What to Know
James Cameron says he can take a joke, but Amy Poehler “went too far” with her joke about him…back in 2013. It’s been more than 10 years since Amy made a joke about Kathryn Bigelow enduring her three-year marriage to James, but apparently, the Avatar director is not exactly over it.
In 2013, at the Golden Globes, Kathryn was nominated for Zero Dark Thirty, which is a suspenseful thriller. Amy joked that Kathryn likely knows a thing or two about “torture” due to her previous marriage to James. She said, “When it comes to torture, I trust the lady who spent three years married to James Cameron.”
James recently responded to the joke.
Somehow, the old joke came up during an interview with the New York Times. James called the joke “ignorant” and explained why it continues to bother him. “Amy Poehler’s remark was an ignorant dig, at an event which is supposed to be a celebration of cinema and filmmakers, not a roast,” he told the publication. “I’m pretty thick-skinned, and happy to be the butt of a good-natured joke, but that went too far.”
He also commented on how people clearly view him a certain way based on how they responded to the joke. “The fact that people found it funny shows exactly what they think of me, even though they have no idea who I am or how I work,” he said.
Critics think he should maybe get over it.
Regardless of how harsh the joke may have sounded, people are questioning why James is still talking about it years later. For one thing, Amy is far from the only person who has commented on the director’s temperament. As noted in the New York Times piece, he has been called “the Scariest Man in Hollywood” and his crews wore shirts that said, “You can’t scare me. I work for Jim Cameron.”
So, many have wondered, why is he still so hung up on Amy’s joke? “The joke was made 13 years ago. Which is more than 6x longer than his marriage to Kathryn Bigelow lasted, but this joke is still on his mind,” one Redditor wrote in response to the recent interview. They added, “But sure, thick skinned James Cameron is chill about it all.”
Another person said, “He’s been rumored to be tough to work with for many years, I’m surprised he’d act like it was the first time he’d heard it.”
One person also questioned whether the reporter speaking to James was the one who brought the joke up, or if he brought it up himself. “If he brought it up…it’s been 12, 13 years. I feel like after 13 years, maybe it’s time to let it go,” they wrote. At this point, it doesn’t seem all that likely that he’ll suddenly move on and forget about it. Someone else concluded, “He’ll never let [it] go.”
