The first image Columbia Pictures released from Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, a not-sequel to the 1995 original, wasn’t Dwayne Johnson sporting a Robin Williams-level beard, or a boy turning into a monkey. It was the male members of the cast — The Rock, Kevin Hart, Jack Black — in jungle-appropriate clothing, and the one female star — Karen Gillan — wearing an ab-bearing shirt and short shorts. The Doctor Who star defended her character’s “child-sized clothes,” saying, “I’d never take on a role that was truly gratuitous for no reason. There’s a really valid reason why she’s wearing that. My character is really not happy about it.” The 2manji trailers have hinted at the reason, but Gillan says it has to do with satirizing the “absurd male fantasy.”
“I wasn’t expecting quite the uproar, but I also get it,” she said. “I don’t see it as a negative at all. I think that when you look at that picture out of context, it is ridiculous, and that is sort of the point we were making with it. We made an active choice to make her like a Lara Croft-style ’90s video game character with an absurd male fantasy sort of vibe. If anything, the point definitely got across, and I think that it’s a good thing that gender equality is at the forefront of people’s conversations.” She added, “So the fact that we sparked any debate about that, I think it’s a positive thing. So I was kind of like, yeah, this is good.”
“Yeah, this is good” was also my eight-year-old self’s review of this scene.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle — which hopefully has at least one scene where a bunch of monkeys wreck a house — opens on December 20.
(Via Digital Spy)