In the June issue of Entertainment Weekly, Melissa McCarthy calls sexism in Hollywood an “intense sickness” and relays the story of the time she confronted a reporter who said that she was “only a good actor when [she] looked more attractive.”
EW reports:
At the Toronto Film Festival last September, a critic who had written a particularly vicious review of ‘Tammy’ approached McCarthy to praise the new movie she was there to promote, St. Vincent. “Are you the one who wrote I was only a good actor when I looked more attractive and that my husband should never be allowed to direct me because he allowed me to look so homely?” she asked him.
He admitted he was. “Would you say that to any guy?” she continued. “When John C. Reilly—or any actor—is playing a character that is depressed and dejected, would you say, ‘Well, you look terrible!’?” She asked the critic if he had a daughter. He did. “Watch what you say to her,” she told him. “Do you tell her she’s only worthwhile or valid when she’s pretty?”
“For someone who has two daughters, I’m wildly aware of how deep that rabbit hole goes,” McCarthy adds. “But I just don’t want to start listening to that stuff. I’m trying to take away the double standard of ‘You’re an unattractive bitch because your character was not skipping along in high heels.’”
Right on, sister.
Image via Getty.
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