Wonder Woman Director Patty Jenkins Responds To James Cameron’s Criticism
Published on August 25, 2017. Updated May 21, 2019Patty Jenkins, the director of the box office hit Wonder Woman, fired back at James Cameron who recently called the superhero film a “step backwards.”
James Cameron is known for his female protagonists such as Rose in Titanic, Neytiri in Avator and most notably, Sarah Conner in Terminator. Cameron aimed his criticism of the film at the way Gal Gadot was portrayed as Wonder Woman and stated, “All of the self-congratulatory back-patting Hollywood’s been doing over ‘Wonder Woman’ has been so misguided. She’s an objectified icon, and it’s just male Hollywood doing the same old thing!”
“I’m not saying I didn’t like the movie but, to me, it’s a step backwards,” he continued. “Sarah Connor was not a beauty icon. She was strong, she was troubled, she was a terrible mother, and she earned the respect of the audience through pure grit. And to me, [the benefit of characters like Sarah] is so obvious. I mean, half the audience is female!”
Cameron’s remarks were immediately met with strong criticism on Twitter, some even calling him sexist. Patty Jenkins was one of the many who was offended by his comments and took to Twitter to counter his remarks and defend her film. “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 filmmaker, he is not a woman,” she stated.
“His praise of my film … and our portrayal of a strong yet damaged woman was so appreciated. But if women have to always be hard, tough, and troubled to be strong, and we aren’t free to be multidimensional or celebrate an icon of women everywhere because she is attractive and loving, then we haven’t come very far,” she wrote.
