Leftist Elizabeth Banks claims the 2019 action comedy “Charlie’s Angels” was not meant to be a “feminist manifesto” but instead another action movie that happened to have female leads.
The 48-year-old actress and director made the comments while promoting her new film, “Call Jane,” a pro-abortion story set in a future where all abortions are illegal, and women turn to an underground network to get the procedure.
During a recent interview with The New York Times, Banks said discussing “Charlie’s Angels” was “a long conversation that I don’t know that I want to get into.”
But then the “Hunger Games” actress relented, explaining her thoughts on the film’s impact.
“There was a story around Charlie’s Angels that I was creating some feminist manifesto. I was just making an action movie,” she said. “I would’ve liked to have made ‘Mission: Impossible,’ but women aren’t directing ‘Mission: Impossible.’ I was able to direct an action movie, frankly, because it starred women and I’m a female director, and that is the confine right now in Hollywood.”
Banks continued: “I wish that the movie had not been presented as just for girls, because I didn’t make it just for girls. There was a disconnect on the marketing side of it for me.”
She reiterated her stance that female directors are just as capable of making money on big projects and that they don’t need to be made with women or for women.
“It’s a male-dominated industry. It’s a male-dominated world,” the actress complained to NYT. “That’s what I’m up against, but I can’t solve it and I don’t really want to analyze it. It’s not interesting to me. It puts me, frankly, in a position where the studio head is going to read it in The New York Times and be like, ‘Wow, that Liz Banks has got a lot to say.’ I don’t need that added pressure. I truly feel that it’s dangerous to talk about these things now.”
She continued, “I’m not trying to shirk my responsibility. I just want the framing device around me to not consistently be that I’m some sort of feminist activist.”
When the male interviewer said he was also interested in female issues, Banks shot back that her interest was different because it was personal.
“I can talk to you all day about feminist issues, but you’re never going to have a deep understanding because it’s not something that happens in your life…It’s an intellectual exercise for you, and it’s an emotional exercise for me. It’s the parameters in which I live my life, do my job,” she said.