Several readers let me know about an Entertainment Tonight article titled “Did Melissa McCarthy Lose 45 lbs?” The article says that she looked “a touch slimmer” was “noticeably thinner” and “It’s being reported that McCarthy has lost an estimated 45-50 pounds.” Reported where or by whom is undisclosed.
The pictures in question are:
I’m not convinced that these pictures show weight loss – I think that what they may show is how people can look different weights in different outfits, hairstyles, and angles.
In researching this, the “news” reports (which appear everywhere from Perez Hilton to CNN to Yahoo Australia) seem to be a game of round robin wherein sources site each other for reporting the weight loss (speculating everything from the amount of weight lost to her diet) but nobody has a quote from Melissa McCarthy to verify.
In fact, most articles quote her discussion about just the opposite, like the time she told People Magazine that while she’s been aware of the criticism about her weight, she’s “never felt like I needed to change. I’ve always thought, ‘If you want somebody different, pick somebody else…It’s like I’m managing to achieve all this success in spite of my affliction. Would you ever put that in the headline for a male star?” Or talk about how she was discriminated against when she tried to get an Oscar dress.
I think a lot of this has to do with people who have joined the cult of thin who aren’t happy unless everyone joins with them. These people put all of their self-esteem eggs in the thin basket, so when someone says that they don’t value a thin body over a fat one, that they don’t envy thinner women, that they aren’t interested in spending their time, money, and energy trying to manipulate their body size, it’s a direct challenge to the value system from which those who are in the cult of thin derive their self-worth. So they want fat people to believe in the cult of thin, but let’s be clear that we certainly aren’t being invited to the compound (note that they report that she’s lost 45-50 pounds and call her “a touch slimmer.” I seriously doubt that if they were reporting that she gained 45-50 pounds they would call her “a touch heavier” considering that when Charlize Theron gained 30 pounds for a movie role she was called “unrecognizeable” and when Vanessa Hudgons gained 15 pounds for a role they called it a “shocking transformation.”)
I think it’s super unfortunate that as a culture we feel the need to ignore the accomplishments of actors (especially women) as they relate to their craft and instead discuss their weight, clothes, hair, makeup and jewelry, reinforcing all of this by behaving like talented people who don’t fit the hollywood stereotype are somehow shocking.
So did Melissa McCarthy lose weight? Don’t know. Don’t care. Can’t imagine how it’s any of my business. I’m much more interested in the performance an actor gives in a movie than I am in how they look going to the movies, regardless of the color of the carpet.
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