Jennifer Lawrence is under fire after proclaiming that lead roles for women in action flicks never existed before her casting in the Hunger Games franchise.
The outrage began Wednesday morning after an interview between Jennifer and fellow actor Viola Davis on Variety’s Actors On Actors hit the internet.
While Jennifer attempted to assert that roles for women and men in Hollywood typically differ unfairly, she shared an embarrassingly inaccurate fact that sent social media users reeling in anger and shock.
To Twitter’s horror, Jennifer proclaimed in the interview: “Nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie” before her role as Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games series.
The popular Hunger Games movies, based on the young adult novels by Suzanne Collins, follow teenagers from each of the 12 districts of Panem who are chosen at random to fight to the death.
“We were told girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead,” the 32-year-old continued.
“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.”
The Causeway star’s comments quickly went viral, with Twitter users expertly pointing to a myriad of female actors who’ve led action movies and even entire franchises in the past.
“Now how Jennifer Lawrence gon sit up here and say there wasn’t a female actress in an action movie until her in hunger games….. so what was Pam Grier, Sigourney Weaver, Uma Thurman and Mila Jovovich doing?” one Twitter user wrote.
Another user tweeted, “Lawrence is apparently so self-obsessed that she forgets a ton of other women were cast as female leads in action films: Linda Hamilton, HELLO. Sigourney Weaver? Angelina Jolie? Halle Berry? Uma Thurman and the ladies of Kill Bill? “DEATH PROOF” CAST? Lawrence is annoying.”
Another Twitter user had a screenshot of Variety’s since-deleted tweet, featuring Lawrence’s controversial assertion.
On the other hand, several fans rushed to defend the Oscar-winning actor across the platform.
“Everyone’s dragging J-Law for this, but it’s pretty clear she’s sharing (with great derision) what was told to her and her team by studio execs, not what she thought at the time,” one fan wrote.
Another tweeted in her defence that the “controversy is stupid” surrounding the actor’s statement: “Yes, Jennifer Lawrence is wrong about female led action movies, but her main thesis is correct. Engage with that, maybe you’ll learn something.”
Watch the Actors On Actors segment below...