This is why Emma Watson thinks men dislike movies that lack male heroes

Emma Watson just made thought-provoking statements about why men prefer movies with male heroes in Marie Claire Australia, and what she says will probably make everyone rethink their entire movie-going history.

Watson’s bold feminist words have made waves before. Whether she’s discussing her choice to go topless in a photoshoot or heading the #HeForShe campaign, the Beauty and the Beast star clearly learned a lot from her year of learning about feminism. As for her most recent feminist truth-bomb, it’s especially relevant right now — considering that only 29% of protagonists featured in the 100 top domestic grossing films of 2016 were women (according to the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film).

Luckily, Emma Watson is here to say “lumos,” and shed some light on the situation.

On why the Ghostbusters all-female remake was inflammatory to so many men and the outrage following news of a female lead in Star Wars, Watson had a lot to say — and we are all ears.

"It’s something [men are] not used to, and they don’t like that. Anything that deviates from the norm is difficult to accept," Watson told Marie Claire Australia. "I think if you’ve been used to watching characters that look like, sound like, think like you, and then you see someone [unexpected] up on the screen, you go, ‘Well, that’s a girl, she doesn’t look like me. I want it to look like me so that I can project myself onto the character.’"

Thinking back to all the times that we, as women, watched a movie which focuses on a male hero (which is to say, um, a lot of movies!), it’s hard to believe that men’s movie-watching experiences have been so different from that.

Watson went on to say,

"Women are great about that. We see whoever is on screen and recognize the human qualities in the man that we relate to, and there’s not such a gap. But for some reason, there’s some kind of barrier there where [men] are like, ‘I don’t want to relate to a girl.’ I think it is inherently part of the problem."

Hearing these words from the actress who played Hermione in the Harry Potter movies is powerful, as she likely offered the first opportunity for many young girls to see themselves reflected as the hero of a film. But for the thousands of other popular movies that feature a male as the protagonist, women must see other qualities of themselves reflected besides their gender in order to relate to that hero.

Watson’s powerful statements raise the question: If women have been trained to do this, why can’t men train themselves to do the same?

If anyone’s going to help make that important change in the way both men and women receive female heroes in film, it’s Hermione Grang—We mean Emma Watson.