“I remember when I was doing ‘Hunger Games,’ nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie because it wouldn’t work because we were told girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead.”
Jennifer Lawrence made an appearance on Variety’s “Actors on Actors” with Viola Davis, claiming that she was the first woman to lead an action movie with her 2012 "Hunger Games" appearance.
Lawrence, who played Katniss Everdeen in the 2012 film adaptation of the young adult books said, “I remember when I was doing ‘Hunger Games,’ nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie because it wouldn’t work because we were told girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead.”
https://rumble.com/embed/v1wvt5g/?pub=2n05b
She continued, “And it just makes me so happy every single time I see a movie come out that just blows through every one of those beliefs and proves that it is just a lie to keep certain people out of the movies. To keep certain people in the same positions that they’ve always been in.”
Davis did not attempt to correct Lawrence’s incorrect statements.
Social media pundits roasted Lawrence by naming the many actresses that have led action movies long before Lawrence’s 2012 movie, some even before she was born.
Fans named Linda Hamilton, who played Sarah Conner in the 1984 and 1991 “Terminator” films, as well as Sigourney Weaver, who played Ellen Ripley in the “Alien” franchise which began in 1979.
Some called out Milla Jovovich as Alice in the “Resident Evil” franchise which began in 2002 in addition to Angelina Jolie who played Lara Croft in the 2001 and 2003 “Tomb Raider” films.
https://twitter.com/sisterinferior/status/1600529073683456002
Others named Uma Thurman from the “Kill Bill” movies, Pam Grier from “Jackie Brown, and even Raquel Welch in 1971’s "Hannah Caulder.”
Journalist David Leavitt tweeted, “Jennifer Lawrence proclaiming she was the first woman to ever be the lead in an action movie…Clearly, she never saw Sigourney Weaver’s Alien franchise.”
https://twitter.com/David_Leavitt/status/1600537300051673100
According to the New York Post, the tweet led to Variety unfollowing him.
https://twitter.com/TheBrandonMorse/status/1600578828308463632
Variety also deleted a tweet with Lawrence’s quote due to the growing blowback as the actress became a trending topic on Twitter Wednesday.
https://twitter.com/thehoffather/status/1600529377514909696
Later in the interview, Lawrence said, “The biggest hindrance to my craft has been press, doing interviews. I’m always very self-conscious of my intellect because I didn’t finish school. I dropped out of middle school.”
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