Following his comments about Wonder Woman last month, Hollywood director James Cameron has doubled down on his stance on the film’s feminist ethos – only to draw the ire of Lynda Carter, the original TV Wonder Woman.

Last month, Cameron described Patty Jenkins’ recent Wonder Woman blockbuster as “self-congratulatory back-patting” in an interview with The Guardian. A month on, in a new chat with The Hollywood Reporter, he dug in on his stance.

In response, Lynda Carter, who portrayed Wonder Woman on the ABC and CBS series’ from 1975 to 1979, took to social media to defend Jenkins and Gal Gadot (who played the superhero in the film).

Lynda CarterLynda Carter

“To James Cameron - STOP dissing,” 66 year old Carter wrote on Facebook on Thursday (September 28th). “You poor soul. Perhaps you do not understand the character. I most certainly do. Like all women, we are more than the sum of our parts. Your thuggish jabs at a brilliant director, Patty Jenkins, are ill advised. This movie was spot on. Gal Gadot was great. I know, Mr. Cameron – because I have embodied this character for more than 40 years. So STOP IT."

Cameron had reiterated his stance in The Hollywood Reporter earlier that week, saying that Gadot’s Wonder Woman was still a sexualised protagonist – and again drew the comparison with his own film The Terminator, and Linda Hamilton’s character.

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“[Gal Gadot] was Miss Israel, and she was wearing a kind of bustier costume that was very form-fitting,” he said. “She's absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. To me, that's not breaking ground. They had Raquel Welch doing stuff like that in the Sixties. It was all in a context of talking about why Sarah Connor — what Linda [Hamilton] created in 1991 — was, if not ahead of its time, at least a breakthrough in its time.”

James CameronJames Cameron

“Linda looked great, [but] she just wasn't treated as a sex object,” Cameron continued. “There was nothing sexual about her character. It was about angst, it was about will, it was about determination. She was crazy, she was complicated. She wasn't there to be liked or ogled, but she was central, and the audience loved her by the end of the film.”

“So as much as I applaud Patty directing the film and Hollywood, uh, 'letting' a woman direct a major action franchise, I didn't think there was anything groundbreaking in Wonder Woman.”

More: Director Patty Jenkins hits back at James Cameron’s ‘Wonder Woman’ criticisms