Line #25 Film/SwitchbladeSisters


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/switchbladesistersposter_3.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''Donut... Bunny... Maggie... Lace... Patch... The wildest girl gang that ever blasted the streets!]]''
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4	A 1975 {{exploitation film}} directed by Jack Hill.
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6	The Silver Daggers are a gang of young hoods who control an inner-city high school, where they sell drugs and sex to the student body and fight anyone who gets in their way. The Daggers have a ladies' auxiliary, The Dagger Debs, who rumble just as hard as the men, but one day, Chief Dagger Deb Lace meets her match with Maggie, a new kid who won't back down. When a scuffle lands Maggie and the Debs in jail for the night, Maggie comes to Lace's rescue, and Maggie becomes Lace's new right-hand woman. However, fellow Deb Patch is jealous of Maggie's friendship with Lace, and begins spinning a web of deceit to destroy Lace's trust in the new deb. In the midst of the infighting, the Silver Daggers find their turf challenged by a rival gang who pose as a community action team, and the Debs join forces with a revolutionary political group.
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8	----
9	!!Provides examples of:
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11	%%* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Dominic for Lace.
12	* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter: [[spoiler: If Lace had it her way, she'd gladly raise her's and Dominic's child.]] [[spoiler:[[TheBabyTrap Dominic squashes this thought and demands she get an abortion, offering to pay for it himself.]]]]
13	%%* BigEater: Donut
14	* DistaffCounterpart: Dagger Debs (Jezebels) for Silver Daggers.
15	%%* EyepatchOfPower: [[MeaningfulName Patch]]
16	%%* GirlishPigtails: Lace for a scene toward the end
17	%%* GroinAttack
18	* IneffectualLoner: After the initial scuffle in the burger joint, Lace offers Maggie a place in the Dagger Debs, stating that even the toughest girl can only do so much on her own. She's proven right during the NearRapeExperience in the juvenile detention center, prompting Maggie to accept her offer.
19	* JustLikeRobinHood: Capitalist gangster [[spoiler:Crabs]] gives free food to the poor while stealing dope on the side.
20	* LoveLetter: Having to wait until she's free from arrest, Lace asks Maggie to deliver a love letter to Dominic. He reads it out loud to his gang, and it is not received well when Maggie sees [[LoveMakesYouDumb their reaction.]]
21	* LoveTriangle: Lace is madly in love with Dominic. Dominic mostly [[AmIJustAToyToYou feels neutral about Lace]], at one point [[spoiler: questioning whether Lace's supposed baby is even his]]. Thanks to Patch's meddling, Lace suspects that somehow Maggie had derailed their relationship, which isn't far from the truth. Dom at one point rapes Maggie in her apartment.
22	%%* MeaningfulName: Patch
23	%%* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: The whole girl gang with the the exception of Maggie
24	%%* RapeAsDrama: considering this is a girl gang exploitation film:
25	* PrisonRape: [[AttemptedRape a close call]] by a [[PsychoLesbian lesbian warden]] in juvenile hall. Lace and the rest of the Dagger Debs bail Maggie out, and Maggie in turn decides to join the Dagger Debs.
26	** Dominic drops in on Maggie's apartment and forces himself on her, all the while waking up Maggie's skeezy landlord and shouting at him to mind his own business. Dominic [[NotIfTheyEnjoyedItRationalization gets defensive about raping Maggie]], which only invokes a furious reaction from her. Maggie doesn't seem to hold it against him for long, seeing how she seems to want to join the Dagger Debs and impress Dominic in earnest, as well as [[spoiler: get to the bottom of his murder after the failed ambush at the roller rink]].
27	** Bunny also gets [[RelaxoVision thrown into a van belonging to Crabs' gang.]] Bunny is later found in [[ThousandYardStare a state of shock.]]
28	%%* ShadowDiscretionShot: Fight between [[spoiler:Maggie and Lace]] toward the end.
29	%%* SpearCounterpart: Silver Daggers for Dagger Debs (Jezebels)
30	* TokenEvilTeammate: Patch wants to keep Maggie as far away from achieving high rank in the Dagger Debs/ Jezebels as possible, and is more than willing to emotionally manipulate Lace to do it.
31	* TraitorShot: The first one is when Maggie is saying "Dominic's dead because somebody tipped Crabs off about the roller rink and I'm gonna find out who"[[note]]this is after [[spoiler:both Dagger Debs and Silver Daggers devised an ambush on Crabs's men at a local roller rink, but the effort proves disastrous when Crabs' men show up heavily armed and Dominic is killed]][[/note]], watch [[spoiler:Patch's face]]. Another instant is when [[spoiler: Maggie, Lace and Patch have a defenseless Crabs cornered, Patch shoots Crabs [[KilledMidSentence before he has a chance to squeal]]]].
32	* WeDoNotKnowEachOther: At the end of the film [[spoiler: The Jezebels deny Patch as one of theirs as they're arrested for the death of Lace. Patch is left alone by the police, with the shame of no longer being a Jezebel]].

Context Film / SwitchbladeSisters