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. Do I have hope for those upcoming films? Well, let's just say my expectations have been diminishing over these last few years.
If you remember last month Cameron admitted he wasn't a fan of Patti Jenkins' "Wonder Woman." He had spoken with The Guardian and said that he actually advanced feminism at the movies better with Terminator's Sarah Connor (the exact quote can be read at the bottom of this article).
Well, he's added sparks to the flame with more comments which will surely have people talking again. Speaking to THR, Cameron refuses to back off from his previous comments and in fact seems to double down on them.
"Yes, 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. She's absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. To me, that's not breaking ground. They had Raquel Welch doing stuff like that in the '60s. It was all in a context of talking about why Sarah Connor — what Linda created in 1991 — was, if not ahead of its time, at least a breakthrough in its time. I don't think it was really ahead of its time because we're still not [giving women these types of roles]. Linda looked great. She just wasn't treated as a sex object. There was nothing sexual about her character. It was about angst, it was about will, it was about determination. She was crazy, she was complicated. … She wasn't there to be liked or ogled, but she was central, and the audience loved her by the end of the film. 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. I thought it was a good film. Period. I was certainly shocked that [my comment] was a controversial statement. It was pretty obvious in my mind. I just think Hollywood doesn't get it about women in commercial franchises. 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. Look, it was probably a little bit of a simplistic remark on my part, and I'm not walking it back, but I will add a little detail to it, which is: I like the fact that, sexually, she had the upper hand with the male character, which I thought was fun."
These are the previous comments which started this Cameron vs Jenkins debate:
“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!”