Pam Grier, not Jennifer Lawrence, hailed as ‘first female action star’ following backlash over Lawrence’s comments

In the media firestorm that Jennifer Lawrence ignited this week, referring to herself as Hollywood’s first female action star for starring in the “Hunger Games” franchise, she and some of the people jumping on Twitter to correct her forgot about the woman who arguably deserves that distinction: pioneering Black actor Pam Grier.

Known as the “Queen of Blaxploitation,” Grier broke ground in Hollywood by fronting a series of low-budget action movies in the early 1970s, such as “Foxy Brown,” “Coffy” and “Friday Foster.” Now 73, she’s credited with redefining how women, especially historically marginalized Black women, were seen in popular culture. She played female protagonists who take the lead in investigating crimes, seeking justice and righting wrongs, usually by doing all the fighting, shooting and other action moves traditionally done by men.

Director Quentin Tarantino hailed Grier for her contributions to the action genre and built his acclaimed 1997 film, “Jackie Brown,” around her 1970s screen persona. Grier also is the recent subject of TCM’s popular documentary podcast, “The Plot Thickens.”  

Yahoo said the six-part series about Grier’s life and career “provides a necessary reminder of (her) importance to shaking up the traditional image of an action hero.”

But elsewhere in the mainstream discourse, Grier’s action legacy appears to have been forgotten, as evidenced by Lawrence talking up the importance of her participation in “The Hunger Games” franchise in a conversation with Viola Davis for Variety’s “Actors on Actors” series with Davis.

Maybe it’s “recency bias” or something more insidious, but people commenting on Lawrence’s remarks also overlooked Grier when they offered up examples of female stars who preceded Lawrence in the action realm. Most people named White women who starred in mainstream studio fare, notably Sigourney Weaver, for playing Ellen Ripley in the “Alien” franchise, starting in 1979; Linda Hamilton for “The Terminator” movies; and Angelina Jolie in the “Tomb Raider” movies in the 2000s.

It was hard to find many mention Grier, as one Grier fan pointed out;

Even film fans who included Grier in their mentions didn’t single Grier out for coming before the others:

The controversy was initially sparked Wednesday when Variety published Lawrence’s remarks about starring as Katniss Everdeen in the “The Hunger Games” franchise, starting in 2012. Lawrence said: “I remember when I was doing ‘Hunger Games,’ nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie because it wouldn’t work — because we were told girls and boys can both identify with a male lead, but boys cannot identify with a female lead.”

To Lawrence’s credit, she clarified her comments about female action stars Thursday, telling the Hollywood Reporter that she made “a blunder” when speaking and that her meaning “came out wrong.”

Prior to Variety publishing its interview with Lawrence and Davis, who stars as an 18th-century African warrior in “The Woman King,” The “Daily Show” shared its interview with Grier. Host Trevor Noah showed that he was aware of Grier’s legacy when he praised her as the “original action star when Black women weren’t allowed to be portrayed like that.”

Grier responded by explaining — as she does in the TCM podcast — that she grew up in “the Black West” in Denver. She also spent a lot of time on her grandfather’s ranch, where she learned to ride horses and her grandfather instilled in her a belief that girls and women should be self-sufficient.

“I’m from the Black West,” Grier told Noah. “I wanted to bring that culture to film, to not pontificate to anyone with filters and fear of me, a woman walking in a man’s shoes but to let everyone feel comfortable,” Grier said, explaining how her grandfather said, “I wanted you, all the girls to be self-sufficient. And if a woman can do something a man will respect you.”