Avatar director James Cameron has doubled down on his criticism of Patty Jenkins’s blockbuster film Wonder Woman, saying that it wasn’t groundbreaking and its star – Gal Gadot – was overly sexualised. In an interview with the Guardian last month, Cameron called praise for Wonder Woman “misguided”, adding that the film constituted a “step backwards”. The comments angered some and prompted a response from Jenkins.
“James Cameron’s inability to understand what Wonder Woman is, or stands for, to women all over the world is unsurprising as, though he is a great film-maker, he is not a woman,” she wrote on Twitter.
In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter published on Wednesday, Cameron defended his critique of the film, stating that Wonder Woman was a “good” but not “groundbreaking” film because of Gadot’s depiction.
“I’ll stand by that. I mean, she was Miss Israel, and she was wearing a kind of bustier costume that was very form-fitting,” Cameron said, referring to Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot. “She’s absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. To me, that’s not breaking ground. They had Raquel Welch doing stuff like that in the 60s.”
He added that he was talking about Wonder Woman in the context of Linda Hamilton’s portrayal of Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a role in which he says her sexuality was purposefully downplayed.
“She wasn’t there to be liked or ogled, but she was central, and the audience loved her by the end of the film,” he said about Hamilton.
Cameron continued: “So as much as I applaud Patty directing the film and Hollywood, uh, ‘letting’ a woman direct a major action franchise, I didn’t think there was anything groundbreaking in Wonder Woman.”
The director added that the issue with female action stars is that they’re still marketed to teenage boys. “I just think Hollywood doesn’t get it about women in commercial franchises,” he said. “Drama, they’ve got that cracked, but the second they start to make a big commercial action film, they think they have to appeal to 18-year-old males or 14-year-old males, whatever it is.”
Cameron did note that his remark was “probably a little bit simplistic,” but added, “I like the fact that, sexually, she had the upper hand with the male character, which I thought was fun.”
Cameron is currently directing two Avatar sequels simultaneously and is in pre-production on a reboot of the Terminator franchise. In his original interview with the Guardian, Cameron also remarked on the difficulties he has faced in his relationships with “strong independent women”. “Being attracted to strong independent women has the downside that they’re strong independent women – they inherently don’t need you!” he said. “Fortunately, I’m married now to a strong independent woman who does believe she needs me.”
- Theguardian