[KarlInOhio]

It always cracks me up to see modern fantasy and science fiction movies where petite women take on and beat male attackers in hand to hand combat.

Every screenwriter wants to be Joss Whedon and I think Whedon has a fantasy of being smacked around by small women. :-)

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer he was trying to turn stories of the waifish girl in danger on their heads and made Buffy superhuman, but that doesn't explain every other female character he has ever written.

[Vaquero]

But Firefly was wonderful. (Even though River did exactly as you say)