Summer moviegoers are in for yet another season o' schlock. But along with requisite shoot-em-up action films and treacly love stories is a dark horse, so to say. The Mask of Zorro is a new movie version of a masked swordfighter's adventures. Previews for the film feature clips of Antonio Banderas' Zorro brandishing his sword, swishing it around with an oh so manly air. Most intriguing is a scene featuring Zorro and a female character engaged in a sword fight. Zorro slashes her dress; it falls from her shoulders. Grabbing her dress to cover her breasts (but not before showing a little decolette), she gives him a half-angry, half-coquettish look. Cut to a shot of Zorro wearing a smarmy grin and a shrug. With its boys-will-be-boys attitude, this scene raises concerns regarding male/female relations. Even though Zorro has just jabbed a sword dangerously near to her body, the woman doesn't seem to be concerned. If anything, she exudes an air of fake anger; she actually looks as though she enjoys Zorro's actions. She is powerless compared with Zorro's sword (insert phallic joke here). Does this scene seem rather disturbing? Or do you think it's all entertainment? If it's the latter, something's wrong. Although movies are meant to entertain, they also offer ideas as to how people interact. How many times have you used a line from a movie? Or made an allusion to a scene in a film? There's nothing wrong with this, but it is important to realize that film can make an impression on us, and that it's not solely entertainment to be taken at face value. Of course, we don't imitate everything we see -- but we do carry these images and ideas with us. And this scene does offer some unfortunate images and ideas. Combining violence with sexual tension, it displays the male as aggressor and female as victim. Not only does the Zorro scene uphold typical gender roles, it does so in a dangerous fashion. In the world of Zorro, sex and violence are meshed together in a cause and effect relationship. Zorro slashes the dress, and the woman gets turned on. In a realistic situation, she would have been scared, violated, or angry; she certainly would not have felt flirtatious or aroused. By showing her positive (or at the very least, neutral) reaction, the movie shows that women feel sexy when experiencing violence. Perhaps it seems as though I'm overreacting, but apathy is a theoretical nod of approval for misogyny. There is nothing sexual or alluring about violence, whether it's in real life or in the movies. Movies like Zorro, which purport the myth of violence as sexuality, uphold the cultural myth that it's acceptable for men to force themselves on women -- that women actually enjoy a good roughing around. Both men and women need to understand that violence has nothing to do with being sexual, whether in real life or on a screen.