The movie Uma Thurman called “a male fantasy nightmare”
Having been squeezed into a skin-tight leotard for one of the worst comic book adaptations ever made and stuffed into an equally restrictive leather number for another abominable blockbuster, Uma Thurman has experience in catering to the male gaze in movies that backfire horrendously.
Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin almost killed the credibility of the ‘Caped Crusader’ entirely until Christopher Nolan came along with Batman Begins, and George Clooney has never let the opportunity pass him by to trash the neon-and-nipples nightmare where he played opposite Thurman’s sultry Poison Ivy.
Spy romp The Avengers was such a disaster that the writer of the 1998 flop compared the studio’s notes to listening to Joseph Stalin on crack, which paints the picture of Thurman not being particularly fortunate in choosing her escapist fantasy projects. However, while it sounds like she was aiming both barrels at one another, her scathing words are intended to be complimentary in this instance.
Ivan Reitman’s costume-clad superhero comedy My Super Ex-Girlfriend stars Thurman as Jenny Johnson, who falls for Luke Wilson’s Matt Saunders after a subway meet-cute. When he decides to end their relationship, she uses the inherent abilities of her crimefighting alter-ego G-Girl to make his life a misery for having the temerity to cast her out onto the romantic scrap heap.
It’s sort of like Fatal Attraction but with more superpowers and less bunny boiling, giving Thurman the leeway to pitch her performance as broadly as possible to embody a borderline omnipotent jilted lover who refuses to accept that she’s not good enough to be the paramour of an everyday average joe.
A lot of the comedy comes from poking fun at the insecurities of a man who struggles to get overcome the fact his girlfriend is smarter, faster, stronger, and generally better than him at everything, which is part of what drew her to My Super Ex-Girlfriend in the first place.
As she explained per the Sydney Morning Herald, “This character is just basically an un-censorable human being who just can’t control her responses and reactions, and is pretty much just out of control.” Branding the role of G-Girl as “just immensely fun and interesting to me,” the actor then offered her opinion on how male viewers would react.
“Guys love this movie. This movie is written by a man, made by a man. It’s sort of a male fantasy nightmare,” she offered. “So guys are loving the movie. But I throw that shark for every girl in America who ever wanted to throw a shark in her life.” It’s not often in the 21st century that a superhero flick being branded a “male fantasy nightmare” would be interpreted as praise, but Thurman sought to upend those expectations when My Super Ex-Girlfriend allowed her to cut loose.
