--- title: James Cameron Stands By His Controversial Wonder Woman Remarks description: He still thinks the Patty Jenkins superhero movie is "a step backwards" canonical: https://time.com/4960429/james-cameron-defends-wonder-woman-comments/ author: Entertainment Weekly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-09-28T02:37:40.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T17:37:51.552Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: James Cameron Stands By Controversial 'Wonder Woman' Remarks og:description: He still thinks the Patty Jenkins superhero movie is "a step backwards" og:url: https://time.com/4960429/james-cameron-defends-wonder-woman-comments/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc82119bdc9942519/6988dfb386f68e0e646e69bf/gettyimages-622844226.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Opening Night Of Cirque du Soleil's "Toruk - The First Flight" - Arrivals og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: James Cameron Stands By Controversial 'Wonder Woman' Remarks twitter:description: He still thinks the Patty Jenkins superhero movie is "a step backwards" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc82119bdc9942519/6988dfb386f68e0e646e69bf/gettyimages-622844226.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # James Cameron Stands By His Controversial _Wonder Woman_ Remarks > Sponsored content. 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Paul Archuleta—FilmMagic by [Nick Romano / Entertainment Weekly](https://time.com/author/entertainment-weekly/) ## Nick Romano / Entertainment Weekly Sep 28, 2017 2:37 AM UTC [James Cameron](http://ew.com/tv/2017/09/27/avatar-2-first-look/) is surprised [his comments on _Wonder Woman_](http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/24/james-cameron-wonder-woman/) proved to be so controversial. “Yes, I’ll stand by that,” the _Avatar_ director told [_The Hollywood Reporter_](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/james-cameron-doubles-down-wonder-woman-critique-details-avatar-sequels-1043026) in a recent interview. “I mean, \[Gal Gadot\] 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.” Cameron sparked a backlash that [caught the attention](http://time.com/4915423/patty-jenkins-james-cameron-wonder-woman-response/) of the film’s director, Patty Jenkins. “I’m not saying I didn’t like the movie but, to me, it’s a step backwards,” he had said. The filmmaker helped turn Sarah Connor into a movie icon in the _Terminator_ movies, and it worked because she “was not a beauty icon,” he said. “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!” With Gadot’s portrayal of Wonder Woman, Cameron now says, “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 \[Hamilton\] 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 \[giving women these types of roles\].” Jenkins, who became [the highest-grossing female director of a live-action film](http://ew.com/movies/2017/06/25/wonder-woman-highest-grossing-film-female-director/) with _Wonder Woman_, [published a retort on social media](http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/24/wonder-woman-director-james-cameron/). “James Cameron’s inability to understand what _Wonder Woman_ is, or stands for, to women all over the world is unsurprising as, though he is a great filmmaker, he is not a woman,” she wrote in part. “Strong women are great. His praise of my film _Monster_, and our portrayal of a strong yet damaged woman was so appreciated. But if women have to always be hard, tough and troubled to be strong, and we aren’t free to be multidimensional or celebrate an icon of women everywhere because she is attractive and loving, then we haven’t come very far have we.” Cameron continued his defense by arguing how Hamilton’s rendition of the character “looked great” but “wasn’t treated as a sex object.” He said, “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_.” Despite Cameron’s remarks, Jenkins received an overwhelming swell of praise for the film, which finally gave DC’s Amazon warrior a live-action feature film of her own. Hillary Clinton called it “[inspirational](http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/30/patty-jenkins-responds-wonder-woman-praise-hillary-clinton/),” [Geena Davis already wants a part in the sequel](http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/19/wonder-woman-2-geena-davis/), and [Jenkins continues to receive stories](http://ew.com/movies/2017/06/12/wonder-woman-impact-patty-jenkins-gal-gadot/) about young girls embracing the heroine. _Wonder Woman_ earned $820.4 million at the global box office. “I thought it was a good film. Period,” Cameron continued. “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.” _This_ [_article_](http://ew.com/movies/2017/09/27/james-cameron-wonder-woman-comments/) _originally appeared on_ [_ew.com_](http://ew.com)_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4960429/james-cameron-defends-wonder-woman-comments/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4960429/james-cameron-defends-wonder-woman-comments/"},"headline":"James Cameron Stands By His Controversial Wonder Woman Remarks","datePublished":"2017-09-28T02:37:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T17:37:51.552Z","description":"He still thinks the Patty Jenkins superhero movie is \"a step backwards\"","url":"https://time.com/4960429/james-cameron-defends-wonder-woman-comments/","keywords":["movies","wonder woman","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc82119bdc9942519/6988dfb386f68e0e646e69bf/gettyimages-622844226.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nick Romano / Entertainment Weekly"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc82119bdc9942519/6988dfb386f68e0e646e69bf/gettyimages-622844226.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Opening Night Of Cirque du Soleil's \"Toruk - The First Flight\" - Arrivals","caption":"Opening Night Of Cirque du Soleil's \"Toruk - The First Flight\" - Arrivals","creditText":"Paul Archuleta—FilmMagic","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4960429/james-cameron-defends-wonder-woman-comments/","name":"James Cameron Stands By His Controversial Wonder Woman Remarks"}}]}] ```