“The Power of the Dog” director Jane Campion challenged Sam Elliott to a shootout in a cringe-inducing interview published Friday.
Actor Sam Elliott has dominated headlines in place of Campion’s film after he expressed his opinion about her and the “Western” on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast. In part, Elliott asked, “what the fuck does this woman … she’s a brilliant director, by the way, I love her work, her previous work, but what the fuck does this woman from down there [New Zealand] know about the American West? And why in the fuck did she shoot this movie in New Zealand and call it Montana?”
She responded to Elliott’s comments again during an interview Friday. (RELATED: Daily Mail Reporter Accosts Sam Elliott In Public Over His ‘Foul-Mouthed’ Description Of Gay Western)
“It has to be said, I think, he [Elliott] was being a bit of a b-i-t-c-h, because, you know, he’s not a cowboy either, he’s an actor — he grew up in Sacramento and was educated in Oregon, you know? We’re dealing in a fictional world, we’re dealing in a mythic universe,” Campion told The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg on the outlet’s Awards Chatter Podcast. “The West is a myth, it doesn’t exist — Annie Proulx said that — and there’s a lot of room on the range to explore that myth. And this is just another version of it,” she continued, repeating her ignorant notion that the American West is a “myth.”
Again, the American West is a geographic and historic reality. When Campion constantly repeats this inane concept that the West is a “myth,” she’s proving Elliott’s question to be apt: what the f**k does she know about the American West?
Campion probably doesn’t realize how disrespectful she’s being to people who continue to keep the cowboy traditions of the American West alive today — kind of like how she didn’t realize how condescending, sexist, and disrespectful she was when she told Serena and Venus Williams that she had to work harder than them to gain success in life.
Continuing with her cringe-tradition, Campion then challenged Elliott to a shootout on the Warner Brothers lot before name-dropping Benedict Cumberbatch.
“OK, Sam, let’s meet down at the Warner Brothers lot for a shootout! I’m bringing Doctor Strange with me!” Campion said, according to THR, referencing the character played in Marvel films by Cumberbatch, who also starred in “The Power of the Dog.”
Sam Elliott to Jane Campion today. pic.twitter.com/63RrfN1OOV
— Movies In Focus (@moviesinfocus) March 14, 2022
There’s no explaining why Campion continues to make herself look so ridiculous in much of the public’s eye. What can be argued is that without Sam Elliott’s comments on her boring film not many people would know about it or her at all.