like "manly" and "masculine" (or even "womanly" and "feminine"). We may not able to describe or define the terms, but we know it when we see it.
I think the issue is that the person speaking sounds like what the listener thinks (that group) sounds like, while (that group) doesn't usually have a sound (but a regional accent has a sound). And what they think (that group) sounds like is heavily influenced by films and television, in addition to their own experience. So the value of such a study is more about the influences on our perceptions: we think that a person sounds like a member of a group because of the members of that group that we've heard speak, whether directly or on TV.

(Hey, anybody seen the new animated Spider-man movie? The Spider-punk guy with the Cockney accent?)

It's not inaccurate for me to say that someone sounds like (that group) to me: but it's inaccurate for me to say that the person is a member of (that group). I don't know.

There's no characteristic voice for a specific race, in other words. The value of a study on speaker race identification really depends on the sampling. Was it sampled in the US or the UK, for example?

Here's a study, and the accuracy was 60%.

... and let's be cool, lest the thread be locked.
 
I think the issue is that the person speaking sounds like what the listener thinks (that group) sounds like, while (that group) doesn't usually have a sound (but a regional accent has a sound). And what they think (that group) sounds like is heavily influenced by films and television, in addition to their own experience. So the value of such a study is more about the influences on our perceptions: we think that a person sounds like a member of a group because of the members of that group that we've heard speak, whether directly or on TV.

(Hey, anybody seen the new animated Spider-man movie? The Spider-punk guy with the Cockney accent?)

It's not inaccurate for me to say that someone sounds like (that group) to me: but it's inaccurate for me to say that the person is a member of (that group). I don't know.

There's no characteristic voice for a specific race, in other words. The value of a study on speaker race identification really depends on the sampling. Was it sampled in the US or the UK, for example?
This was in the US. I remember it being "viral" at the time, and this was around 2007 or 2008.

Here's a study, and the accuracy was 60%.

... and let's be cool, lest the thread be locked.
This one's a bit different. This one was listening to one-second recorded voice samples of vowels, instead of actual phone conversations. And for one-second voice clips of vowels, I'd say 60% is pretty good.

My point isn't so much about what was being studied, as the subject of that story isn't relevant to what's being discussed here. What I am saying is that if you challenge someone to describe to define what's masculine or manly, and they're not able to, you probably shouldn't be too quick to do the victory dance. They may not be able to define or describe it, but they know it when they see it. And so do you, even if you won't say it.

If someone says that Bruce Willis is more masculine than Rick Moranis, very few people will disagree. Ask anybody who does agree why they say that, and they'll likely be speechless. There's a word for this. It's called "je ne sais quoi."
 
Last edited:
Well, most people don't think too much about what they think. In the case of Willis vs Moranis, their impression would likely be based on physical size and the nature of the roles they've played. Also there could be the number of times they've smiled, and how they play status in a performance sense (e.g. high status = less movement).

I agree that words are often inadequate as in describing music or art, but being unable to explain our attitudes doesn't always mean that we can't trace the history of how we acquired that attitude. Over time, the attitude moves from explicit to implicit, in the way that an expert athlete doesn't think about what they do; they just do it.

That's why we can sometimes throw an expert off their game by complimenting them at a "micro" level: "hey that was a great way that you grip that racquet: very Continental!" Doing so, if the recipient is open, can shift their skills back to the explicit level, and hopefully throw them off by causing them to lose some of the implicit integration they earned in the years after they learned the Continental grip. In other words, while that player might not be able to articulate all the steps that got them to where they were, they did pass through those steps on the way to expertise.

So we can definitely trace a person's perception to their likely influences, once we know what those are. "I know it when I see it" is a case of the explicit influences becoming an implicit attitude or opinion.

... but we should not assume that an opinion is always an accurate perception. no matter how confident the holder of that opinion is.
 
This kind of reminds me of a study I heard about in the 2000's. It has always been un-PC to say that someone sounded a particular race when they spoke. However, there were participants in a study where they spoke to several people on the phone, and were asked to guess the race of the person that they were speaking to. On average, they guessed correctly with an 85% accuracy.

If you say that someone "sounded black" or "sounded white," you'll typically be asked to describe what black or white sounds like. It's one of those things that you can't define, but you know it when you see it. Or hear it.

I would say that the same thing applies to words like "manly" and "masculine" (or even "womanly" and "feminine"). We may not able to describe or define the terms, but we know it when we see it.
I have an old friend. When he was young and in drag, NO ONE could tell he was male. You may think that you know it when you see it, but anyone can be fooled, particularly when they have the notion that they cannot be.
 
Back
Top