Director refers to Sue Richards as 'slutty secretary'

He really does.

“There have always been two categories of Sue – the slutty secretary version, and this brilliant scientist version. This is a really, really smart Sue, and one that is dignified and has integrity.”

From an interview on this page.

http://collider.com/fantastic-four-details-josh-trank/

I know Sue had some bad costumes in the 1990's but really I never saw her as either a secretary or a slut. They are giving me more and more reasons not to go see this movie.

@mark_stephen: bro i hated the movie as soon i saw miles teller was gonna be in it...

@chimeroid: I'd like to keep an open mind but man, they are making it very hard.

@mark_stephen: they are throwing out most of what we know cuz they want to reboot the franchise.. but damn... there are some missed steps.

Josh Trank, you better not disapoint me! You're the only reason i'm watching this movie.

Ugh, why? Fantastic Four seems to always get butchered in film.

The topic title takes things way out of context here. He's making an analogy... What he means is that Sue has been portrayed one of two ways in the past by writers, one that is useless and possibly just eye candy and another as intellectually smart with a particular set of skills...

Mistakes like these are caused by "selective reading."

Ugh. It's one thing to privilege your re-imagining over the original material (which by itself is arrogant and unwarranted), but these guys are taking every opportunity to diss the comics, even presenting their re-imagining as an enlightened alternative to comics' "slutty Sue." It's starting to tick me off.

Seriously, Invisible Woman not being a scientist like her 1610 counterpart does not make her a slut or a secretary, just a layman, like Johnny, Ben, or anyone standing next to Reed for that matter. Furthermore she's portrayed as very loyal to Reed and committed to their marriage. This ignorance doesn't surprise me, seeing as the cast members were informed that the comics were useless.

/thread

Agreed.

My problem with this though, is that for one, Sue's has never been a "slut", hell throughout her entire,near 50 year, history she has remained faithful to one man, and she hasn't been portrayed as weak or eye candy for nearly 30+ years. Even when she was the team resident damsel she was never really sexualized through it. <NO that "costume" never happened!> Let not also forget that she's been the most power member of the teams since the mid 80's.

Misleading title.

@buttersdaman000: the truth

Agreed with this, sure the director says there is a smart, intellectual Sue. But she has never been just a "slutty secretary" other than the odd shitty comic. Saying that is a major version of Sue is just bs and demeaning to the character.

This is why they cast Alba in the last 2 movies. And look how THAT turned out!

@darthmummy: the slutty secretary comment refers to her original portrayal in the 60s as opposed to the more recent portrayal. That's pretty much all that the man is saying.

Every superhero has been butchered on film, quit your whining c:

There's no real connection to the 60's portrayal, and when one dismisses the source material like that, he demonstrates contempt for it. He's just trying to marginalize the older comics. Comics that he's supposed to be adapting.

This sort of makes me think Trank has a Madonna-whore complex lol.

Sounds like he's trying to be super modern and create a 'strong independent woman archetype'. I swear about 99.9% of the population don't understand feminism.

I thoroughly disagree with that statement. Plenty of superhero movies that I believed to be good and which also did my favorites justice.

I agree. The director appears to be attempting to make Sue dignified, which I applaud.

@thatguywithheadphones: but he's not calling her a slut... He's expressing that some writers haven't made good use of her, and he prefers the sue that has been written well. The one that is shown to be intellectual.

He was using an analogy and metaphor.

Meh

I think what the director means that there are two versions of Sue:

The smart one and the eye-candy one who everyone wants to bed..

The movie will have the smart versions of Sue, although she was always smart... Writers either acknowledged that or ignored it...

@buttersdaman000: Nope, that's what he said and I didn't take it that way at all. I took it to mean that this person has probably looked at the comics but never read them, seeing only Sue's costumes. Note I posted the link to the interview so that people could make up their own minds.

Either way is this really the type of interview that shows people he cares about the comic and characters or just that he's got his own ideas and he's going to use the names of the characters and the title of the book to make and market the movie that he wants.

Fastforward a few months and the movie is finally released turns out that Sue Storm in the movie is less of a slutty secretary, she is a background doll with barely any relevance in the movie.