Roland Emmerich on Stonewall backlash: ‘It’s not the majority’
Beleaguered Stonewall director Roland Emmerich has defended his film in the face of near-universal criticism, saying in a new interview that it’s “very evenly liked by gay and straight people” and those speaking out against it are “not the majority.”
Emmerich was speaking to Huffington Post in the same week that the film opened to disappointing takings – it raked in just $US112,414 over its opening weekend, despite costing over $17 million to make, placing it 29th at the box office.
“I’ve been doing this quite awhile. I understand people’s criticisms, but I also understand that when you make movies you always have people critize you and people who like it. I always have to test movies with audiences, so because I have to do it, I did it also with this film. I didn’t have to do it, but I did it, and I learned so much about what I do and who likes it and who embraces the movie,” he said.
“What I learned, actually, was it was very evenly liked by gay and straight people, which does not happen so often in these kinds of films. And that was more something that I care about. You feel really nervous and vulnerable in that moment, and then when it’s done and you know that you have a movie that everybody likes, then if someone criticizes me, it’s like, it’s one person’s opinion – it’s not the majority.”
While he feels “deep sympathy” for black transgender women, Emmerich defended his decision to have fictional character Danny Winters – a white blonde boy played by Jeremy Irvine – throw the first brick that kicks off the riots in the film.
“I have a real deep sympathy for black transgender women because they have it the hardest. And I think it’s their year right now, or their two or three years. It was the lesbians for two or three years when Ellen went on the air as an openly lesbian woman. It’s just their time right now, and here we come with this trailer that shows the white kid throwing the brick. I always said, “Well, nobody knows who threw the brick anyways, so it’s kind of totally open.” And I felt it was appropriate to have it be Danny, but that’s just my artistic whatever.”
Emmerich faced fresh criticism last week when he said he made the character of Danny “straight-acting’ so he’d be more easily relatable for heterosexual audiences, and that he teaches the other characters in the film that they can have a “regular life”. Over the weekend, Twitter was abuzz with users’ tongue-in-cheek imaginings of Emmerich’s next film projects.
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