Amandla Stenberg is defending her message to a critic of Bodies Bodies Bodies for talking about, in fact, their body.
Variety reports that the actress posted a video to Instagram explaining why she DM’ed New York Times film critic Lena Wilson about her review of Bodies Bodies Bodies. In the review, Wilson wrote the film was “a 95-minuted advertisement for cleavage and Charli XCX’s latest single.” Stenberg sent Wilson a DM writing, “Your review was great. Maybe if you had gotten your eyes off my tits you would’ve watched the movie!”
Twitter quickly responded to the DM, which Wilson posted a screenshot of online while accusing Stenberg of homophobia. Wilson's account has since protected her tweets.
New York Times film critic Lena Wilson shares Instagram DM from Amandla Stenberg following Wilson’s review of #BodiesBodiesBodies:
“maybe if you had gotten ur eyes off my tits you could’ve watched the movie!” pic.twitter.com/vMCFgEUPcY
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) August 18, 2022
"I'm receiving a lot of commentary on the internet for being a very naughty girl and for sending a DM that I thought was hilarious," Stenberg said in their video, adding that she thought Wilson's description of the film was "hilarious."
“I’m proud that a piece of work I was a part of was described as such in such a renowned publication,” they continued. “I thought it was hilarious. I thought because Lena is gay, and I am also gay…as gay people we would both find this comment funny. I was also curious to know what Lena would say to such a statement. Lena decided to publish it and also says that I am homophobic for saying that.”
Stenberg claimed they DM'ed Wilson because they felt it was the latest comment someone had made about Stenberg's chest, saying it is "quite surprising the amount of commentary I receive on my boobs."
“I wore this tank top in this movie because me and the costume designer felt it fit the character,” they continued. “I do get tired of people talking about my chest. There seems to be a lot of unwarranted conversation about my chest.”
Stenberg ended her video saying again that they thought the review was “hilarious.”
"I thought my DM was funny. I did not mean to harass you," they said. "I do not wish you any harm. You are allowed to have your criticism on my work and I'm allowed to have my criticisms of your work. I wish you the best."
Amandla Stenberg defends messaging ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’ critic Lena Wilson:
“I do get tired of people talking about my chest … you are allowed to have your criticism on my work and I’m allowed to have my criticisms of your work. I wish you the best.” pic.twitter.com/OkxEXWZMW1
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) August 18, 2022
Stenberg spoke with Shadow and Act about the film and how it's different than other slasher films.
“I feel like human beings are really driven by fear and love, and kind of the rest of our emotions are born of those two poles,” they said. “So that’s why I love horror as a genre that I feel can really powerfully explore deeply human themes. What I love so much about this one is how it speaks to the nature of relationships, especially relationships that are born out of this era and this time, and how our relationships with each other and the way that we engage with each other and the conversation we try to engage with is becoming increasingly vapid– because we don’t actually interrogate anything with a real level of depth.”
“We end up operating a lot of the time from a place of fear…fear of judgment [from] other people, fear of how we’re being perceived, what we look like, fear of saying the wrong thing, fear that someone is better than us or has more followers than us, fear of who has or has not watched our story,” they continued. “I think like so many other really amazing horror films, this movie hopefully utilizes the horror genre to explore those very deeply human themes.”
