Kick Like a Girl

In the ring, a familiar refrain always was- don't hit like a girl Aqseer, hit harder! (em, what?) The flip side was that boys/men dared not lose to girls or cry, for fear of being thought of as sissies.

Kick Like a Girl is a really cute documentary that busts these two gender stereotypes, and how. About the "Mighty Cheetahs", an eight year old girl's soccer team, the movie shows how the boys, and their parents, learn than kicking like a girl can be a good thing too!

The Mighty Cheetahs are so sick of "creaming" all the girls teams, that they decide to sample tougher competition (itself a bit of a cliche). So enter the boy's division they do, with confident young lads thinking they got it easy.

They so haven't.

These tiny masses of grit and energy go to work, and end up winning 5 out of nine matches, tying two, and losing two. (as I remember the numbers) Guess who won the series.

Along the way, a ref responds to a foul against one of the girls by saying something to the effect of- learn to handle it if you wanna play in the boys division. Em, fouls are fouls. The girls respond by saying- "that made us want to win even more, so we did!"

They cried, some of those girls. That didn't make them any less capable sportspersons. They were better team players, they passed better and the tears DID NOT come in the way. At all. In fact, I think they might have angered fellow team mates and made them want to play tougher, better.

There's this one point in the movie where the coach's daughter says- "they used to tell me, you kick like a girl. Well... I AM a girl!" (Hoot hoot hoot! :) )

The film ends with clips of the oppposing team members answering the question, "what would you say if someone told you you kick like a girl?" The answer-"I'd thank them!"

Guess why the film made me cry.
(Yeah. It made "boxer bhai" cry. I cry. A lot. I don't break stuff, or drink to deal with it. Crying wins this won. Oh, and just cause I cry doesn't automatically mean I can't bust your ass if you mess with me. :) )