While doing press for her new movie Spy, Melissa McCarthy took the opportunity to turn an instance of sexism into a positive lesson for one unfortunate movie critic. According to Entertainment Weekly, McCarthy attended the Toronto Film Festival last September and confronted the critic who made the disparaging remarks:
…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?”
McCarthy hasn’t spoken out much regarding the ongoing sexism that exists in the media and Hollywood as a whole. That being said — as a mother of two young daughters — the issue does seem to be on her mind a lot in recent days:
“It’s an intense sickness,” she says. “For someone who has two daughters, I’m wildly aware of how deep that rabbit hole goes. 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.’”
(Via Entertainment Weekly)
