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Hell apparently hath no action film director fury like a Michael Bay scorned.
Allegedly uppity female Megan Fox did have these words for the Transformers director:
He's like Napoleon and he wants to create this insane, infamous mad-man reputation. He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So he's a nightmare to work for but when you get him away from set, and he's not in director mode, I kind of really enjoy his personality because he's so awkward, so hopelessly awkward. He has no social skills at all. And it's endearing to watch him. He's vulnerable and fragile in real life and then on set he's a tyrant. Shia and I almost die when we make a Transformers movie. He has you do some really insane things that insurance would never let you do.
Perhaps this outspokenness is part of what Transformers co-star Shia LaBouef construes as Fox's "Spice Girl strength," that he uses to rationalize her removal from the Transformers franchise. LaBoeuf further opines that Fox has:
"this woman-empowerment [stuff] that made her feel awkward about her involvement with Michael, who some people think is a very lascivious filmmaker, the way he films women. Mike films women in a way that appeals to a 16-year-old sexuality. It’s summer. It’s Michael’s style. And I think [Fox] never got comfortable with it. This is a girl who was taken from complete obscurity and placed in a sex-driven role in front of the whole world and told she was the sexiest woman in America. And she had a hard time accepting it. When Mike would ask her to do specific things, there was no time for fluffy talk. We’re on the run. And the one thing Mike lacks is tact. There’s no time for [LaBeouf assumes a gentle voice] ‘I would like you to just arch your back 70 degrees.’”
Would that the tables were turned, for once. Envision with me, for a minute, Shia on the run, sweating in a carefully choreographed fashion, arching his back at whatever percentage he damned well pleases, all the while rationalizing why Bay's Victoria's Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, is a suitable replacement for that particular mouthy broad.
This is not about defending Megan Fox's acting skills. All I know about her is that some of my male Facebook friends have liked her page (a lot, a really lot) and that she married David from 90210. I've never seen any of these movies. Action films aren't my first choice of genre, and mostly I prefer bitching about no one wanting to go to the real movies in the theater with me and turning on Glee reruns instead.
And it's not about judging Huntington-Whiteley negatively, either. A job is a job and this is a certainly well-compensated and prominent one for a woman who is maybe looking to take her career beyond lingerie modeling. Maybe in a year she'll be trash-talking Michael Bay and looking for new opportunities, too.
But what I do have an interest in is a man in an industry dominated by them co-signing an employer moving on to another woman because the last one was too "empowered". It sadly makes too much sense that a woman who was arguably part of making a franchise profitable was canned because she was assertive and questioned her role in films and treatment on a set. I'd rather hear a guy say she was a terrible actress, and not that it had to do with her inability to stand quietly and arch her back, opening the door for the next mute eye candy to step in.
Even a Spice Girl can do better than that, and one would hope that some men are capable of some evolution, too.
Laurie White writes at LaurieWrites. Her photos are on Flickr.
