Actress Zoe Saldaña spoke out against the grassroots campaign against the new movie “Colombiana,” saying “shame on them” for accusing the film for having a lack of Colombian substance, reported the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
“Colombiana” depicts the life of a young Colombian woman (played by Zoe Saldaña) who, after witnessing her parents murder as a child in Bogota, grows up to be a stone-cold assassin in the United States.
However, according to PorColombia, an organization of Colombian students and professionals, “the film provides no context of the real roots of the [Colombian] conflict, and shows a true lack of creativity…[the producers] have no idea and no cultural awareness.” In protest, the group began a campaign against “Colombiana” for portraying Latinos in a negative light, called “Colombia is Beautiful.”
When Wall Street Journal interviewed Saldaña and asked what she thought of the protest her first response was “shame on them.” She went on to say that “I wish I knew how to address stupid unintelligent comments but I don’t… it’s just a shame that there are so many people out there that think so ignorantly.”
Saldaña insists that the movie is a creative expression of Luc Besson who specifically wanted the femme-fatale to be from Colombia. She objects to PorColombia’s position because “once you watch the movie, it has nothing to do with drugs, it has to do with violence. But violence lives in every city in every corner in every part of the world.”
The film star concluded her thoughts on the protest with an assertive “PorColombia, are you kidding me? …Why would you think that this was made in such a simple fashion?”
The controversial film “Colombiana” will be arriving in theaters nationwide on Friday, August 26.
