Handbag of Hurt - Television Tropes & Idioms

Turtles: Turtles fight with honour!

Irma: And women fight with handbags!

—Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The use of a purse or a briefcase/suitcase as an Improvised Weapon. The former may be related to When Elders Attack, while the latter to Briefcase Blaster.

Often occurs in the Cat Fight and Wimp Fight. (Little note - fights in football in Britain are often mere slap fights, and the commentators occasionally describe such a fight as "handbags", a shortened version of Handbags At Dawn.) One reason people should Never Mess with Granny

Examples:

Anime & Manga

In Yu-Gi-Oh!, Seto Kaiba uses a briefcase when he is attacked by Pegasus' goons. His little brother tries to pull off the same moves later on, but fails miserably.
Attempted in the fight between a Russian assassin and a serial killer (revealed to be Hijiribe Ruri) in the 4th volume of Durarara!!. Unfortunately for them that briefcase belonged to a certain man in a bartender suit.

Comic Books

Stuck Rubber Baby is a comic depicting civil rights demonstrations in the south. One character learns to defend herself with a brick - in her handbag.
Ms Tree carries her pistol in her handbag, which makes it handy to swing at a enemy with unexpected force.

Film

Monty Python's Flying Circus:
- Battley Townswomen Guild's Reenactment of the Battle of Pearl Harbour
- Granny Gang
- The Battley Townswomen's Guild did it again when reenacting the First Heart Transplant.
In the live-action 101 Dalmatians movie, when Roger mistakes Perdita for Pongo and attempts to take her away, Anita puts a stop to it with this.
Roger: What do you have in that purse of yours, rocks?
Anita: Oh, no; bricks.
- She really was carrying bricks. She was collecting bricks one or two at a time as she saw them, using them to build a wall or a cobblestone walk or something at her home piece by piece.
In Madagascar, an old lady attacks Alex with her purse.
The Sting: after Hooker yanks a woman out of a phone booth, the woman hits both Hooker and his partner with her purse.
Mrs. Marcus from It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World will very often hit other people with her purse when she's really angry. The following characters she's hit with her purse are; Melville Crump, J. Russell Finch, Col. Hawthorne, Otto Meyer, and a random pedestrian.

Literature

Harry Potter: Mrs. Figg hits Mundungus Fletcher with her handbag, which, from the clanking, appeared to be filled with cans of cat food.
In Discworld, Agony Aunt Dotsie's unnaturally heavy purse provides a quick removal of any threat

Live-Action TV

A staple of Ruth Buzzi's old lady character on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer once improvised a weapon from a handbag and a couple of bricks. On the commentary, Joss Whedon refers to it as "Bag fu."
The Golden Girls: Sophia would sometimes indulge in this, using the beaded purse she carried with her everywhere. One episode of note is when her sister, Angela, moves to Miami and moves in with Sophia's current boyfriend. Sophia automatically assumes that the two are having an affair and goes to confront them. Angela pleads her innocence...only for Sophia's boyfriend to walk out of his bedroom with another woman. Sophia and Angela gang up on him.
Angela: You've insulted my sister's honor!
Tony: I don't know what to say.
Sophia: I'll tell you what you can say! Say "ouch"! {whacks him with her purse}
Angela: Say, "That hurts!" {whacks him with her purse}
Discussed in the final episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures. The villain asks if she's going to hit him with her handbag. She doesn't, unfortunately.
In Malcolm in the Middle, Dewey starts to carry a handbag with him as a backpack. Reese knowing that his brother would get picked on for this, tries to get him to use a backpack again. Despite spending the entire episode and still not changing Dewey's mind he is seen getting picked on for using a handbag. Dewey then proceeds to beat the crud out of his hecklers using his handbag. After they run away Dewey reveals he was carrying a brick inside the handbag as he expected this too.

New Media

There is a (possibly staged) YouTube video of a little old lady in a crosswalk responding to the impatient honking of a motorist by whacking his front bumper with her handbag hard enough to set off his airbags.

Satire

Margaret Thatcher was often depicted wielding a killer handbag, especially on Spitting Image.

Video Games

Killer7: Garcian Smith's down attack involves hitting an enemy with his large suitcase.
MapleStory: a briefcase is a usable weapon for players.
Handbags were available as weapons in Final Fantasy Tactics - but only for female characters of a few classes. Some of them actually packed a rather impressive punch.
Chat in Tales Of Eternia uses these as weapons, though sometimes she just pulls hammers out of them.
- Karol from Tales of Vesperia smacks foes over the head with his large handbag for his various debuffing artes.
Handbags are a possible weapon (albeit a very weak one) for players to find in Dead Rising.
- It's definitely in the sequel as shown here.
In The Sims 1 & 2, the ambiguously wedded Mrs./Miss Crumplebottom carries a handbag that, while not murderous, is quite humiliating.
Kisarah Westfield from SNK's Neo Geo Battle Coliseum is a schoolgirl who fights with her bookbag, which is a callback to the fighting game she originally comes from (Aggressors of Dark Kombat) where various weapons can be picked up and temporarily used.
A handbag is the first weapon you can give to Eileen in the Escort Mission section of Silent Hill 4. (Protip: Don't do it! Her AI will flip from "cower-and-hide" to "reckless enthusiasm" and she'll take damage. If you need the help, give her one of the better weapons you find later.)

Webcomics

Laura Gates of Beyond Reality has a lead weight sewn to the bottom of her purse for this exact purpose.
In Lackadaisy Cats, Mitzi slams one into Mordecai's face in shock when he hid in her backseat to have a word with her.
Mordecai: I'd like a word with you... if you can refrain from assaulting me with a bakelite for a moment.

Western Animation

Irma, the dorky friend of April O'Neill, utters the battle cry in the page quote in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987, while facing off against an unstoppable robot.
In the Looney Tunes short Boston Quackie, Quackie's girlfriend Mary clobbers the man in the green hat with her handbag. Of course, she is carrying an anvil in it...
My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: In "The Mysterious Mare Do Well", Rainbow Dash gives Granny Smith an unwanted helping hoof and gets bonked with Granny's purse for her troubles.
In one episode of The Spectacular Spider Man, an old lady on the subway saves Spider-Man's life by employing this technique ... against the Lizard!