James Cameron Disses Wonder Woman's Patty Jenkins Showing Bias

https://Terminator director James Cameron disses Wonder Woman’s Patty Jenkins

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By Margaret Gardiner

James Cameron your Bias is Showing

Director, James Cameron, just dissed Wonder Women and Patty Jenkins. Comparing Terminator’s Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor to Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman with these words: “(Sarah Connor) was crazy, she was complicated. She wasn’t there to be liked or ogled.” James Cameron then went on to tell The Guardian that Wonder Woman was a “step backwards” for portrayals of strong female characters. He also took a side swipe at Gal Gadot for being a former Miss Israel. “She’s absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. To me, that’s not breaking ground.”

In doing so, he made the mistake of many white men in power. He created a box that women are supposed to fit that is restrictive and based not on talent or requirements everyone who is not a woman is judged on, but a specific set of criteria constructed just for women. It’s called unconscious bias and its the reason women are not promoted equally or paid as much as men. A different standard is created just for women that men don’t have to fit into. Research shows that one of the reasons for lack of parity in power and pay for women, is that women are held to a different standard and have to be twice as good in order to be get the same acknowledgement that guys get.

Don’t look now, but your bias is showing Mr. Cameron. Guys won’t get this. He’s defending his own version of a strong woman. “She was crazy and complicated,” he said of Linda Hamilton’s role of Sarah Connor in Terminator which is getting a sequel that he’s directing. Point number one. We are tired of strong women being labeled crazy and complicated. I know a lot of strong women who are effective, efficient and not riddled with angst and complexity. And, by the way, they also look good. This idea that smart, capable women have to be ugly and if they are attractive that they are there to be ‘ogled’, is an old white guy’s idea of what a capable women is. It’s the mindset that created the climate that Roger Ailes allegedly fostered that embraced the idea that if a woman was good looking she had to endure being ogled and other things in order to get the job or keep the job. It’s the locker room talk that has a future President spouting the idea that women want to be grabbed by their p—-y because they look at certain way. Why does the fact that Gal Gadot is a former Miss Israel have anything to do with her portrayal of Wonder Woman? Does the fact that Roman Polanski was accused of having sex with an under age girl reflect on his work as a director? No? Then what does her past have to do with her portrayal of a character? Different standard for men and women? How come he didn’t reference the fact that Gal Gadot was in the Israeli army? Tough enough for you Mr. Cameron? And yes, she served even though she was beautiful. Beautiful women do all kinds of things that don’t require being ogled. The ogling comes from men with a mindset like you.

Nina Jacobson famously said that when women get a chance to be as mediocre as men then we will have reached parity. The bar is set differently for men. It just is. It’s unconscious bias and the branding of what women should be. If a woman is tough, she’s crazy and complicated and a bitch. If a man is tough he’s a good hire. If a woman is pretty she can’t be functional and deserves to be ogled. If a woman directs a super hero movie about a female super hero she has to break the mold of what every super hero male is - an idealized specimen - and toss out the source material. Has anyone ever suggested that about male super heroes? Let’s make Thor - which Ms. Jenkins was originally going to direct - ugly and skinny. Let’s make Superman a weakling. Wait - Batman is crazy and complicated! No, he’s just brooding, but a multimillionaire tycoon that is so appealing, that every woman he meets falls in love with him. Are we seeing a trend? Impossible and conflicting standards for women; for the guys its just, um, fantasy, humor, a guy thing, not a double standard, not unconscious bias. Surely?

Earlier this summer I spoke to Patty Jenkins about the fact that a woman had finally been ‘given’ a chance to helm a super hero movie for the first time EVER. As in, it had never been done before, because women aren’t supposed to be able to shoot action, despite women helming television shows and movies that have action in them. Susan Bier springs to mind, Mimi Leder, Katherine Bigelow, to name a few, yet it was seen as risky to ‘let’ a woman direct action. As the showrunner and producer of The Underground, Misha Green asked, “Do studios look at men and go, emotion is supposed to be a woman’s thing, men shouldn’t direct emotion? So, why the double standard?” The gender double standard of what women can do and should do, viewed through the eyes of the privileged class is limiting and restrictive and the reason women don’t have parity in pay and power. It’s based on unconscious bias and the branding of women to fit a preconceived mold. Its linked to men in the industry with fewer credentials frog leaping over women with a sturdier resume. It’s the lack of awareness of the entitled class understanding the metric of the disenfranchised.

Patty Jenkins, who didn’t have Wonder Woman in the granny panties of Halloween sexual fantasy but rather a respectable length leather skirt inspired by the source material, deliberately embraced all aspects of the character. “Everybody at Warner’s was so worried about being respectful. I was saying, ‘Sure, I want to be respectful too, but she's going to look hot and she's going to be amazing. She’s Wonder Woman, and this is my fantasy of what a great person can be. I found myself hilariously, in the opposite situation, going, ‘In the same way that Batman and Superman would be more practical if they had smaller bodies, but that is not your dream of what Batman and Superman look like, well, that’s not my dream of what Wonder Woman looks like either. In my dreams Wonder Woman looks amazing. Warner Bros. was extremely respectful of those issues. We really, truly, wanted to do the right thing by it. I think I was the one who was pushing going, ‘There is no male gaze involved in this, this is me and this is Wonder Woman and I want her to look grand and wonderful looking. I’m not sexualizing her at all. I just want her to be that.’”

Maybe when men can look at a beautiful woman and not ogle her but see her for what she contributes, and strong capable women are not deemed complicated and crazy, women will have moved the needle a little closer to equality and little further away from the unconscious branding that stilts the ability of women to thrive equally. So Mr. Cameron, Wonder Woman was not a step backwards, but a step forwards, showing that women can do all kinds of things, looking all kinds of ways, without being ogled and without being crazy. Oh, and one other thing. Women can direct action films and make a killing at the box office.

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