Linda Hamilton Will Reprise Her Role as Sarah Connor
Just like the the T-1000 that tried to hunt down John Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the James Cameron's action franchise just doesn't seem to want to die. Another sequel/reboot/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is scheduled to premiere in theaters some time in 2019. It will be the sixth such film, and first since 2015's Terminator Genisys.
The franchise's next installment is already more compelling than its predecessors, however, as it will see the return of both Cameron, as a producer, and, as The Hollywood Reporter revealed Tuesday night, Linda Hamilton, who last played Sarah Connor 26 years ago in 1991's Judgement Day.
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James Cameron made the announcement at a private event, and as Cameron is wont to do, he focused on his own valiant effort to advance women in cinema. "As meaningful as she was to gender and action stars everywhere back then, it’s going to make a huge statement to have that seasoned warrior that she’s become return," he said of Hamilton, to whom he was married from 1997 to 1999.
"There are 50-year-old, 60-year-old guys out there killing bad guys,” he continued, “but there isn’t an example of that for women.”
Cameron is of course correct that there aren't enough female leads in action films, but his role as ally has been curious, if not dubious. When Wonder Woman broke box office records earlier this summer, it was a watershed moment, inspiring millions of women who had wondered for years when they would be represented in the male-dominated world of superhero films. Cameron wasn't impressed.
“All of the self-congratulatory back-patting Hollywood’s been doing over Wonder Woman has been so misguided," he told the Guardian in August. "She’s an objectified icon, and it’s just male Hollywood doing the same old thing! I’m not saying I didn’t like the movie, but to me, it’s a step backwards."
Wonder Woman fans quickly took to Twitter to correct Cameron, who has done plenty of self-congratulatory back-patting of his own. Among those to criticize Cameron's comments was Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins, who probbably knows a little bit more than the Titanic director about the plight of women in film and the importance of a female superhero lead.
Cameron's comments also caused many to point out instances of the director's questionable feminism, such as nicknaming Kate Winslet "Kate Weighs-a-Lot," insisting to Playboy that Neyriti, the female protagonist of Avatar has "got to have tits" and the objectified role of Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies. Earlier this week, news broke that Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment is working on a TV adaptation of the 1994 action thriller, so we'll see if there's any attempt to rectify how women were portrayed in the original film.
It truly is exciting that Hamilton will reprise her role as Sarah Connor, and we can't wait to watch her kick ass. Just don't anoint James Cameron as some sort of selfless champion of women in film without first considering the more questionable side of his views toward his female subjects. Besides, he's already anointed himself plenty.
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