Director of Jurassic World actually agrees with Joss Whedon about that “sexist” clip
Joss Whedon found himself on the receiving end of the internet’s vitriol (more so than usual, anyway) when he recently tweeted a disparaging remark about a clip from the upcoming Jurassic World. The clip, which shows a stiff and irritated Bryce Dallas Howard and a macho, swaggering Chris Pratt, was called out by the director for looking pretty outdated in its conception of human beings, and how guys are awesome and women are uptight. Whedon has since deleted his account, but the tweet said, “…and I’m too busy wishing this clip wasn’t 70’s era sexist. She’s a stiff, he’s a life-force—really? Still?”
This went over about as well as expected, with Whedon apologizing for making such a comment in public, since it’s “not what a gentleman would do.” It was only a matter of time before someone decided to ask the director of Jurassic World what he thought about Whedon’s comment—and surprisingly, he more or less concurs with Whedon’s take. Coming Soon reports Colin Trevorrow was asked by an Italian site about the Avengers: Age Of Ultron director‘s words, and he evinced quite a bit of sympathy, saying that, yeah, out of context, it looked kind of bad.
I wasn’t bothered by what he said about the movie and, to be honest, I don’t totally disagree with him. I wonder why [Universal] chose a clip like that, that shows an isolated situation within a movie that has an internal logic. That starts with characters that are almost archetypes, stereotypes that are deconstructed as the story progresses.
This statement of “trust me, the movie isn’t like that” is roughly akin to what Howard herself told Huffington Post a couple of days ago. She stressed the Whedon was “a champion for women in this industry,” and the completed film is “not at all like that [clip].” For his part, Trevorrow went on to say that “the real protagonist of the movie is Claire and we embrace her femininity in the story’s progression.” It’s not terribly likely that “embracing her femininity” is what Whedon was worried about, but it’s refreshing to see a director call a ’70s-era spade a ’70s-era spade.
Trevorrow even went on to defend Whedon from accusations that his depiction of Black Widow in the latest Avengers film was somehow sexist. “Joss received an incredible amount of anger and vitriolic comments and he doesn’t deserve that,” said the director. “Because if there is someone who has always paid due respect to the women of his movies that guy is Joss. I think he should be the last person in Hollywood to be accused of sexism and if you’ve seen something like that in his last movie it’s not his fault.” He ended by noting that Whedon is too polite to “tell people to screw off,” and said he would “do it on his behalf,” so there you go. Screw off, people who think Joss Whedon’s portrayal of Black Widow was sexist, because Colin Trevorrow—among others, including Mark Ruffalo—thinks you’re bonkers.