An Open Letter to James Cameron

Stay in your lane, James Cameron.

I let it go when Mark Ruffalo, of all the over-the-top crusaders, blanketly balled out all women who choose not to self-identify as feminists. The last time I checked, women are free to be whatever they want to be. Or not be. They don’t owe anyone, not even Mark Ruffalo an explanation and they don’t need one more angry man screaming about what women should or shouldn’t do because they’re women. That, my dear aspiring feminist, is still sexist. And that’s not to say that women never do it. Remember when Madeleine Albright said there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t vote for Hillary? That is also sexist. 

My dad was a true feminist. And I didn’t even know that word growing up. But I benefited from his obviously intrinsic belief that not only are women equal to men but it is awesome when they a.) kick ass, and b.) take a cocky man down a peg or two. And after kicking ass with Wonder Woman, none other than Patty Jenkins herself took Cameron down a peg or two for mansplaining how the movie was actually a step backward for women. So many women disagreed with him that there is little more to be said that is more succinct than Patty Jenkins’ response. Which essentially says that “… if women have to be hard, tough and troubled to be strong …” then “we aren’t free to be multidimensional or to celebrate an icon of women everywhere because she is attractive and loving … ” She goes on to say that women can and should be all of the things men are in movies. And even though I can’t say it any better than she did, I can speak for myself and add one more woman’s voice to the chorus singing two things: 1.) You Don’t Speak For Us and 2.) beautiful and strong are not mutually exclusive. 

I was raised to admire many women I can think of – just off the top of my head. And two of them are James Cameron characters.

Ever since I was very little I knew that my name was a compromise between my parents’ respective first choices – Meghan and Sheila. My dad was a drummer who greatly admired Sheila E., and even though her music precedes my music appreciation coming-of-age, I always knew that there was some beautiful woman who kicked ass at the drums. And I knew that this woman was much luckier than some unlucky drummer named Karen Carpenter. I knew her story long before I knew her music. My dad told me with utter disgust that her brother, and perhaps their father?, made her so insecure about her appearance that she was driven deep into irreversible anorexia. My dad looked like he could spit in the face of whoever this brother was. He said the insult to injury was that she was the one in the band with all the talent. She was the one who wrote and composed everything they became famous for. That the brother had basically coasted on her talent and broke her down to make himself feel better about his own inadequacy. Her death was a tragedy that made my father felt strongly enough to tell me about it long before puberty.

Since my dad was a musician my little sister and I were obviously raised to appreciate the Wilson sisters. We badly sang Heart songs at bath time. The 80s must have been pretty annoying for my mom. But my dad made it clear that Nancy could play the guitar well and Ann (coincidentally my sister’s middle name) could belt it out with the best of the lead vocalists in any male band.

And then there was Alien. My dad was so impressed by Sigourney Weaver that he taught us Bishop’s knife game from the movie. We practiced at the dining room table more than once. Not only did he trust us with knives, he was ok with us making a mistake and stabbing him. My mother was horrified. He also told us how cool Sigourney Weaver was. He vocally admired her in a leadership role.

And then, of course, there was the one and only – Sarah Connor. Terminator was legend among our family movie favorites. And my dad never sat us down and said, women can handle weapons too. Women can make strategic decisions. He just counted down the days until the theatrical release. T-minus ten days … till … T … 2! By the time it was T-minus two days until T2 I almost didn’t care anymore. But he took 12-year-old me and my 10-year-old sister to see it the day it was released. While it was initially astonishing to see her transformed from the soft and helpless victim rescued in the first movie to the chiseled commando and weapons expert in the sequel, it was the storyline that still resonates 30 years later. In her quest to literally save humanity from the future she maintained her sanity while institutionalized and trained hard for the inevitable. As strong as she was though, she took a risk early on and trusted her estranged son. The rest of the movie is possible because of that singular decision. Linda Hamilton’s embodiment of the new and bad-ass Sarah Connor is believable and kind of thrilling. But Cameron’s new comments about Wonder Woman make me now assume that he thinks her strength comes from her being un-feminine. That is to say, for a woman to be considered strong, she must be masculine. Tsk, tsk, James Cameron. This is your first step backwards and we’re not going with you. 

When Cameron’s ex-wife won the Oscar for best director for Hurt Locker, beating him out for Avatar, I hope he was as proud of her as he was disappointed for himself. The simple reality was that her movie was just better. Its story, its characters and its political and social implications were simply more important. His movie was more expensive. But it was not new. While he supposedly paid linguists to invent whatever language the blue people were speaking, Tolkien had long since invented Elvish. And the storyline itself was recycled. It did not go unnoticed (and widely criticized) that Avatar was a remake of Fern Gully. I digress. 

Buddy. Listen. If *YOU* feel like you’re “shouting in a wind tunnel” when trying to change the perceptions or expectations of women in this society – TRY BEING ONE. Look. We appreciate your allyship, to use a term I’m sure you’d appreciate. But as soon as you start acting like you’re taking better care of us than we are of ourselves you forfeit that allyship. You’re being condescending and patronizing – two things I know you don’t intend. So here’s what you can do. You can examine your perspective again. Are you really saying that only women who aren’t beautiful can accurately represent women and effectively advocate for them? Perhaps Sarah Connor wasn’t a “beauty icon”. In your opinion. But maybe she was to some of your viewers? Or perhaps it is the dividing up of women into camps of beautiful and not beautiful that is really the step backwards. If you are saying Gal Gadot is not as effective at promoting female equality as Linda Hamilton was, I want to shake you by the lapels. We want all women to be represented by complex characters, particularly in decision-making leadership roles. While we now know that includes under-represented minorities and body types, that doesn’t mean beautiful women are no longer welcome. News Flash: they are women too.

Wonder Woman was the first time in my entire life that it occurred to me a woman can be beautiful AND strong. I have literally spent my entire life seeing representations that required us women to choose one or the other. And in this society that too often means foregoing the love and companionship of a partner – a choice few of us want to make. I was fighting back tears for the majority of that movie as I tried not to grievously mourn what a different life I might have made for myself if I had had role models like that when I was younger. See, that’s the thing. Not all of us are trailblazers. Some of us, like me, are born to follow. And that’s ok. But we need someone to follow, a template to replicate. Never in my whole life had I seen a woman who could not only be both, but was admired, respected and championed for being both.

If you would like to read a woman’s perspective on Wonder Woman I’d like to offer you another perspective to consider. But if you’d rather be our champion than our ally then it seems like your motivation in “defending women” is more about your self-image as a supporter of women than it is, you know, supporting women.

Equality icons are not limited to any one aesthetic. Let alone limited to what James Cameron thinks they should look like. Or not look like.