‘Charlie’s Angels’ Director Elizabeth Banks Once Again Falsely Claims She Had No Role In Promoting Film’s Feminist Narrative: “There Was Not This Gendered Agenda From Me”
Spencer Baculi
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In yet further confirmation that she is seemingly unable to take accountability for her own failures, Charlie’s Angels director Elizabeth Banks has to falsely claim – for the second time – that she had absolutely no part in the promotion of the ‘feminist narrative’ that sprung up around her failed cinematic reboot.
Bosley (Elizabeth Banks) finds herself in trouble in Charlie’s Angels (2019), Sony Pictures
Banks made her latest attempt at rewriting history while speaking in promotion of her upcoming film, The Beanie Bubble, to Rolling Stone‘s Marlow Stern.
Directly asked by Stern, “What did you learn from the Charlie’s Angels experience”, the actress-slash-director asserted, “For me, regardless of what the actual product was, so much of the story that the media wanted to tell about Charlie’s Angels was that it was some feminist manifesto.”
“People kept saying, ‘You’re the first female director of Charlie’s Angels!'” recalled Banks. “And I was like, ‘They’ve only done a TV show and McG’s movies… what are you talking about? There’s not this long legacy.'”
Bosley (Elizabeth Banks) prepares to outfit the Angels for their next sortie in Charlie’s Angels (2019), Sony Pictures
As for the film’s promotion as a ‘pop-feminist powerhouse’, Banks then claimed that she had signed onto the project solely because “I just loved the franchise.”
“There was not this gendered agenda from me,” said the Cocaine Bear director. “That was very much laid on top of the work, and it was a little bit of a bummer. It felt like it pigeonholed me and the audience for the movie. To lose control of the narrative like that was a real bummer. You realize how the media can frame something regardless of how you’ve framed it. I happen to be a woman who directed a Charlie’s Angels movie that happened to star three incredible women. You can’t control the media saying, ‘You’re a lady director, and that’s special!’ — which it is, but it’s not the only thing.”
Bosley (Elizabeth Banks) plays getaway driver for the titular team in Charlie’s Angels (2019), Sony
Continuing, Banks told Stern, “I remember having a conversation with someone who was like, “You guys are going to have a partnership with Drybar” — which is, like, a hair-blowing thing — and I was like, ‘Alright… but could we have an ad during the baseball playoffs? [Charlie’s Angels] is not only this one thing.’”
“It was interesting to see how the industry sees things that star women,” concluded the director. “It was a real lesson for me.”
Sabina Wilson (Kristen Stewart) attempts to recruit a new team member iBosley (Elizabeth Banks) checks in after a mission gone awry in Charlie’s Angels (2019), Sony Pictures
As noted above, this is not the first time that Banks has attempted to side-step her role in Charlie’s Angels‘ failed feminist marketing play.
Asked a similar question regarding her experience working on the box office bomb during a September 2022 interview with The New York Times, Banks opined, “It was an incredible experience. It was very stressful, partly because when women do things in Hollywood it becomes this story.”
Bosley (Elizabeth Banks) plans the team’s next move in Charlie’s Angels (2019), Sony Pictures
“There was a story around Charlie’s Angels that I was creating some feminist manifesto,” she told the outlet’s David Marchese. “I was just making an action movie. I would’ve liked to have made Mission: Impossible, but women aren’t directing Mission: Impossible. I was able to direct an action movie, frankly, because it starred women and I’m a female director, and that is the confine right now in Hollywood.”
“I wish that the movie had not been presented as just for girls, because I didn’t make it just for girls,” the actress ultimately posited. “There was a disconnect on the marketing side of it for me.”
The original Bosley (Patrick Stewart) passes the mantle to his replacement (Elizabeth Banks) in Charlie’s Angels (2019), Sony Pictures
Yet, for all her protestations, the fact of the matter is that Banks did in fact have a direct hand – and a heavy one at that – in building Charlie’s Angels up as a “feminist manifesto”.
Asked “How is this reboot going to be more feminist than the original?” by Collider‘s Sydney Bucksbaum in 2019, Banks explained, “I honestly feel that the property has all of the bona fides of feminism already built in. I really didn’t have to do much other than honor its entire history.”
“By that I mean, the original TV show was about women who went to the police academy but then were not allowed to actually be full police officers,” she said. “They were given the jobs of desk clerk or meter maid. Charles Townsend came along and said, ‘Now they work for me, my name is Charlie,’ and gave them the opportunity to live their best life. I feel like this entire endeavor is about giving women the opportunity, including myself, to participate fully in a really big action franchise. We’ve done it. It’s been something that’s been in the DNA of Charlie’s Angels from the beginning.”
Bosley (Elizabeth Banks) checks in after a mission gone awry in Charlie’s Angels (2019), Sony Pictures
Further pressed by Bucksbaum as to “What were you looking for when it came to casting all of the Angels?”, Banks stated, “When we were casting the movie, I wanted really fresh faces. I wanted a diverse cast. It’s important that women, the audience for this movie, sees themself in some part of this movie.”
“I think that’s really important,” she continued. “I want the audience to feel a sense of ownership over the film, that they could be in this movie, that they could live in this world, it’s a real message. It’s a movie that I want to entertain all audiences but I did want to make something that felt important to women and especially young girls.”
Bosley (Elizabeth Banks) has had it with her predecessor’s (Patrick Stewart) sexism in Charlie’s Angels (2019), Sony Pictures
During her time with Collider, Banks also declared that “One of the ingredients of this movie was supporting and believing women. We literally have a character who is essentially working at a big corporation and is not being believed or listened to by her bosses.”
“One of the statements this movie makes is that you should probably believe women,” she added. “We have as much validity in what we’re feeling and how we want to go about living in the world, being in the world, and that was really important to me, that we felt like we had characters that were being taken seriously and given a chance to live their best life.”
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