Jennifer Lawrence is known for her migraine inducing moronic hot takes as well as a few Hunger Games movies but her recent comments about female led action franchises may have been her dumbest take to date, which is saying a lot.
The Hunger Games actress had taken a short break from acting over the last few years to save ‘Democracy‘ but Lawrence is back with a vengeance with some statements that are driving cinema fans up a wall.
Lawrence recently did a sit down interview with Viola Davis, star of The Woman King, a film that blatantly whitewashes the real life history of the West African kingdom of Dahomey, one of the most prominent slave trading states of their era and attempts to lionize them as anti-colonial heroes who fought against enslavement and oppression.
According to History vs Hollywood, The Dahomey warriors conducted slave raids on villages with accounts detailing, “They cut the heads off of the elderly and rip the bottom jaw bones off others.
“During the raids, they’d burn the villages to the ground. Those who they let live, including the children, were taken captive and sold as slaves,” the outlet adds.
But according to Jennifer Lawrence, because of it’s black female representation, The Woman King is the best movie of 2022.
“I think that The Woman King is the best movie I’ve seen this year, hands down, and the best movie I’ve seen in so long,” Lawrence stated
But that comment wasn’t the dumbest thing that Lawrence said in the interview. While discussing The Woman King and The Hunger Games franchise, Lawrence made the blatantly false claim that Hollywood had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie before 2012.
This isn’t a bit.
Lawrence, who earlier this year claimed to be a victim of sexism because she was paid $5 million less ($25 million) than Leonardo DiCipaio for the Netflix film, Don’t Look Up told Davis, “Nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie because it wouldn’t work. We were told girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead.”
She continued, “And it just makes me so happy every single time I see a movie come out that just blows through every single 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. It’s just amazing to watch it happen, and watch you at the helm. ”
Where to begin?
The claim that Hollywood didn’t have action films with female leads before Katniss Evendeen is so absurd only someone who knows nothing about movie history would pretend it is true. When Lawrence’s comments made it’s way into Film Twitter, she was bombarded with replies of people pointing out decades worth of female lead action films.
Twitter user Steven Simmons brutally debunked Lawrence’s notion in a series of tweets naming female led movies.
He wrote, “Alien, Aliens, Terminator 1 & 2, Long Kiss Good Night, Resident Evil (5 by that), La Femme Nikita, Kill Bill vol 1 & 2, Underworld franchise (4 by that time), Charlies Angels 1 & 2, Tomb Raider 1 & 2, V for Vendetta, GI Jane, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Cutthroat Island, Salt.”
He didn’t stop there. He continued, “Columbiana, Haywire, Hanna, Wanted, Run Lola Run, The Fifth Element, Serenity, Brave, Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, Alien vs Predator, Alien vs Predator 2, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Descent, Point of No Return, Aeon Flux, Bad Girls, Foxy Brown, Death Proof, Sucker Punch, Elektra, Coffy, River Wild.”
Still, he continued, “Ultraviolet, Planet Terror, Prometheus, Bloodrayne, The Brave One, Snow White and the Huntsman, Lady Snowblood, Bandidas, Momentum, Catwoman, Panic, Mortal Kombat.”
He then noted, “All of these films I’ve listed are before Hunger Games and star women…”
TheCinemaSoothsayer also debunked Lawrence’s narrative with a list of actresses who are best known for their roles in action franchises.
The Twitter user wrote, “Sigourney Weaver, Jane Fonda, Geena Davis, Angelina Jolie, Milla Jovovich, Kate Beckinsale, Charlize Theron.”
“I swear they don’t even know the history of the their own business they just say things,” the user added.
CodenomicsACTL tweeted, “‘Nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie,’ Tell me more about how you have never seen a movie that was made before you became an actor! I mean… Seriously?! Pam Grier? Sigourney Weaver? Carrie Fisher? Jamie Lee Curtis? Linda Hamilton? Shall I continue?!
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”
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 pic.twitter.com/mpAWydxnQT
— David Leavitt 🎲🎮🧙♂️🌈 (@David_Leavitt) December 7, 2022
Noam Blum wrote, “People like Jennifer Lawrence can’t make due with being a gigantic Oscar-winning star. She has to feel like she did something no one else ever did before, and by golly, she will invent something like that if it’s the last thing she does.”
Tim Young questioned, “Soooo is Jennifer Lawrence super dumb or completely ignorant?”
FreedSamurai tweeted a list of characters that includes: Ripley, Sarah Connor, Princess Leia, Wonder Woman, and Furiosa.
The user also shared a clip of two men where one states, “Actors are stupid, people. They’re not smart. Very few of them are intelligent. And the ones that are intelligent are much, much older. Young actors are — and we know many of them — they are insanely dumb to where it’s noticeable.”
The man then questioned, “Have you ever been with someone that’s so dumb it’s noticeable? When you look at someone else as if in to be in disbelief at what this person is doing?
Ripley, Sarah Connor, Princess Leia, Wonder Woman, Furiosa pic.twitter.com/oo0H2TVNhP
— ho ho ho (@FreedSamurai) December 7, 2022
Jennifer’s recent comments is another footnote in the long list of stupid comments she has made in the last few years. Earlier this year, Lawrence threw her own parents under the bus implying they support Nazis because of their conservative political beliefs.
She was asked by Variety’s Karen Valby if her parents had forgiven her for being a liberal. Lawrence replied, “I don’t know. I don’t really know.” When asked if she had forgiven her parents, she answered, “Yeah. I mean…. No, there were certain things, in the Trump presidency, there are certain things that happened over the last five years that are unforgivable.”
“And it’s been wild. It’s wild to disagree on things you thought you would never…there’s no way we’re going to disagree on this in 2021. White supremacy. Attacking the Capitol. Nazis being the bad guys. Or just, science. I don’t know,” she stated.
In an October 2020 appearance on comedian Heather McMahan’s Absolutely Not podcast, Lawrence put forth the unfounded claim, “When Donald Trump got elected, that just changed everything. This is an impeached president whose broken many laws and has refused to condemn white supremacy, and it feels like there has been a line drawn in the sand.”
She added, “I don’t want to support a president who supports white supremacists.”
In 2017, Lawrence claimed in an interview that hurricanes were nature’s wrathful response to the election of Donald Trump.
“It is proven through science that human activity, the climate change is due to human activity and we continue to ignore it and the only voice that we really have is through voting and we voted and it was really startling. You are watching these hurricanes now and it is really hard while especially while promoting this movie not to feel Mother Nature’s rage or wrath.”
What do you make of Lawrence’s latest baffling comments about female led action movies?
NEXT: ‘The Woman King’ Review – A Fantasy That Runs From The Truth