Jennifer Lawrence sparks backlash after falsely claiming to be the first female lead in an action movie.
Lawrence made the comments in a roughly 45-minute discussion session with fellow actress and producer Viola Davis, Published by Varietywhere they discussed representation, inequality within the industry and motherhood, among other topics.
In the discussion, Lawrence, 32, said of the significance of her role playing the protagonist Katniss Everdeen in “The Hunger Games”: “I remember when I was doing ‘The Hunger Games,’ no one ever put a woman at the center of a movie because it wouldn’t It works—because we’re told that girls and boys can identify with a male hero, but boys can’t identify with a female heroine.”
Lawrence went on to say “It makes me so happy every time I see a movie that breaks out of every one of these beliefs, and proves that it’s just a lie to keep some people away from cinema.”
Critics on social media quickly panned Lawrence’s comments, pointing out that many other women have starred in action films — including Sigourney Weaver in the “Alien” movies; Angelina Jolie in “Salt” and “Tomb Raider”; Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill: Volume 1” and “Kill Bill: Volume 2”; and Michelle Yeoh in several films, including “Supercop,” “Magnificent Warriors,” and “Yes, Madam!”
diverse seems to be deleted Tweet I posted Promoted Lawrence’s comments after several Twitter users noted her statement was inaccurate.
Others said that while Lawrence’s comment was technically incorrect, she accurately pointed to a larger issue of gender bias in Hollywood.
“It’s not true that no one has ever put a woman in an action movie before Jennifer Lawrence at Hunger Games,” Franklin Leonard, producer and founder of “The Black List,” a platform for film and TV writers, says. he said in a tweet. “It’s absolutely true that Hollywood has a real bias against women in action movies because of this ridiculous belief about who identifies with whom.”
NBC News has reached out to Lawrence’s representative for comment.
Davis and Lawrence’s conversation follows on the heels of two recently released films in which they both starred: “The Woman King,” which features Davis as the leader of an all-West African warrior unit, and “Causeway,” starring Lawrence as an American soldier who returns home from Afghanistan after suffering a traumatic brain injury. .
. “Friendly writer. Unapologetic student. Typical internetaholic. Social media ninja. Communicator. Music fanatic.”