Well, here’s some gross Hollywood news: Fox is currently working on a sequel to 1996 hit Independence Day, and despite the fact that Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum are reprising their roles, Fox decided they’d rather recast the president’s daughter with It Follows and The Guest’s Maika Monroe rather than bring back the wonderful Mae Whitman, who played the role in the original film when she was seven years old and has gone on to carve out a successful career with parts in The Last Airbender, Arrested Development, Parenthood, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, recent box office hit The DUFF, and tons more. According to THR, Whitman wasn’t even on the short list for the part, and if her recent response to Anna Kendrick on Twitter is any indication, she’s not happy with the news:
With all due respect to Monroe, this is one of those news items that proves Hollywood still has a long way to go with how it treats women and beauty standards onscreen despite how many Inside Amy Schumer sketches tear it down again and again. And as Drew McWeeny notes at HitFix, Whitman has already established herself as a talented – and more importantly, bankable – leading Hollywood actor:
In terms of raw number crunching, Whitman’s the safer bet, with a much longer track record to consider. Just on a business level, it seems like Whitman’s the choice. Forget about what’s right or wrong… the bottom line would suggest Whitman is the one you hire. According to the Hollywood Reporter, there was actually a short list of actors, and Whitman wasn’t on that, either. But the oh-so-cute actors whose names were on the list all seem to be more of a conventionally “hot” type than Whitman, making it look clearly like they were chasing a certain something.
If Whitman didn’t have any interest in the role it would be one thing, but a bunch of brokenhearted emojis hint that this news took her by surprise, or at the very least, has been hurtful. Personally, I’m sort of at a loss for what “hot” means anymore – does being beautiful, funny, smart, talented, versatile, friendly, and the star of multiple beloved movies and TV shows with vast fanbases not make the cut? If that’s the case, then we’re all in a lot of trouble.
