Street Woman Fighter 2 (Mnet) 

Yoon Heeseong: Let's take this scene from episode 2. After everyone voted for the leading choreography, the leader of Wolf’Lo said, “I don’t do choreos that don’t look cool.” But it is the mission of Street Woman Fighter 2 to put a stopper to these contestants’ wants. They are given limited time with a set theme and hurdles and are constantly pushed to expose their weaknesses. It sprinkles gasoline on buried cinders of conflicts. It captures the smallest drop of a tear in newly sparked ones. It’s as if to prove that the show is worthy of the word “fight” in its title. The program has its reasons. There’s nothing like drama to highlight the personalities of the dancers who aren’t quite familiar to the general public despite their stellar careers and numerous awards. The producers gladly chose evil to get the show under the spotlight in ways that makes everybody and anybody home in on this fight now: by making noise and chaos. 

MONIKA who was a contestant in the first season came back in the second as one of the fight judges, which looks like one of the benefits the show offered to the contestants. When the show continuously pushes the dancers to become heroines and predators, MONIKA keeps her eye out for what they can take to their futures. She keenly points out the fact that it isn’t their home ground, or that the dancers have different levels of experiences. She encourages them to keep on fighting, offering carrots and sticks - both equally biting. She doesn’t just sympathize with the contestants as a dancer. Her comments are closer to tips that can help the dancers overcome the rapidly shifting weight of attention that comes from her own television show experiences that blew and howled at her. When MONKIA read the history of ten thousand practice sessions of diving deep into the genre from BABY SLEEK’s moves; when she announced the struggles of Badalee who has created a place of her own as a tall female dancer; her comments allude to the dancers’ time spent outside the TV show and shed light on their true characters. It’s no wonder that “Look, it’s the big girls’ fight” as uttered by one of the contestants in season one when MONIKA and Honey J faced off is still relevant to the show. If this was indeed a place for discovering and showing the world every facet of every contestant to the tune of missions, instead of an audition of lining up raw gems based on their talents, then what Street Woman Fighter 2 needed was a guide to help everyone see better. And despite all the obstacles and interferences, the big girls eventually come up with amazing fights. It still has what it takes to get our dopamine levels up.