Actress Jennifer Lawrence came under heavy criticism for claiming in a recent interview that she was the first female lead to ever star in an action film.
In a wide-ranging interview with Variety, Lawrence said “nobody” had ever made a woman the lead of an action flick until she came along in 2012.
Speaking with fellow actress Viola Davis, Lawrence made the following claim: “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. We were told girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead.”
“We were told girls and boys could both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead,” Jennifer Lawrence says of taking on the role of Katniss in #TheHungerGames. https://t.co/TqYPwDLCC4 pic.twitter.com/1qyqqkh8aX
— Variety (@Variety) December 7, 2022
Neither Variety nor Davis countered Lawrence’s proclamation that she was the first female lead in an action movie in all of film history. Variety even tweeted the quote, but soon deleted the post.
Variety just deleted this tweet, which contained a very stupid quote from Jennifer Lawrence, who apparently doesn’t actually watch movies. pic.twitter.com/7KWz0jX4Uv
— Jon Miltimore (@miltimore79) December 7, 2022
History has never been a strong point in La La Land. But Lawrence’s claim is risible. Anyone with a passing familiarity with even recent Hollywood history would be able to name at least a few female action stars who led films before Lawrence appeared in “The Hunger Games.”
Red State editor Brandon Morse, for instance, dashed off a list of women who led action movies going back to 1979, including Sigourney Weaver in “Alien,” Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill,” Angelina Jolie in “Tomb Raider” and the three female leads of “Charlie’s Angels.”
This is clearly a tiny slice of the women who have starred in action movies. Many more can be named with relative ease. Going back to the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, you have Pam Grier, Raquel Welch, Carrie Fisher, Demi Moore and more.
The mockery soon washed over Twitter like a tidal wave.
Someone please buy this woman a blu-ray player https://t.co/2HKxnsRZlm
— jimtreacher.substack.com (@jtLOL) December 7, 2022
Jennifer Lawrence desperately trying to restart her career now that Uncle Harvey is behind bars and no one else answers her calls
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) December 7, 2022
Today l learned that Jennifer Lawrence has never seen a movie. https://t.co/styttvTgaG
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) December 7, 2022
Cough, cough.
Besides of course Sigourney Weaver in Alien there were Mary Fuller, Helen Holmes, Helen Gibson, Ruth Roland, Pearl White, etc!
Turns out that Ms Lawrence is not very familiar with cinema history.
What do you reckon @MoviesSilently & @NitrateDiva ? https://t.co/nJ0T8aXjT5 pic.twitter.com/dSjYtSNV2W— Fake History Hunter (@fakehistoryhunt) December 7, 2022
Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton didn’t give the performances of their lifetimes to be disrespected like this. https://t.co/jG19Gp4UuQ
— Scotty Millard (@scootsie34) December 7, 2022
Everyone’s dragging this, but I think actor brain is wonderful. She clearly believes she was the first to walk this well-trodden path. https://t.co/rykT9Udpkf
— Holly Jolly William Friedkin Truths (@LazlosGhost) December 7, 2022
After making her wildly false claim about the history of female action stars, Lawrence made an amusing admission in the Variety interview.
“The biggest hindrance to my craft has been press, doing interviews. Every time I do an interview, I think, ‘I can’t do this to myself again. I really can’t.’ I’m always very self-conscious of my intellect because I didn’t finish school. I dropped out of middle school,” she said.
Yes, detractors of Hollywood might also see a little problem with the intellect of a woman who doesn’t seem to know that movies existed before she became a star.
