Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins has hit back after James Cameron called the film a “step backwards” for women.
The Titanic director has called Wonder Woman, played by Gal Gadot, an “objectified icon”.
Patty Jenkins has responded saying “there is no right or wrong kind of powerful woman”.
She pointed out the film’s “massive female audience who made the film a hit… can surely choose and judge their own icons of progress.”
Wonder Woman has broken box office records and is the highest-ever grossing film directed by a woman.
But in an interview with The Guardian James Cameron said “the self-congratulatory back-patting” Hollywood has been doing over Wonder Woman was “misguided”.
“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.”
The Oscar-winning director compared the character of Wonder Woman to Sarah Connor, the lead role in his Terminator films.
“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.”
Responding on Twitter Patty Jenkins said that there is not only one way to be a strong woman in film.
“If women always have to 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.
“I believe women can and should be EVERYTHING just like male lead characters should be.”
And she admitted she wasn’t surprised by his reaction.
“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 film maker he is not a woman.”
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Source: BBC