Handbag of Hurt

"Are you trying to get fresh with me, young man? Take that cheek somewhere else!"

Turtles: Turtles fight with honor!
Irma: And women fight with handbags!

— Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The use of a purse or a briefcase/suitcase as an Improvised Weapon.

Sometimes, handbags may contain heavy objects, like bricks or anvils, to add more power to the attack, especially in cartoons.

Often occurs in the Cat Fight and Wimp Fight. Often wielded by elderly women, and one possible reason why people should Never Mess with Granny. If the handbag is used to hide a gun, you're thinking of Briefcase Blaster.

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.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• 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.
• In Fairy Tail, Levy McGarden smacks Gajeel Redfox with her purse and floors him with pain, even though she's a Squishy Wizard and he's literally Made of Iron.
• Fruits Basket: In the first chapter, when Shigure is starting to get less-than-appropriate with his comments toward Tohru, Yuki drops his schoolbag on his head. Shigure asks if Yuki is carrying a dictionary, and Yuki says he's carrying two.
• In GTO: The Early Years, both male and female delinquents beat others up with their school bags sometimes.
• Gunslinger Girl. Henrietta's Establishing Character Moment is when the cute innocent girl breaks a terrorist's jaw with her violin case, before using what's in it to massacre everyone else in the room.
• Kill la Kill: Ryuko Matoi sometimes uses her weapon case offensively and defensively (though it is made of metal).
• An accidental example occurs in Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out!. While they're attending a fireworks festival together, Sakurai praises Uzaki for how cute she looks in her yukata, and she playfully begins waving her hands around. Until she accidentally hits Sakurai in the jaw with her purse, leaving him knocked out for a few minutes.
• SPY×FAMILY: While Twilight and Bond were ambushing a couple scientists in a mission that was given to him at the very last minute, he quickly proceeds in throwing the bag he uses to carry all of his gear towards one of scientist to take him out
• 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.
  • In the first Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, Kaiba hits Yugi with his school bag when his true colours are revealed. This is actually a step down from the manga, where it was a metal briefcase. Ouch◊.

Comedy

• Eddie Izzard once suggested that the Queen should be attacked by dogs (long story) and that she could defend herself with a handbag with a brick in it.
• Mike Harding described his grandmother as the sort of woman who would carry a brick in her handbag. So that if anyone ever tried to rob her, she could break his legs to prevent him from running away.

Comic Books

• Ms. Tree: Ms. Tree carries her pistol in her handbag, which makes it handy to swing at an enemy with unexpected force. Case in point when an argument with a militant feminist got physical and the protester suddenly hit the detective:
  Militant: That was my black belt!
  [Tree hits back with her handbag with a CLANG!]
  Ms. Tree: That was my black gun in my black bag!
• 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.

Fan Works

• In the story Bonnie Double of the The More Things Change Series, while fighting the Fashionistas, Espadrille attempts to fight Max with a handbag. Max is not impressed.
  Max: WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE...SEVENTY?!
• First John Gage, then Chet Kelly in the Emergency! fic "You Make Me Feel Like Dancin'" get this. John and Roy get injured hilariously at the station and Chet has to drive them to Rampart. John is dressed as a clown after a fire dept. carnival. He has to make Chet stop so he can throw up and a woman starts hitting him with her bag, thinking he's a drunk clown. Chet gets out of the squad and is naked except for Roy's turnout coat (It Makes Sense in Context). The old lady turns her bag on Chet, thinking he's a pervert. And John, wanting to annoy Chet, directs her on how to hit so Chet will feel it more.

Films — Animated

• Batman and Harley Quinn: Harley attacks Nightwing with her purse during their fight. Said purse is revealed to be housing a ten-pound kettlebell.
• In Madagascar, an old lady attacks Alex with her purse. She does this again in the sequel, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, especially to Makunga when Alex gives it to him as a present.
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: When the Spot finds himself in "the Spotted Dimension", he tries out one of the portals by putting his head through. Finding himself in a world based on old-school comic strips, he startles a woman who immediately bashes him with her handbag.

Films — Live-Action

• 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. She really is carrying bricks; she was paving her garden and collecting the leftovers.
  Roger: What do you have in that purse of yours, rocks?
  Anita: Oh, no, bricks.
• All Through the Night: Leda uses her purse to hit Gloves over the head to knock him out (though it's to keep Pepe from killing him).
• Coal Miner's Daughter shows Loretta Lynn, in self-defense, hitting her husband with her purse. She ends up breaking his finger.
• The heroine of The Gods Must Be Crazy's sequel keeps the two soldiers in line with her handbag. When they see her pull out a half-brick one worries about what else she's got in there.
• 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.
• In Jingle All the Way, various mothers hit Howard with their purses when they accuse him of touching a little girl (he was actually trying to get a lottery ball for a Turbo Man action figure that ended up in her grasp).
• In Live and Let Die, Solitaire attempts to hit James Bond with her purse as Bond is ready to be put on a plane and sent skydiving to his death. Her purse slap is stopped by Bond as he uses it as a means of escaping.
• In the opening scene of Maniac Cop, a waitress is attacked by two muggers as she walks home. She beats them off with her handbag and runs before she has the misfortune to encounter the eponymous maniac cop.
• Nothing but the Night: When Joan Foster attempts to pull Mary away from Anna Harb in the hospital, Anna whacks her with her handbag.
• In the miniseries Smiley's People, elderly Russian émigrée Maria Andreyevna Ostrakova, fearing she will be attacked on the streets of Paris by Soviet agents, packs a flatiron in her capacious shopping bag. It comes in handy.
• In On the Buses, Mavis hits Blakey with her handbag after he is believed to have stolen her friend's laundry.
• The Sting: After Hooker yanks a woman out of a phone booth, the woman hits both Hooker and his partner with her purse.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, after having the Raphael's sai knocked out of her hand in the subway station, April O'Neil uses her purse to defend herself and even holds her own against the Foot until she is knocked out with a punch to the face.
• Watch Your Stern: When the Security Sergeant believes Miss Potter is a spy, she retaliates by swinging her bag at Nobby and his men.

Literature

• In the first book of the Alcatraz Series, Bastille mostly used her handbag to store her sword, but she also used it to whack Alcatraz.
• Discworld:
  • Agony Aunt Dotsie's unnaturally heavy purse provides a quick removal of any threat. Vimes, who is no stranger to delivering a proper Tap on the Head to end a fight, considers her his superior in that aspect.
  • And as Nanny Ogg says: "A lady is always polite, appreciative, and carries a horseshoe in her handbag. This is not for luck: the added weight can come in handy."
• Harry Potter: Mrs. Figg hits Mundungus Fletcher with her handbag, which, from the clanking, appeared to be filled with cans of cat food.
• A variation in the Meg Langslow Mysteries book Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon has Meg demonstrating a self-defense technique that uses the strap of the purse to disarm and strangle an attacker. The killer uses a mouse cord in a similar way, but since pretty much the entire company has seen the technique, it doesn't help the cops narrow down their list of suspects.
• In Mercedes Lackey's The Serpent's Shadow, Dr. Maya carries a "miser's purse" full of lead shot when she makes housecalls in dodgy parts of London, as well as an umbrella with a weighted handle and a solid steel shaft. When she becomes an adept-class Earth Mage she's even more formidable.

Live-Action TV

• Batman: Though Catwoman isn't a Dark Action Girl like in the comics, she does occasionally use a handbag to hit Robin over the head.
• The Big Bang Theory has one where Amy tries to hit Bernadette with her purse, but she ducks and Amy accidentally hit Penny instead, breaking her nose in the process.
  Penny: You idiot! What the hell do you have in there?!
  Amy: [mortified at what she did] Just my wallet, keys and a coffee can full of change I've been meaning to take to the bank!
• In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Lessons", Dawn improvised a weapon from a handbag and a couple of bricks. In 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 Tony. Sophia automatically assumes that the two are having an affair and goes to confront them. Angela pleads her innocence, and Tony backs her up, saying that he only has eyes for Sophia... only for another woman (who apparently got the same line from Tony) to emerge from the bedroom. 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]
• Leverage sees this happen to Sophie in "The Wedding Job." Well, in the first season, she wasn't much of a fighter.
• In Malcolm in the Middle, Dewey starts to carry a handbag with him as a backpack, despite Reese's desperate warnings that he'd get beaten up for it. When the inevitable happens and Dewey is accosted by bullies, he proceeds to beat the tar out of them with the bag, and then reveal that it had contained a brick the whole time.
• Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: Phryne uses her handbag to disarm and then knock down a killer in "Murder Under the Mistletoe".
• Monty Python's Flying Circus:
  • Battley Townswomen Guild's Reenactment of the Battle of Pearl Harbour.
  • Hell's Grannies.
  • The Battley Townswomen's Guild did it again when reenacting the First Heart Transplant.
• In the opening sequence for The Odd Couple, Felix is shown trying to help an old lady cross the street. The lady hits him with her handbag and a Boy Scout punches him. It's just not Felix's day.
• A staple of Ruth Buzzi's old lady character on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.
• Aunt Esther from Sanford and Son was (in)famous for this method of attack. There was even a line of purses named for her.
• 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.
• Three's Company: When Mr. Roper believes a prospective tenant is a cross-dresser, she wallops Mr. Roper with her purse for poking her in the chest.
• On The X-Files a lizard man (unintentionally) attacks a Transgender prostitute, who fights back with her purse in this fashion. The encounter leaves a huge hole in her purse.

Music

• Jennifer Hudson has a song on her first album called "Pocketbook", the refrain of which is "Don't make me hitchu' wit' ma pocketbook," delivered with Tranquil Fury at a guy (Ludicris) who won't stop hitting on her.

Pro Wrestling

• At New Year's Revolution 2006, Shelton Benjamin defeated Viscera after Shelton's mother clocked Viscera with her purse when the referee wasn't looking. After the match, she opened her purse and showed the audience there was a brick inside it.
• When she was with Randy Savage in the late-1980's, Sherri Martel regularly came to the ring with a loaded purse. It backfired on her at SummerSlam 1989 when Hulk Hogan got a hold of it.

Puppet Shows

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

Tabletop Games

• In 4th-edition Champions, the combat example is a bank robbery. At one point, a little old lady customer thwacks one of the goons with her purse. He goes down.

Video Games

• Banjo-Tooie:
  • After Banjo returns Groggy (the fat polar bear kid) to Mrs. Boggy, Groggy lies about Banjo forcing him to eat a hamburger (in actuality, he refused to let Banjo pick him up until after he ate it). Mrs. Boggy doesn't believe Groggy at all, and she hits him with her purse several times in retaliation.
  • Banjo himself provides a gender-inverted example. He can learn the Pack Whack, which allows him to take his empty backpack and swing it around his head, smacking any nearby enemies to their deaths.
• Handbags are a possible weapon, albeit a very weak one, for players to find in the Dead Rising games.
• Death Stranding allows you to attack human enemies with briefcase-shaped cargo that you can carry on hand. They can either be slammed or thrown against up-close enemies. Doing this with your own cargo isn't a practical approach to combat since with one hit it damages the cargo, and another hit destroys it entirely. Enemy cargo can be picked up, however, and you can freely use them to knock enemies out if you don't intend on taking their stolen cargo for yourself.
• In one of the God of War games, there is an unlockable character skin called Tycoonius, who beats people up with a pair of briefcases.
• Old ladies with handbags are a pretty common NPC in Grand Theft Auto III. Despite their frail appearance, they're actually very aggressive and more than eager to whack you with them once things get violent.
• In Grand Theft Auto V, at the start of the "Vinewood Souvenirs" mission series, Nigel and Mrs. Thornhill, a pair of elderly British celebrity worshipers/stalkers on holiday, mistake Trevor Philips for actor/stuntman Jock Cranley. Nigel asks Trevor to play-choke him, imitating one of Jock's film posters, as a photo-op; however, Trevor gets too involved and starts throttling Nigel for real, with Mrs. Thornhill hitting Trevor with her purse to get him to stop.
• Hitman 2 features briefcases as a mundane prop that Agent 47 can use to sneak items into secure areas. Being a large, heavy piece of plastic lined with metal, 47 can also use it to swiftly render people unconscious with a whack in the head. It could also be thrown at people's heads for similar effect. An extremely popular Good Bad Bug caused the briefcase to become a Homing Projectile and pursue targets at a slow but dogged pace. Despite all of its comically absurd abilities, the briefcase could only concuss people and would never kill them, as it has the 'non-lethal' damage flag.
• Tingle does a variation of this in Hyrule Warriors. Some of his attacks feature him walloping enemies with a big wallet stuffed with Rupees.
• Killer7: Garcian Smith's down attack involves hitting an enemy with his large suitcase.
• MapleStory: Both a leather purse and a briefcase are usable, though weak, weapons for players.
• Handbags were available as weapons in Final Fantasy Tactics — but only for female characters. Some of them actually packed a rather impressive punch.
• Kisarah Westfield from SNK's NeoGeo 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.
• Persona 4: Arena Ultimax: Marie's shoulder bag is her primary melee weapon. If swinging it around doesn't do the trick, she can also pull presents out of it, with varying surprises depending on which button combo the player uses.
• Silent Hill 4: Eileen's handbag is the first weapon you get for Eileen, before even meeting her. Unfortunately, unlike most starter weapons in the series such as the Steel Pipe, it has pathetic damage and reach, and may in fact be worse than giving her no weapon — her AI doesn't distinguish weapon power when setting her aggressiveness against enemies, meaning she'll happily charge right into combat and take damage while swinging a "weapon" that is barely powerful enough to make monsters flinch when hit.
• In The Sims: Hot Date, The Sims 2: Nightlife, and The Sims 4: Cottage Living expansions, the ambiguously wedded Mrs./Miss Crumplebottom carries a handbag that, while not murderous, is quite humiliating. She'll attack Sims for public displays of affection, usually with a few harsh words for them, too.
• Also wielding a schoolbag is Kyo's lover and hidden-battle Joke Character Yuki in SNK Gals Fighters. One of her special attacks has her throwing contents from it at the opponent.
• Tales Series:
  • 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. He uses these as his secondary weapon and can be seen storing his main weapon in them outside of battle. The one he's currently using has his Bodhi Blastia^note The artifact he needs to use his artes. attached to it.
• Yakuza: Like a Dragon: Saeko and Eri can use both handbags and clutch bags as weapons for the Barmaid and Hostess jobs, respectively.

Web Animation

• MoniRobo: Cheating ex-girlfriends who try to get back with the MC after their affair got them in trouble and get rejected might use this to retaliate. This is deconstructed as the ex will end up in trouble with the law after trying this.
  • "My wife got pregnant but…": While a now-thin Yuki was strolling through the park with his new girlfriend, Saki, he stumbles upon his ex-wife Rina, who tries to get back with him. After he turns her down, she screams and swings her handbag around to hurt them, only for a police officer to stop and arrest her. Moreover, she ended up in prison for public property damage after she knocked over a bin and crashed into a bench, on top of physical violence in front of an officer.
  • "My wife cheated on me with her doctor…": When Kengo dialed the police in response to Mana's refusal to leave after divorcing him for Dr. Nakajima, she tried to hit him with her handbag. Much to Mana's dismay, she fumbles and the flying bag breaks a window instead, which gives Kengo another reason to call the cops on her. After his daughters, Nami, Reina, and Misaki, disown her as a mother, a cop appears and arrests her for breaking into and damaging private property.
• In the final episode of RWBY Volume 2, Coco from team CFVY^note Pronounced "Coffee" wipes the floor with a very large Grimm using her handbag, and wounds a few more. She then transforms said purse into a minigun and utterly destroys several other, larger Grimm with ease.

Webcomics

• Laura Gates of Beyond Reality has a lead weight sewn to the bottom of her purse for this exact purpose.
• El Goonish Shive: while on a double date in the cinema, Tedd & Grace and Nanase & Ellen get accosted by one of Nanase's ex-boyfriends, Gerald. When Gerald refuses to leave, Grace threatens him with her handbag.
• In Lackadaisy, 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.

Web Videos

• There is an (obviously faked) 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.

Western Animation

• Animaniacs:
  • From the intro: "Goodfeathers flock together, Slappy whacks 'em with her purse."
  • An issue of the comic has Minerva Mink do this to a man after he gets a little too excited.
• In Archer, Mallory would use her handbag on occasion on Archer, usually as a Dope Slap.
  Archer: Ow! What do you have in there, buckles?!
• A minor Batman Beyond villain, a small-time gang leader and biological mother of her underlings, immediately attacks Batman with her handbag when the two of them meet up. This was so unexpected to Batman that she successfully knocks him to the floor with it.
• In The Flintstones, Betty and Wilma can knock anyone out with their purses. Enough so that they look like more badass fighters than their husbands.
• Looney Tunes:
  • "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...
  • "Ballot Box Bunny": Bugs pretends to be a baby and accuses mayoral candidate Yosemite Sam of biting him on the nose during a "kissing babies" PR stunt. A crowd of angry mothers immediately swarm Sam and beat him with their handbags.
  • Carrotblanca has Bugs dressing in drag and smacking Sam with a handbag with an anvil in it.
• In the Mega Man (Ruby-Spears) cartoon, Ms. Lapierre swats at a shrunken Mega Man with her purse.
• Aunt Bogunda from Mr. Bogus will very often use her purse to beat up those who dare to oppress her, sometimes even bonking Bogus on the head. It especially doesn't help matters that Bogunda is an Expy of Mrs. Marcus.
• 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.
• The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: In the climax of the episode "Owl in the Family", Owl's aunt Ophelia, uncle Torbit, and cousin Dexter show up to visit for a family reunion. Ophelia then swings her handbag at the crows who tricked her nephew into thinking that they were his relatives, driving them out of Owl's house.
• 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!
• Shaun the Sheep: In "Hard to Swallow," a jealous mother duck packs a wallop with her purse.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In the episode "Grandmum's the Word", Grandma Plankton constantly hits SpongeBob, Mr. Krabs, and Plankton with her purse.
  • In "The Nitwitting", when SpongeBob becomes as dumb as the rest of the members of the Empty Head Society without his brain, he tries asking a pedestrian for directions, and those results come out pretty self-explanatory:
    SpongeBob: [[1]] Excuse me, large lady, I'm a widdle girl who's misplaced herself. Can you help find me? I'm pretty!
    Pedestrian: Weirdo! [smacks SpongeBob with her purse and runs away]
• Irma, the dorky friend of April O'Neill, utters the battle cry in the page quote in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles while facing off against an unstoppable robot.
• Top Cat: In one episode, a female cat sends Fancy-Fancy flying with her handbag.
  Fancy: Oh boy, she's weakening! Last time, she hit me with her fist.

Real Life

• The famous picture called "A Woman Hitting a Neo-Nazi with Her Handbag" from a 1985 Neo-Nazi demonstration in Sweden.
• While she was never known (outside of satire, as noted above) to use her iconic blue handbag as a melee weapon, Margaret Thatcher was proud of what her supporters and detractors call her "handbag diplomacy".
• It's sometimes taught as part of self-defense for women, in case they're in a situation where they don't have or can't pull out anything specifically made for self-defense. Other blunt objects like books or umbrellas are also recommended for this technique.

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