Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle hasn't yet opened in theaters. However, there has been a lot of buzz surrounding the movie, some of it positive and some of it negative. Although early reactions have been pretty swell, one thing a lot of people on the Internet didn't love early on was Karen Gillan's costume, which was highly impractical for a jungle climate and more over-sexualized than the male costumes. The actress recently spoke out to explain exactly how she felt about the uproar over her costume and what the outfit was going for in general. According to the Welcome to the Jungle actress:
I wasn't expecting quite the uproar, but I also get it. I don't see it as a negative at all. I think that when you look at that picture out of context, it is ridiculous, and that is sort of the point we were making with it. We made an active choice to make her like a Lara Croft-style '90s video game character with an absurd male fantasy sort of vibe. If anything, the point definitely got across, and I think that it's a good thing that gender equality is at the forefront of people's conversations.
If you aren't up on the costume, which Gillan can be seen wearing above, to give you some context, we didn't know anything about her character when the first look at Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was posted. At that point, people had no idea that the movie would be updating the game board premise of the original flick to a video game, and that leads Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart and Karen Gillan would all actually be avatars inhabited by teenaged kids. At the time, we just knew she was running around in skimpy attire while the rest of the dudes wore what seemed to be more stereotypical jungle clothing.
Karen Gillan has clearly thought about her costume a lot---she's the one who had to wear it for weeks and weeks on set after all, and she told The Digital Spy that the production made the costume that way on purpose as a nod at how absurd video game costumes have been for female characters over time. She also went a step further to talk more about how the choice was made to make a point and she's glad it made waves on the internet, noting,
So the fact that we sparked any debate about that, I think it's a positive thing. So I was kind of like, 'Yeah, this is good.
It's been a few months and we now know Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is wholeheartedly based on the concept of a video game, which means its characters have been given more than one life to play with. You can catch more of that action with the full trailer or just wait to see what happens when the movie hits theaters on December 20. To take a look at all of its holiday competition at the box office, here's our full schedule.
