Melissa McCarthy has powerful words for image-obsessed Hollywood

We didn’t even KNOW it was possible to love one of our favorite funny ladies Melissa McCarthy more and here we are, loving her more after hearing her speak her mind about sexism in Hollywood.

In the June issue of Entertainment Weekly, McCarthy recounts an instance in which she was forced to take a journalist to task for his ignorant remarks:

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?” 

We are completely in awe of McCarthy’s smarts, heart, and guts. We hope this reporter really heard her words, we hope he went home prepared to be a better father to his daughter, and we hope he’s now out in the world being a better man to all women. As Diana Vreeland famously said “Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked ‘female,’” and when we see people trying to perpetuate the myth that a woman’s worth is synonymous with her physical appearance, we need to shut down those shenanigans stat.

As McCarthy perfectly puts it later in the piece, this brand of sexism is 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 b**** because your character was not skipping along in high heels.’”

Melissa McCarthy, we bow before your awesomeness.

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