After releasing its trailer, Zoolander 2 has been the subject of some serious online criticism. Featuring Benedict Cumberbatch as androgynous supermodel All, the film is being labelled by the LGBT community as “transphobic – and, according to a new petition with 21,000 signatures, could now be facing a boycott.

The trailer features Zoolander (Ben Stiller) and Hansel (Owen Wilson) asking Cumberbatch’s trans supermodel, “Are you a male or female model?” To which he replies “All is all.” Hansel then jokes, “I think he’s asking, do you have a hotdog or a bun?”

Now actor and screenwriter Justin Theroux has spoken out about the controversy claiming that anger is being misdirected. 

“I don’t even know what to make of it, because it hurts my feelings in a way,” Theroux said to . “I take great care in the jokes I write, and the umbrage being taken is out of the context of the scene. I wish people would see the movie first. Satire is a thing that points out the idiots, and we went through it on Tropic Thunder with the ‘R’ word.”

Theroux, who also wrote the script for Tropic Thunder, compared the situation to the use of the word ‘retard’, which he claims was also taken out of context in that instance.

“The goal was not to mock or be cruel to the mentally challenged, but exalt in the stupidity of people who use that word,” he said. “I’m all for letting words be ugly when the target is correct. With social media and all the rest of it, people’s issues need to be heard. At the end of the day, people are looking for bandwidth. People are looking for places to inject their voice. But our target is not, and never was, to disenfranchise anyone.”

The film will be released in cinemas in the US and the UK on February 12.