Melissa McCarthy’s cousin Jenny defended her this week by telling film critic Rex Reed to go to hell. Most of you might know that the elderly film critic Rex Reed critiqued the comedy Identity Thief, by referring to lead actress Melissa McCarthy’s “cacophonous, tractor-sized,” a “female hippo,” and dismissed her as “a gimmick comedian who has devoted her short career to being obese and obnoxious with equal success.”
If that’s not bad enough, he then went on to DEFEND his sizist comments “to using health issues like obesity as comedy talking points. That’s what this girl does, this Melissa Manchester.” (Her name is Meslissa McCarthy). He then uses the I-have-fat-friends-disclaimer “I have too many friends that have died of obesity-related illnesses, heart problems and diabetes… I have helped people try to lose weight, and I don’t find this to be the subject of a lot of humor.”
Let’s think of all the movies we have ever seen that have lead males who would be considered plus size (funny that term is NEVER used to men, eh?). Then google how many of them were critiqued for being too large to be good actors. Was John Candy’s work in Planes, Trains and Automobiles panned because he was a cacophonous, tractor-sized, male hippo? What about Belushi? Chris Farley? George Wendt? Dom Delouise? John Goodman? Wayne Knight? Johah Hill?
We could easily come up with more, I am certain. Until women’s talents and intelligence are not connected to what she looks like or her size, we will never be able to compete on equal footing with men. Never. I think people in Hollywood should blackball Rex Reed, tell him to go to Florida and retire his sexist, fat hating self.
The Feminist Critic 