Real feminists do not star in crass porn flicks, J-Law
WHAT a difference a week makes. Seven days ago, when Jennifer Lawrence wore a plunging black Versace gown on a freezing London rooftop to promote her new film, surrounded as she was by old men in overcoats, hats, gloves and scarves, I was right behind her when she declared, defending herself against ‘sexist’ condemnation, that wearing the gown was ‘my choice. And if I want to be cold, that’s my choice too!’
It’s her job after all, to look beautiful. Her body is her asset. She’s 27, so why not flaunt it? We’ve all done this: shivered from cab to kerb for the office Christmas party to be surrounded by old, leering men – strapless, feet burning, goosebumps, all in the name of ‘work’ and ‘fun’ and ‘choice’. It’s not the 1950s!
But that was until I saw Red Sparrow, the dire movie she was in town promoting – and had a volte-face. That Versace gown must have felt as warm and enveloping as a burqa, given here’s a film in which – among other lowlights – Lawrence reveals her bare buttocks while bending over towards the camera and is beaten viciously in a manner that would make even Fifty Shades’ Anastasia Steele blush. Never mind the ludicrous plot about a supposed ‘real-life’ Russian grooming school for turning women into Mata Hari sex spies (the only tension is in Lawrence’s thong), this is the nastiest, most anti-feminist film I’ve seen in decades.
One newspaper called it ‘a fascinating subversion of America’s sweetheart’ (yeah, you guessed, the reviewer was a man). I’d call it Harvey Weinstein’s dirty dreams in widescreen.
Starting out, Marilyn Monroe posed naked. As she became more successful, she covered up, growing as an actress in the process. Half a century of campaigning for women’s rights later, and amid the whole #metoo furore, J-Law has cunningly reversed that process.
Red Sparrow was green-lit (by men – the director is, bafflingly, the same bloke behind three of her fabulous, girl power Hunger Games films) before the Weinstein scandal broke. But that’s no excuse.
LAWRENCE of course defends the film’s nudity and violence. But I’m sorry, the whole ‘I’m playing a character so it’s art’ defence no longer works, postWeinstein. Red Sparrow isn’t art, it’s abusive porn. In fact, it’s worse than porn, as porn stars don’t have Lawrence’s young, impressionable female fans.
Some actresses would not have the luxury of choice. Lawrence does. She was the highestpaid Hollywood actress in 2015 and 2016, yet she chose to make this dross. Maybe she thinks, just like Natalie Portman’s embarrassing masturbation scene in Black Swan, this will bag her an Oscar. It won’t.
Her sex scenes are so crass they make that Sharon Stone moment in Basic Instinct seem as tame as Hello Kitty.
It is unfathomable how she ever agreed to them but a clue may lie in an interview she gave to Radio 1 not long ago. She was her usual loud, profanity-strewn self, a persona that has endeared her to millions of female fans. In it, she revealed that when she watches herself on screen, she has to get over her ‘general overall ugliness’.
Is that what drove her to make this film, one that will haunt her political career (she’s taking two years off to persuade young women to vote) as surely as those ‘p***y-grabbing’ boasts haunt Trump? I find it hard to believe. Red Sparrow isn’t selfdoubt, it’s self-harm.
What makes it even more incomprehensible is that back in 2014, Lawrence spoke out at being violated when private naked photos were leaked on the internet. So, this must be her revenge – to make hackers redundant by doing their job for them and keeping the profits for herself. I only hope she doesn’t have the gall to turn up at the Oscars tonight sporting a Time’s Up badge, wearing black to express solidaridee.
Jennifer, you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. You had a choice. To have had this film edited in a different way. To cut away from scenes that are now burned on my retina. To hold a hand out to misguided girls, staggering in gutters of a Friday night, freezing in micro skirts and bralets, who think it’s their ‘choice’ to get paralytic and pawed. But you snatched your hand away.