Dear James Cameron,
- livia treviño
- Aug 25, 2017
- 2 min read
I was appalled when I read your comments about "Wonder Woman", but not surprised.
There are many men like you in Hollywood. Men that think writing a few "strong female characters" somehow gives them ownership of every female character. It's completely arrogant of you to think that you even have the right to say that a powerful woman is "a step backwards" for female protagonists.
I'm glad that you have given women strong characters like Sarah Connor to look up to, but not every woman has to fit into what YOU think a woman should be. Just because you wrote a character who isn't a "beauty icon" doesn't make you the patron saint of female protagonists, it just makes you a filmmaker.
And yes, Wonder Woman can be an overly-sexualized character, but what you fail to see is what makes her overly-sexualized are men like you. Diana (Wonder Woman) wore an outfit fit for battle because it didn't restrict her movements, but like a school-aged girl who dares to expose her shoulders, it's seen as a distraction. The problem isn't what she's wearing or her looks, the problem's that you care.
If you're going to talk about "objectified icons", let's talk about Titanic, shall we? It's rich that a man who had Kate Winslet sit naked on a couch for no reason is preaching about "male Hollywood doing the same old thing".
One last quarrel I have with your comments is why it took you so long to comment about this movie. As I see it, there are only two reasons: 1) You've been living under a rock long enough to miss the overwhelmingly positive reaction feminists had or 2) You did see the positive reaction and still thought, "No, the majority of women are wrong... allow me to mansplain". You decide which one is worse.
Bottom line: You have created female characters that have given women different kinds of icons to look up to. So why can't you celebrate one that is created for women by a woman? Despite your inference that Diana is a character that has been done before, I believe the exact opposite. Diana is the embodiment of a woman who gets to choose who she wants to be and what she wants to believe in, but all you seem to care about is that she isn't ugly.
Admittedly, this open letter is a build-up of frustration from many men telling women how to feel about the way we're portrayed in movies. But, hey, if anybody could appreciate a strong women with a strong opinion, shouldn't it be you, James Cameron?
Yorumlar