Jennifer Lawrence Claims She Was The First Female Action Lead When She Starred In "Hunger Games," But Not Everyone Is Buying It
At one point, Jennifer Lawrence was one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood. In a recent interview with Viola Davis, she made a pretty bold claim about being the very first female protagonist in an action movie. People are quick to point out that she's dead wrong.
Jennifer Lawrence has been nominated for 4 Oscars and won her first in 2013 for her role in Silver Linings Playbook. She's always been an outspoken feminist and has even opened up about how she disagrees with her family on pretty much everything political. She sat down with fellow actress Viola Davis for Variety to discuss the supposed discrimination against women in the world of movies.
Jennifer Lawrence Claims She Was the First Female Action Lead When She Starred in "Hunger Games," but Not Everyone Is Buying It
When the two award-winning actresses sat down to talk, Jennifer gushed about how much she loved The Woman King. "I think that Woman King is the best movie I’ve seen this year, hands down, and the best movie I’ve seen in so long," she said. Funny enough, there was much speculation that the audience score and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes were manufactured.
"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 — because 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 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."
Viola was wholeheartedly agreeing with her and nodding along. But wait a minute. Jennifer Lawrence was the first female lead in an action movie? So we're just supposed to pretend like the Kill Bill series in 2003 starring Uma Thurman, Tomb Raider in 2001 featuring Angelina Jolie, and Colombiana in 2011 starring Zoe Saldana? Either Jennifer doesn't realize that there many female action leads before her or she is too self-absorbed to see that there have been many female protagonists before her who led action movies.
Apparently, Variety ended up taking down this clip from social media after the backlash of people reminding Jennifer that she certainly wasn't the first female action protagonist. Looks like they also realized that it was completely absurd to suggest that she was the first of her kind when the way had been paved for her by other actresses a long time ago.