Melissa McCarthy Speaks Out About The Time She Confronted A Sexist Film Critic On ‘Ellen’

From Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow in The Avengers to Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road, discussions of sexism and feminism in Hollywood have been in the spotlight recently, and show no signs of fading away; Maggie Gyllenhaal’s revelation yesterday that she was considered “too old” to play the love interest of a 55-year-old male character, despite only being 37 herself, is a case in point.

Now actress Melissa McCarthy, herself no stranger to on- and off-screen sexism, has come forward with a story of her own. On The Ellen Show to promote her upcoming movie Spy, McCarthy was reminded of some of the reviews for her last effort Tammy, where several critics included critiques of her physical appearance in their assessment of the movie. She told Ellen and the audience that one of those critics actually went so far as to introduce himself to McCarthy at a film festival and elaborate on what he wrote:

“He actually said ‘I’m the one who wrote this’, and he’d said basically I’m only a good actress when I look attractive and that my husband [Tammy director Ben Falcone] shouldn’t be allowed to direct me because he let me look hideous in this movie,” McCarthy said. “It was a lot of things and kind of, how dare women not look beautiful, perfect and attractive in a movie?

“I put a lot of time and effort into having her [Tammy] not look like she cared about herself, that was part of how I felt she felt on the inside. I asked him, ‘Do you ever say that to a man?’ and he goes, ‘Well…but you really looked bad.’

Rather than call the guy a jerk and walk off (which would’ve been pretty understandable at that point, honestly), McCarthy asked him how it would feel if someone he knew as treated in the same way. “I said, ‘I hope you don’t have a daughter’ — I didn’t meant that in a mean way…When I said, ‘if she comes home and someone says “you can’t have a job because you’re unattractive,” are you going to say, “that’s right”?’

“I think he heard it,” McCarthy told Ellen. “That writer was really loving, you could tell he was a loving father. I think it’s a bad habit that we’ve gotten into. It’s not that people are malicious, it’s just so easy to take a swipe…I just think we tear down women in this country for all of these superficial reasons and women are so great and strong.”

The story’s impetus was an interview McCarthy recently did with Entertainment Weekly, where she discussed the culture of sexism in Hollywood at length, describing it as an “intense sickness”. With a growing number of female actors refusing to stay silent on the sexism they regularly encounter, it’s unlikely attention on Hollywood’s double standards will shift away any time soon.