Whether you agree or disagree with him, it's refreshing to hear James Cameron's opinion on cinema, it's never watered-down and extremely honest. Hopefully, he can back up all this talk with a great movie of his own, more specifically when his much-delayed sequel to "Avatar" hits theaters in the near future, whenever that may be.
“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, 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!”
I will say this, James Cameron is dead-on here when it comes to Sarah Connor's importance. Connor was everything that a female action role should be like. Linda Hamilton's R rated heroine was incredibly humane and had substance that Gadot's role could never have. There are, after all, artistic restrictions when it comes to Marvel/DCEU films. However, Cameron is also missing the point about why "Wonder Woman" was such an impotant film. Marvel/DC films are the most popular movies currently in theaters, there wasn't any succesful superheroine-lead movie before Gadot came into the fray and the fact that she and the film became so popular, second highest grossing film of the year, is an incredible achievement for female roles in Hollywood.