Patty Jenkin hits back at James Cameron: No ‘Wonder’ he doen’t understands ‘Woman’
WONDER Woman might be the second-highest grossing movie of 2017 and received critical praise the world over but there was one person who just didn’t get it — director James Cameron.
The Titanic director recently slammed the superhero movie claiming it had done little to advance women in Hollywood but despite the backlash, Patty Jenkins, the director of Wonder Woman had some pretty choice words for the director himself — specifically, he just doesn’t get it.
Cameron sat down with The Guardian earlier this week where he took aim at the superhero movie, calling it a “step backward”.
“All of the self-congratulatory back-patting Hollywood’s been doing over Wonder Woman has been so misguided,” the Avatar director said.
“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 backward,” he added.
Jenkins clapped back at his comments with a lengthy post on Twitter earlier today, admitting his comments were “unsurprising”.
— Patty Jenkins (@PattyJenks) August 25, 2017
The post has already amassed more than 100,000 likes on Twitter and has been retweeted close to 40,000 times.
Cameron, who is also responsible for directing the Terminator franchise, cited his movie’s female lead Sarah Connor as a better example.
“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,” he said. “And to me, [the benefit of characters like Sarah] is so obvious. I mean, half the audience is female!”
Regardless of Cameron’s comments, there’s no denying Wonder Woman was a huge hit worldwide with its box office numbers smashing all the other movies in the DC Extended Universe.
And this isn’t the first time Jenkins has addressed the issue of women in Hollywood.
At a press conference earlier this week, the Wonder Woman director said the figures had “exceeded all of the projections, although not our own hopes”.
“I hope the success of the film will lead to change and lead to other people getting opportunities,” Jenkins told reporters. “I hope women become a diverse, easy hire for all sorts of jobs in the future.”