Ashley Judd admits depiction of women in 1995’s Heat is ‘not OK’

Ashley Judd is examining her career through an observational and critical lens.

Judd, 57, first established herself as an indie darling in the 1993 romantic drama Ruby in Paradise. It wasn’t long before she went on to star in one of her first major studio films: Michael Mann’s 1995 crime thriller Heat.

Led by Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, the cult classic is about a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between a criminal mastermind and a hardened detective obsessed with tracking him down. Judd portrayed Charlene Shiherlis, the wife of Val Kilmer’s career criminal Chris.

In the movie, many of the male characters are shown going after high-end goals, whether it be making money, catching bad guys or simply chasing the thrill. Meanwhile, the female characters’ struggles often serve to highlight the men and their all-consuming dedication to their professions.

Reflecting on the film’s “depiction of women” in a new interview with Vulture, Judd admitted it is “not OK.”

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Still, Judd clarified: “I loved being a part of the movie. And I’m glad, still, that I was a part of this movie, and I do think it’s iconic. It’s a reflection of reality, and reality is problematic. To say the movie is problematic is not to put the responsibility and focus where it lies, which is with the reality of which it’s a reflection. Observation and critique is what I’m offering.”

She shared that now, when she rewatches her movies with her partner, she looks back at them in the same way, focusing on how women are represented and the internalized misogyny they reflect.

“When we watched Norma Jean & Marilyn, there’s that scene with Josh Charles; we’re at the Roosevelt Hotel, at the swimming pool, and I take off my swimsuit and he doesn’t. I’m like, ‘Wow, I wouldn’t do that today, and I would call everybody out on that. He should have taken his swimsuit off, too, or we should have both kept our swimsuits on.’ Not OK,” Judd continued, echoing her earlier feeling of Heat.

“Today when people say, ‘Kiss the Girls is my favorite movie,’ I’m like, ‘Let’s talk about that,’ because male sexual violence and male torture of women is not entertainment, and that’s what that movie is about,” she added.

“Calling it ‘resilience’ rather than going into the structural inequality that caused the harm to happen in the first place — we’re all implicated in that. Sherry Lansing was the first woman to be the head of a studio since Mary Pickford, and she called for the more violent ending to that movie.

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“It’s all internalized. We’re all a part of it. I’m not saying that I’m not, because I went along with those things, and today I would not. It’s an important part of the commentary 30 years later,” the Double Jeopardy star noted.

Judd is a prominent sexual assault activist and one of the key #MeToo figures, known for being the first actor to publicly accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment.

She has worked with organizations like the United Nations to end systemic gender-based violence, and is one of the founding members of Time’s Up, an anti-sexual harassment initiative formed in response to the Weinstein scandal.

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