Scrabble claims another three victims.
Monica: When women hang out, we don't have pillow fights in our underwear.
[Chandler doubles over in shock]
Monica: I'm sorry, we do. We do! I don't know why I said that.
[Chandler doubles over in shock]
Monica: I'm sorry, we do. We do! I don't know why I said that.
— Friends
A gathering of characters (typically female) engage in a not-particularly serious battle or physical challenge for purposes of titillation. Unlike a Cat Fight, this is not an actual violent encounter — it may be a pillow fight (such as at a Slumber Party), a volleyball contest or Mud Wrestling. Expect the wardrobe to be skimpy and the action to be bouncy.
Often an instance of Eating the Eye Candy by any observers of the appropriate gender and Male or Female Gaze depending on target demographic. Contrast Designated Girl Fight, which may sometimes overlap but is generally played straight even if it is done primarily for Fanservice.
Examples:
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Advertising
- A promo for the Australian version of Beauty and the Geek featured a pillow fight between the beauties and the geeks. The beauties, of course, were clad in lingerie.
- This
Korean Face Shop commercial, but what did you expect from a makeup commercial?
Anime & Manga
- The pillow fight in Kemeko Deluxe! is... excessively destructive. But fanservice is given, nonetheless.
- Every "mock battle" in the Lyrical Nanoha series ever, by the virtue of its participants being mostly female while their weapons are safely set to Clothing Damage mode.
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi:
- During their Kyoto vacation/school field trip, several of the girls of 3-A have an epic pillow fight with their boy teacher's kiss as the prize. Staple of the harem series.
- Also take note that the girls will indulge in the occasional pillow fight given the opportunity◊.
Comedy
- From the words of comedian Demetri Martin:
"I've codified the five different types of pillow fights:
Man vs Woman: fun
Woman vs. Woman: awesome
Man vs. Man: gay
Man vs. Pillow: crazy, and
Pillow vs. Pillow: crazy awesome."
Comic Books
- In Cavewoman: It's a Girl's Life, Meriem, Carrie and Mona engage in a pillow fight at the end of their girls' night out.
- Late into Year Five of Injustice: Gods Among Us, a two-part story taking place on the alternate good Earth features a panel of a "chicken fight" in a pool between Renee Montoya and Dinah Lance (riding Kate Kane and Ollie Queen, respectively); both of them are wearing bikinis.
Films — Live-Action
- In the movie Manos: The Hands of Fate, the only reason for the nightgown-clad Wives of Manos wrestling-fight scene (to jazz music) seems to be fanservice. It has nothing to do with anything else in the movie.
- Averted in The Scarehouse, as it has more of a Fan Disservice example. Kaitlyn and Shelby are forced to have a pillow fight for their lives, but there’s a twist; their pillows are laced with powdered acid.
- Scary Movie series:
- Scary Movie 3 opens with a pillow fight between Katie (Jenny McCarthy) and Becky (Pamela Anderson).
- Scary Movie 4 features a Scrabble game between three bikini-clad women that breaks into a pillow fight after one makes a play.
- So Close: Two sisters get into a silly fight over the possession of a camera and a towel with a lot of kicks, impractical acrobatics and gratuitous fanservice.
- Sorority Row opens with a party that includes three sisters having a pillow fight on a trampoline, wearing onesies that leave their butts exposed. In slow motion.
Live-Action TV
- Arrow: "Time of Death" starts with a three-way sparring session between Oliver, Diggle, and Sara. She's wearing a sports bra and yoga pants; the guys are shirtless. Fanservice for all!
- In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Dirty Girls", Xander is wakened from a dream of scantily clad Potential Slayers having a pillow fight, to the reality of the girls in frumpy pyjamas and bathrobes, complaining about a clogged toilet.
- Friends: Monica acknowledges this trope only to shoot it down, much to Chandler's dismay.
- Alluded to a couple times in Lost Girl.
- When Bo discovers she may be facing another succubus, she goes to an expert for advice. When she asks how one succubus fights another, her friend Kenzi snarkily interjects, "slow motion pillow fight?”
- In another episode, Kenzi is undercover in a sorority. When she mentions a "girls' night" event to Bo, Bo says, "Please tell me there'll be pillow fights."
Sports
- The Lingerie Bowl. Broadcast on pay-per-view TV as an alternative to the Super Bowl halftime show, it features female athletes in their underwear note playing a game of American football in an indoor arena.
- The Lingerie Fighting Championships is half playfighting, half burlesque show. Their tagline is even "A little but of MMA, a little bit of wrestling, and a little bit of clothing."
Tabletop Games
Video Games
- This trope is probably the whole point of the Dead or Alive Extreme spinoff(s). Instead of beating each other down like in canon, the series' many attractive female characters decide to play some games or becoming photomodels on the beach.
- Downplayed in Life Is Strange when Max and Chloe have a splash fight while swimming. While both of them are in their underwear, the scene is mostly about their close friendship and budding romantic chemistry. The splash fight itself is also very brief.
- The recent Like a Dragon entries have an egregiously plot irrelevant sidequest \ minigame where you get to bet on women in skimpy fetish costumes having wrestling matches with each other.
Web Animation
- Parodied, like most things, when Homestar Runner was invited in an email to have a pillow fight with some college girls in what was supposed to be Strong Bad's celebratory 200th email. According to Homestar, it's the second such fight he's been invited to, with the first one catalogued in hremail #49.
Web Comics
- Ennui GO!: In "Pillow Fight", Izzy and Tanya have one in their underwear. Subverted in the last panel:
Tanya: [oblivious to Darcy in the background about to wallop her] But why do I feel like we're forgetting something?
- Subverted in The Handbook of Heroes: Magus was expecting a "sexy pillow fight", but under Inquisitor's coaching, it still counts as martial combat training.
Alt Text: "An object that bears no resemblance to a weapon deals 1d4 damage." Deal with it.
- Homestuck: Alleged but not shown. Apparently Jane and Roxy had a pillow fight in their underwear after entering the session. Jane regrets it when she finds out Abhorrent Admirer Caliborn was watching.
GG: Oh, that's just great.
GG: The ONE TIME we had a generic girly pillow fight, and it turns out some pervert was watching us.
GG: I think I need a shower.
GG: Assuming I can ever take one again in peace! - Indicated but not shown in Housepets!, when a group of female barn cats invites Peanut to a slow-motion pillow fight. They mistake his speechlessness for a refusal. When Grape shows up and joins in, Peanut sits in the shallow end of a pond, apparently for the equivalent of a cold shower.
- Looking for Group features a spell created by a long-ago teenage student wizard; it's written so that Benny and Pella are obliged to pillow-fight in their underwear to trigger it.
- In Rascals, the battle between Jazmin and Reiko at the mall.
- Male variant: the wrestling match in Shortpacked! between main character Ethan and the Author Avatar of David Willis. To boost things, Robin added a vat of pudding.
- In Sluggy Freelance: Years of Yarncraft, the She-Demons of the sorority house Flaya Hed'decappa fights with Vorpal Pillows against the adventurers panty-raiding them.
- A recurring gag in The Whiteboard is promising the event (pillow fight, mud wrestling or pie fight) and not delivering. Usually as April Fools or some jubilee. Often, the girls refuse to participate, there are some technical difficulties, or it happens behind curtains. However, practice of the 3-girl paintball team and the subsequent tournament make up for it.
Western Animation
- Subverted in the Futurama episode "Mars University". Bender and the Frat-Bots peep into a sorority dorm... not because this trope is occurring (it is) but so they can ogle the desktop computer a towel-clad coed is using.
Bender: Ooh, somebody's been a bad computer...
- The short-lived American adaptation of the Australian sitcom Sit Down, Shut Up has an episode where the hippie science teacher Miracle Grohe tells Principal Sezno about an underground club where women in skimpy pajamas pillow fight each other.
Real Life
- A Rare Male Example from real life: grouses "fight" for their mates, like many animals, but they don't really hurt each other that much, and it's mainly an excuse to show off their plumage to females.
