Entertainment
Rex Reed Calls Melissa McCarthy A Tractor Sized Hippo In Movie Review
Rex Reed Calls Melissa McCarthy A Tractor Sized Hippo In Movie Review
Popular actress Melissa McCarthy was slammed for her weight by Rex Reed, a critic for the New York Observer.
Speaking on McCarthy’s appearance in the film Identity thief, in his review, Reed described the actress as “tractor sized” and a “female hippo”.
n the trashy, stupefying screenplay by Craig Mazin, Jason Bateman is a Denver accountant named Sandy Patterson—another in a long line of victims of the increasingly dangerous world of cyber-crime—whose credit card has been hacked and copied by a felonious thief in Miami (cacophonous, tractor-sized Melissa McCarthy).
The snafus in the worst road movie since The Guilt Trip plunge Mr. Bateman and his female hippo into a motel with only a double bed, a grotesque sex scene with a pickled reprobate she picks up in a bar who demands a threesome, a violent bar fight that bloodies his nose, a kidnapping, a multi-car collision going the wrong way on the freeway … but why go on? They seem to be making it up as they go along, in a movie that threatens never to end.
The backlash Reed has received for his comments have come from celebrities and fans alike.
Criticism of McCarthy comes on the heels of record box office numbers for her new movie “Identity theft which grossed more than $30 million over the weekend. McCarthy is an Emmy winning actress who has also been nominated for an Oscar. She has costarred in “Gilmore Girls” and “Mike and Molly”.
Thus far neither Reed or McCarthy have commented on the criticism but fans and fellow actors alike have expressed their outrage for Reed and encouragement for McCarthy via Twitter.
Comedian and actress Roseanne Barr wrote, “you are a great comedian-your body is your instrument-you play it expertly.”
“Turns out, Rex Reed didn’t die sad and alone 10 years ago. Nope. He’s alive and starving for attention, so lets give him some,” “Modern Family” star Eric Stonestreet, who also appears in “Identity Thief,” wrote Friday on Twitter.
Readers of the Observer article didn’t pull any punches either.
One anger reader wrote:
You sir, are a vile cunt. How dare you call a woman a hippo or say she’s tractor sized. I don’t know who you think you are but it’s a damn shame that at this point in your career you’ve resorted to trashing the way a woman looks as part of your gimmick here. Your perpetuation of a double standard is equally pathetic because we both know if Ms. McCarthy was a man, you wouldn’t even think of calling her fat because you’d get your old ass kicked in a minute. Shame on you.
Another reader added:
Rex Reed, what is wrong with you? What benefit is there to attacking Melissa McCarthy personally when you’re supposed to be talking about the quality of the film? There are so few people you can count on in this over-saturated industry for true film criticism, and you just ruined any remaining shreds of credibility you had. At least this is one less website I need to visit now.
In November she told CNN anchor Anderson Cooper that she was never going to be a stick-thin starlet.
“I think two kids and 41, it just … there’s so many other things to worry about,” she told Cooper. “I think the kids are healthy, I’ve got a great husband and I go to work every day and do what I want. I’ll keep working on the other. I just can’t put any time to worrying about it.”
On The Web:
Critic Who Called Melissa McCarthy ‘Hippo’ Faces Backlash
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2013/02/critic-who-called-melissa-mccarthy-female-hippo-faces-hollywood-backlash/
Declined: In Identity Thief, Bateman’s Bankable Billing Can’t Lift This Flick out of the Red
http://observer.com/2013/02/declined-in-identity-thief-batemans-bankable-billing-cant-lift-this-flick-out-of-the-red/
