Wordy Wednesday: Stacking-up My Soapboxes

Have you read Rex Reed's review of the movie Identity Theif? I recommend it - if you want to get really, really mad in the next three minutes.

He hated the movie. What a shock - it doesn't look great. What is shocking is the way he refers to Melissa McCarthy in his review. He calls her "tractor-sized," "a screeching, humongous creep," and a "female hippo." By the time I finished the article, I was looking for something to smash in Rex's effigy. 

Luckily, the rest of the world seems to agree, and there's been a backlash to beat the band.

Women are constantly judged on the way we look - often when it is not required of us. If I hear one more person call a supreme court justice "ugly" or "unstylish," I will run full-force through a sliding glass door. Ruth Bader-Ginsburg doesn't want or need to be a sex symbol; that's not her job. Her position requires intelligence and gravitas and strength of will, and if she wants to wear Snuggies to work, then let her. She never asked you to think that she's pretty. 

When I did The Little Foxes at Theatre in the Square two years ago, a reviewer said that I was not "pretty enough" to play my role. First of all, I am dead sexy, so his opinion is irrelevant. But beyond that, my character's level of attractiveness is never once mentioned in the play. Is isn't vital to the plot at all. No one says, "Alexandra is so beautiful," or "She is so pretty." If that were the case and this reviewer found me lacking, then okay, that might be something to discuss. Is a short Jew-ish girl with a big forehead the very model of a Southern belle? Maybe not. But since it never comes up in the course of the show that Alexandra might be pretty, then it really doesn't matter. For all intents and purposes, Alexandra could be a dog. After all, the plot hinges on her cousin not wanting to marry her. The reviewer just thinks that all women he sees are required to be pretty, because to be anything less is unacceptable. 

The last episode of Friday Night Lights that V.E.B. and I watched featured an old Southern adage I have always hated, though I also understand it very well: "No one likes an angry woman." Well that's okay. 

You don't have to like me.