San Franciso Chronicle Writer Begs Greta Gerwig to Not Make an Insurrection Movie; Clearly Hasn’t Seen a Greta Gerwig Film Ever

The insurrection that took place at the Capitol on Jan. 6 is prime fodder for a Hollywood biopic. It has all the classic elements of so-bad-it’s-good entertainment: ignorant white people, uprising, violence, and weird costumes involving horns, fur, and face paint. It’s only a matter of time until a studio and director lay claim to a straight-to-streaming feature about the chaos. But one name we would never attach to this project? Greta Gerwig.

But the 37-year-old Academy Award-nominated actress and director’s name was recently dropped by a San Francisco Chronicle columnist as the kind of creative who would relish bringing the deadly riots to the big screen.

In a now-viral missive, Tony Bravo said one of the ways he’s dealing with his feelings (aw) about the insurrection is “with a letter-writing campaign asking filmmakers and showrunners not to look at the attempted takeover of the U.S. Capitol and see their next project,” he wrote. “This is not the time to start making script outlines or planning your pitch to studios. I am begging you, Hollywood, please give us some time to process.”

His article then turned into an open letter addressed to various filmmakers, including Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Steven Soderbergh, Ryan Murphy, Wes Anderson, Oliver Stone, Michael Bay, James Cameron, Aaron Sorkin, Sofia Coppola, Clint Eastwood, Ryan Coogler, Ava DuVernay, and Gus Van Sant. He also inexplicably included Greta Gerwig on the list.

“Dear Greta Gerwig,” he wrote. “Please resist the temptation to recast the riots as a coming-of-age love story where Timothée Chalamet and Saoirse Ronan play congressional interns from different sides of the aisle swept up in the chaos. That said, I think the pair would be perfect to play James and Dolley Madison in a film about the burning of D.C. in the War of 1812.”

In case you’re not a Gerwig fan, the last film she directed was the adaptation of the 1868 novel(s) Little Women (in which angry men, government coups, and racism factor in not at all). Her directorial debut was called Lady Bird, about a headstrong teenager contemplating her post-secondary future.

We’re not sure where Tony Bravo gets off (or who he is, honestly; never heard of him). But he can kindly STFU when it comes to Gerwig, who is one of this generation’s most promising filmmakers.

Twitter quickly came to her defense.

What is this nonsense? Has this person even seen a Greta Gerwig film?

— roxane gay (@rgay) January 17, 2021

As long as we’re asking Greta Gerwig not to do things she definitely wouldn’t even think of doing anyway, I would like to ask her not to barge into my house and fill my toaster oven with Styrofoam.

— David Ganssle (@doggans) January 17, 2021

Tony Bravo definitely would have been one of the male Academy voters who didn’t bother to screen Little Women because “it seemed like a girl movie.”

— Alisha Grauso (@AlishaGrauso) January 17, 2021

easy to mix up greta gerwig and aaron sorkin

— blaire erskine (@blaireerskine) January 17, 2021

“I hate women in general but especially those who have the career I wish I had so an insurrection on Capitol Hill is the perfect opportunity to take a weird and random pot shot at Little Miss Frances Ha over there.”

— Ben Philippe (@gohomeben) January 17, 2021

pic.twitter.com/2trpaTtUfc

— Brilee (@therazorcrest) January 17, 2021

whoever wrote this tweet should be fired immediately and have to watch every Greta Gerwig film as torture because it sounds like it would be to them. Also their opinion is stupid and wrong.

— kyle harris (@itskyleharris) January 17, 2021

Ah yes, blockbuster filmmaker Greta Gerwig, right up there with Michael Bay

— Chris Evangelista (@cevangelista413) January 17, 2021

This is what happens when you don’t watch any films by women and just pick the name of a random one off the top of your head.

— Brandon Carbaugh (@BMCarbaugh) January 17, 2021

Sigh.

What about a film about a misogynistic arts and culture writer who gets his balls handed to him by a female creative more talented than he could ever be? Now that sounds like a Greta Gerwig joint – one we’d pay to see.

Cover Photo: Patrick Aventurier / Contributor (Getty Images)

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