Lynda Carter tells James Cameron to 'stop dissing Wonder Woman'
Lynda Carter, the star of the Seventies TV version of Wonder Woman, has slammed director James Cameron for his repeated criticism of this summer's Wonder Woman movie, writing that his "thuggish jabs" should stop.
"To James Cameron - STOP dissing [Wonder Woman]", Carter wrote on Facebook. "You poor soul. Perhaps you do not understand the character. I most certainly do. Like all women, we are more than the sum of our parts. Your thuggish jabs at a brilliant director, Patty Jenkins, are ill advised. This movie was spot on. Gal Gadot was great. I know, Mr. Cameron – because I have embodied this character for more than 40 years. So STOP IT."
Speaking to The Guardian in August, Cameron claimed the film was "a step backwards" for female representation on screen, and compared Wonder Woman negatively to his own female creation Sarah Connor, the star of the early Terminator films.
"All of the self-congratulatory back-patting Hollywood's been doing over Wonder Woman has been so misguided," he told the newspaper. "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."
In response, Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins took Cameron to task, writing on Twitter that she believes "women can and should be everything, just like male lead characters should be. There is no right and wrong kind of powerful woman."
But Cameron doubled down on his criticism this week, telling Hollywood Reporter that while he liked the film, he still believed she was a sexualised protagonist.
"[Gal Gadot] was Miss Israel, and she was wearing a kind of bustier costume that was very form-fitting," he said. "She's absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. To me, that's not breaking ground. They had Raquel Welch doing stuff like that in the Sixties. It was all in a context of talking about why Sarah Connor — what Linda [Hamilton] created in 1991 — was, if not ahead of its time, at least a breakthrough in its time.
"Linda looked great, [but] she just wasn't treated as a sex object," Cameron continued. "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."
Wonder Woman through the ages