From Swan Lake to Sugar Plum Scary: enough with the ballerina assassins

Jennifer Lawrence, Florence Pugh and Scarlett Johansson are among the finest actors of their generation. It’s rewarding to see such Hollywood heavy-hitters all signing on to tackle one of the most dangerous scourges of contemporary life. The headlines might be dominated by war and climate change, but consciousness is slowly growing towards the hidden menace that is the killer ballerina.

This year’s Pretty Lethal saw Uma Thurman’s evil bunhead-turned-gunhead leading an attack on a troupe of ballet students who turn arabesques into roundhouse kicks. Last year, Oscar nominee Ana de Armas executed deadly jetes as the lead in From the World of John Wick: Ballerina. A few years earlier Jeon Jong-seo from the Palme d’Or-winning Burning took bloody revenge in the gritty South Korean thriller Ballerina (she’s not actually the titular ballerina, but the association of classical dance and fatal footwork is still there).

Then there are the Marvel’s Black and White Widows, sisters equally proficient in murder and dance, and the whole tribe of ballerina assassins that populate the rest of the John Wick films. Jennifer Lawrence kicked off the wave of ballerinas-turned-assassins in 2018’s Red Sparrow, but as with any Hollywood trend, there’s an entire underbelly of unwatchable movies that try to copy the moves. Titles such as Ballerina Reborn for Revenge and Heiress’s Ballet Revenge set the tone. Even the studio behind the Sharknado franchise gave it a shot with last year’s Ballerina Assassin.

It’s worth noting that no working ballerina has ever had a confirmed kill. In my years as an arts journalist I’ve met dozens of ballet dancers, and I’ve never felt the need to scope out an exit strategy. They don’t line their tutus with throwing knives and I’m willing to bet they’ve never used their pointe shoes to inflict blunt-force trauma (although the reinforced tip would admittedly serve the purpose well).

So why the onslaught of onscreen ballerina assassins? If there was a thriving subgenre of films in which, say, horse jockeys doubled as explosives experts, there would be serious questions for the racing industry. If Matt Damon, Robert Pattinson and Tom Holland had all had a turn playing professional riders with a fondness for TNT, you’d have to assume that there had been at least one jockey-bomber somewhere in history.

Nope.

Killer ballerinas should be about as common a trope as presidential greengrocers or cheerleader astronauts. You’d let one past the keeper, maybe, but any more would be on the nose. I shouldn’t be able to name a film that features a flamethrower-wielding dancer, but somehow we live in a world where I can list three. THREE.

To repeat: there’s never been a killer ballerina. Professional ballet is a full-time job, and a very demanding one at that. Add on a side hustle as a contract killer? That’s a recipe for burnout.

It’s not that the overall assassin community has been calling out for this kind of representation. We’ve all seen photos of Melbourne’s underworld enforcers: nary a leotard among ’em. Why fork out for an elite dancer when a couple of teenage goombas will ram-raid your foes for the cost of a PlayStation 5?

And I’m not underestimating the combat prowess of your average ballerina. There’s even scholarship suggesting that ballet and fencing evolved in tandem in Renaissance Italy and France. Swordplay and dance were often taught on the same grounds, sometimes by the same teacher (hence the confusion when Game of Thrones′ master assassin Arya Stark refers to her fighting mentor as her dance master).

My problem comes down to double standards. Onscreen assassins and onstage dancers need to be graceful and focused under intense pressure, but only female killers need to convince us they’re also world-class dancers. It’s like Gingers Rogers having to do everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels and lugging a sniper rifle.

Vin Diesel’s first screen appearance was in a 1983 instructional breakdance video: why not resurrect those moves for The Fast and the Fancy-Footed? Who wouldn’t greenlight Jason Statham as a homicidal hoofer in Double Tap? The John Wick films are essentially dance movies with a body count, so why not give Keanu a little step-ball-change flourish at the end of a bout of gun-fu? And while I’m not sure Dwayne Johnson has the most limber of physiques, you just know he’d be up for a shoulder shimmy between body slams.

It’s called fight choreography for a reason. I say: let the big boys dance, too.

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