The Most Controversial Movie Costumes Explained

In September 2016, audiences got their first look at a set photo from Jake Kasdan's "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle," a new adventure inspired by 1995's Robin Williams-led adaptation of the Chris Van Allsburg children's book. In the photo, Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black are each wearing jungle-appropriate outfits ... alongside co-star Karen Gillan, who's wearing what amounts to child-sized clothing. The photo prompted immediate criticism, prompting Gillan to try and defuse the controversy by telling The Hollywood Reporter, "The payoff is worth it, I promise!"

The first footage for the film was later screened at CinemaCon in March, and it does explain Gillan's skimpy outfit. Once it was clear that the main cast would be playing video game characters rather than actual flesh-and-blood people, the cartoonishly revealing and wildly impractical costume made a lot more sense. Gillan's character is a shy girl (Madison Iseman) who transforms into her adult character, and the costume choice is a satirical reflection of the way video games portray women. Fans must have understood the joke, because Gillan's outfit remained virtually unchanged in the film's sequel, "Jumanji: The Next Level."

This costume caused controversy the second fans caught a glimpse. An all-CGI Green Lantern? Original stills and trailers for the film looked pretty awful, and although the studio insisted it would look amazing onscreen, the animated costume has been widely held up as one of many reasons for the film's failure. Star Ryan Reynolds later admitted he didn't care for the CG ensemble. "I mean, it's brutal doing a film where you're wearing a motion capture suit for the whole time," he pointed out. "I didn't even get to see the Green Lantern suit until the first trailer. I never even knew what it looked like."

The filmmakers wanted to do something new for a superhero, and costume designer Ngila Dickson came up with the idea that the suit was his power manifesting outside the body — an interesting idea, but the special effects just didn't hold up, and Dickson agreed. "We were literally doing like what you would sculpt in a studio, but we were doing it with a computer," she recalled. "In many respects, we were following all the same principles, but you never got the tangible result that you get from the build you do in a costume house."

Harley Quinn's big-screen debut in David Ayer's "Suicide Squad" was one of the movie's biggest draws, especially since Margot Robbie was playing the famed villain. As with any other comic book character, a lot of media attention focused on her movie costume — particularly how little of it there was.

When asked about her body-hugging costume, Robbie told The New York Times she was "wearing hot pants because they're sparkly and fun," but that didn't mean she necessarily enjoyed the experience. "As Margot, no, I don't like wearing that," she admitted. "I'm eating burgers at lunchtime, and then you go do a scene where you're hosed down and soaking wet in a white T-shirt, it's so clingy, and you're self-conscious about it."

Ayer offered his perspective, saying he "didn't think denim overalls would be appropriate for that character" and insisting Robbie understood "that's part of the iconography." He may have a point: Harley initially wore a jester suit in "Batman: The Animated Series," but over the years, her wardrobe has changed significantly as the character went from being a jester to more of a sex symbol in the comic book industry — who's now made her way into Hollywood, hot pants and all.

Princess Leia's metal bikini struck an immediate chord with adolescent male fans of the "Star Wars" series from the moment it debuted in "Return of the Jedi." But not everyone fell in love with the "slave Leia" outfit; many viewers found it to be a prime example of the series' sexual objectification of its only notable female character at the time. Carrie Fisher, who played Leia and had to put up with decades of discussion around the outfit, warned Daisy Ridley, star of "The Force Awakens," "Don't be a slave like I was. ... You keep fighting against that slave outfit."

The designers of the infamous two-piece have insisted they never intended the movie costume to be demeaning. Aggie Guerard Rodgers and Nilo Rodis-Jamero based the design on Frank Frazetta's artwork for the cover of "A Princess of Mars." George Lucas loved the idea, and since he wanted something "special" for the scene, he got it.

Fisher got extra attention on set while wearing the getup—for more reasons than one. Since it was literally made of metal, the outfit wouldn't stay in place. "After the shots, the prop man would have to check me," she recalled. "He'd say, 'Okay t**s are fine. Let's go.'" Though Fisher may not have loved the revealing outfit, she refused to be victimized by it; during a controversy over "slave Leia" figures decades later, she quickly pointed out that the character's brief time in captivity ends with her killing Jabba — with her own chain. "That chain only 'enslaved' me," tweeted Fisher, "until I could use the frabjous thing to KILL THAT DROOLING SWOLLEN SUPERTONGUED SLUG & whirl him off into infinity." As always, Fisher had the last and best word.

You may have blocked it from your memory, but Ryan Reynolds certainly won't let you forget that he played Deadpool before "Deadpool." During his first outing as the character in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," which Reynolds continues to mock incessantly to this day, the filmmakers decided to do everything they could to insult the fans. They took away Deadpool's suit, including his mask, and sewed his mouth shut — leaving a character who's literally referred to as "the merc with a mouth" physically unable to speak. Even director Gavin Hood admitted Deadpool came out all wrong in his film (via the Independent), explaining it was hard to fit Deadpool's personality into a PG-13 movie.

Studio ADI, who applied the creature effects for the film, made a video explaining their whole side of the Deadpool tale. The artists believe the studio didn't intend for Deadpool to be fully formed in "Wolverine," just a setup for what he could become in a later film. "If you think of this as an embryonic Deadpool," suggested one artist, "it might make more sense." Not that that makes much sense. Anyway, the earlier Deadpool paved the way for Reynolds to make subsequent, much more-praised films with the character, and he seems to enjoy ribbing on the earlier bastardized version we got in "Origins."

Though audiences generally loved the dinosaur action and the guy carrying two margaritas as he ran from prehistoric monsters, there was one big problem with "Jurassic World": Bryce Dallas Howard's heels. Howard played Claire, an uptight executive who ends up running around in mud, rain, and wet concrete and never for a moment takes off her nude pumps. Even when escaping a T-rex, those heels stay glued to her feet. It's not hard to see why audiences had a problem: Heels would be the worst possible shoes to wear in that situation, and the pumps must have been made of magic since they never came close to falling off in any of her off-road adventures.

But Howard defended the choice, telling Yahoo! News, "I'm better equipped to run when I have shoes on my feet. So that's my perspective on it. I don't think she would carry around flats with her. I think she's somebody who could sprint a marathon in heels. ... For me, it was actually logical for her to be in that very illogical situation because she doesn't belong in the jungle and yet she finds herself there and has to adapt." Whether or not you like the pumps, you have to be impressed by Howard's ability to run in them without breaking an ankle.

Tarzan has always roamed around the jungle in a loincloth, and nobody ever seems to mind. But when Maureen O'Sullivan donned a similar ensemble to play Jane in 1934's "Tarzan and His Mate," it caused an uproar. O'Sullivan, reprising her role from "Tarzan the Ape Man" two years previous, wore a small top and a very revealing skirt. Jane's skimpy outfit was all over the film and it freaked a lot of women out.

Maureen O'Sullivan stated that the filmmakers wanted sensuality; at first, Jane was going to have no bra or top at all and she'd be covered by strategically placed leaves and such. That didn't work out. When O'Sullivan eventually got her costume, she felt it was perfectly fine and never thought it would be considered scandalous. "But it caused such a furor," she recalled. "The letters came in ... thousands of women who were objecting to my costume ... I was offered all kinds of places where I could go in my shame to hide from the cruel public who were ready to throw stones at me."

The Hays Office (where films were censored to avoid indecency) was just as outraged. In all subsequent sequels, Jane wore a much more traditional dress. "Tarzan and His Mate" was one of the last pre-code films, marking the final glimpse of side boob and upper thigh young boys would get in theaters for quite awhile.

In "Batman Returns" — the second installment in his dark and gothic Batman series — filmmaker Tim Burton brought in Michelle Pfeiffer to play one of the Caped Crusader's most famous and popular adversaries (and love interests): Selina Kyle aka Catwoman. Stalking through the night while committing crimes with the abilities and sensibilities of a feline, Catwoman dressed the part in a skin-tight rubber bodysuit and matching ear-topped headpiece. While the costume made it seem like it allowed for freedom of movement for Catwoman and Pfeiffer, that was far from the case.

"It was the most uncomfortable costume I've ever been in. They had to powder me down, help me inside, and then vacuum-pack the suit," Pfeiffer told The Hollywood Reporter. "They'd paint it with a silicon-based finish to give it its trademark shine." Once it was on, Pfeiffer had no way to use a restroom without completely removing it, and it left her face and body feeling crushed. "I'm talking painful," the actor told journalist Dominic Wells. "At first I couldn't walk, breathe, hear, or talk."

During Hollywood's "Golden Age," the major movie studios all agreed to a self-policing system of censorship and adherence to standards of decency. According to NPR, Former U.S. Postmaster General Will Hays developed a list of 36 "Don'ts and Be Carefuls" — nicknamed the Hays Code — that filmmakers dutifully followed for about 34 years, though they weren't enforceable laws.

Celebrity billionaire Howard Hughes dabbled in filmmaking and directed "The Outlaw," a 1943 western about a vampy revenge-seeking femme fatale named Rio McDonald. The movie starred Jane Russell, in her feature film debut, and she wore a lot of revealing costumes in the film, all of which accentuated her chest. According to the Los Angeles Times, even the advertising heavily marketed Russell's animal magnetism, using photos of her reclining on hay bales in a loose-fitting blouse without a bra underneath to drum up the film's publicity.

During production, Hughes was disappointed that his cinematographer wasn't capturing enough footage of Russell below the neck and above the waist. He also didn't want shots of the actor's chest to include any trace of a bra, which was a provocative notion for the 1940s. So Hughes used his aviation engineering background to design a seamless push-up bra for Russell, which would be invisible underneath the actor's wide-open blouses. Hughes got the sexy shots he wanted, but once he submitted the final cut of "The Outlaw" to RKO Pictures, it couldn't pass the Hays Code without the careful deletion of some of the racier images of Russell.

At the start of the 21st century, the first "X-Men" launched the superhero movie craze by adapting the popular comic book heroes to the contemporary world. From the first "X-Men" through 2019's "X-Men: Dark Phoenix," the X-Men's adventures were chronicled on the big screen, with characters like Mystique completely reimagined. Played by Rebecca Romijn in the original trilogy and Jennifer Lawrence in the four prequel-boots, Mystique traded in her trademark white outfit from the comic books for, well, nothing actually.

Romijn and Lawrence both play reimagined versions of the Marvel Comics character, complete with an updated look that basically means Mystique is always walking around naked. Despite her ability to shapeshift clothing as well, Mystique's "all-natural" appearance is pretty strange given that everyone else is fully clothed. However, Romijn enjoyed her time as Mystique, explaining, "Every single time they finished, and I would look in the mirror, I would just look at it like it was a masterpiece." 

Conversely, when Lawrence took over the role in "X-Men: First Class," her eight hours of prosthetic makeup a day almost pushed her to quit altogether, she told "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon." "I love these movies," she told Entertainment Weekly before the release of "X-Men: Apocalypse." "It's just the paint." A few years later, Lawrence reprised her role in "Dark Phoenix" with limited screen time, though Mystique's makeup changed drastically and barely resembled the character's old appearance. Naturally, after four films, Lawrence had finally had enough.

This one might be a bit surprising, but Sigourney Weaver's final costume at the end of "Alien" has proven to be a bit controversial in recent years. By the end of the film, Ripley (Weaver) is the sole survivor of an alien incursion on the Nostromo. Believing that she's destroyed the creature for good, she prepares herself for hypersleep by stripping down and prepping her pod. Before she can put herself under, she notices that the fully-grown Xenomorph has tucked itself away within the ship.

For James Cameron, Ripley's "striptease," as Weaver put it, stepped over the line. Cameron told The Chronicle when talking about his beloved sequel "Aliens," "I made it my goal to make women interesting without making them sex objects and I think I was pretty successful at doing that." On the contrary, when Sigourney Weaver explained the scene to Express, she said, "People have said, 'Aw, how could you demean yourself by doing a striptease?' And I say, 'Are you kidding? After five days of blood and guts, and fear, and sweat and urine, do you think Ripley wouldn't take off her clothes?'"

Despite Cameron's objections, it's worth noting that the opening scene of "Alien" features John Hurt's Kane waking up from hypersleep in a similarly vulnerable state, making Ripley's final moments in "Alien" a simple reflection of how the film began. Admittedly, this moment's significantly briefer, but that's mostly due to there not being a life-sized alien stalking the crew of the Nostromo just yet.