Pillow fight

Pillow fight at an English country fair, 1971
A public pillow fight in Bologna, Italy
A pillow fight flashmob in Berlin, Germany
We Want War

A pillow fight is a common game mostly played by young children (but also by teens and adults) in which they engage in mock physical conflict, using pillows as weapons.

Many times pillow fights occur during children's sleepovers. Since pillows are usually soft, injuries rarely occur. The heft of a pillow can still knock a young person off balance, especially on a soft surface such as a bed, which is a common venue. A useful technique in a pillow fight is to bundle the nibs. In earlier eras, pillows would often break, shedding feathers throughout a room. Modern pillows tend to be stronger and are often filled with a solid block of artificial filling, so breakage occurs far less frequently.

Organized pillow fights

Pillow fighting became part of flash mob culture with pillow fight flash mobs popping up in cities around the world.

Women wrestlers, known Divas in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) engage in pillow fights as a type of match, most often booked as a Lingerie Pillow Fight, in which the women "compete" in lingerie. Little or no actual wrestling takes place.

In January 2007, Reuters reported that a Pillow Fight League was operating in bars in Toronto.[1] Pre-selected female "fighters" with stage personalities are paid small amounts to stage regular, unscripted fights. The rules call for "no lewd behavior, and moves such as leg drops or tickling or submission holds are allowed as long as a pillow is used".

The Johannesburg-based University of the Witswatersrand's Silly Buggers Society has held an annual Pillow Fight at the East Campus' Library Lawns since 2007.

Students at Columbia University have incorporated a Spring Pillow Fight into the spring semester version of their bi-annual primal scream tradition.[2] Students run into the center of campus screaming and pillow fighting on midnight of the Sunday of finals week as a way to relieve stress.

At the conclusion of the spring semester at the University of Rochester an orchestrated pillow fight is held on the main Eastman quad with one team attacking and another defending Rush Rhees Library.[3]

The Guinness World Record for the largest pillow fight was set on November 14, 2008, at Butlins in Minehead, Somerset, England, headlined by former X Factor singer Chico Slimani.[4] The previous record was exceeded by 58 people, with 3,706 people all fighting at once, a spokesman for the Guinness Book of Records said. The record was once again broken on October 27, 2013, by the attendees of a Dada Life concert in Chicago, with "maybe four-and-a-half-thousand pillows" and 3,813 participants.[5] [6]

In Japan

Further information: Makura-Nage

In film

The 25 second long Pillow Fight From Edison Studios

Pillow fights were a popular theme in early cinematography.[7] 1897 saw the release of A Pillow Fight by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company followed by Pillow Fight from Edison Studios.[7] In the same year Siegmund Lubin released New Pillow Fight.[7] Lubin returned to the subject in 1903 with the film Pillow Fight, Reversed.[7]

References

  1. ↑ No softies in Canada's campy Pillow Fight League, Reuters, Jan 16 2007
  2. ↑ "Spring Pillow Fight". wikicu.com.
  3. ↑ "University of Rochester Pillow Fight". YouTube. 1 July 2011.
  4. ↑ "BBC NEWS - UK - England - Somerset - New pillow fight record achieved". bbc.co.uk.
  5. ↑ "Dada Life broke the 'World's Biggest Pillow Fight' record and yes, there's video". inthemix. 28 October 2013.
  6. ↑ http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/2000/largest-pillow-fight
  7. 1 2 3 4 Lebeau, Vicky (2008). Childhood and Cinema. Reaktion Books. pp. 23–25. ISBN 1861893523.
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