Lynda Carter wants James Cameron to “stop dissing” “Wonder Woman.”
“Perhaps you do not understand the character. I most certainly do,” Carter said in a Facebook posting. “Like all women — we are more than the sum of our parts.”
It all started when Cameron gave an interview to The Guardian last month and said, “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,” he said. “I’m not saying I didn’t like the movie but, to me, it’s a step backwards.
The “Terminator” director went on to make the comparison to Sarah Connor, a character in that film played by Cameron’s now ex-wife, Linda Hamilton.
“Sarah Connor 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!”
“Wonder Woman” director Patty Jenkins shot back at Cameron tweeting, “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.”
Cameron stood by his earlier comments this week in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
“Wonder Woman” star Gal Gadot “was Miss Israel, and she was wearing a kind of bustier costume that was very form-fitting,” Cameron told THR. “She’s absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. To me, that’s not breaking ground.”
“They had Raquel Welch doing stuff like that in the ’60s.” he said. “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].”
Those comments did not sit well with Carter, who portrayed “Wonder Woman” in the television series from 1975 to 1979.
“Your thuggish jabs at a brilliant director, Patty Jenkins, are ill advised,” Carter wrote. “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.”