Rex Reed: Starfish

The review, as brief and bad as it is, raises what to me is an interesting question.

Stipulate first that Melissa McCarthy is a terrifically gifted performer and hysterically funny.

Then note that her TV series has been criticized as a longform fat joke. Now ask why it is that a comedian can call down humiliating imagery or language on herself - in fact make a great living from it - but that the same language and imagery is rightly off limits to the rest of us in our criticism of the same work.

It's not hypocrisy. Rather, it's kind of a fascinating question of ownership of language and privilege of judgment and description.

 

You don't think Rex said the same things about John Candy and Chris Farley?

You can't call a comic who makes a living out of being fat and gross, fat and gross, if said comic has a vagina?

The show I produce interviewed her and you know what a topic of conversation was? Her menstrual flow. Take a look:

http://www.reelz.com/trailer-clips/67771/identity-thief

 

So, in other words: If fat people can mock their fat, why can't others? Kinda reminds me of the line you sometimes hear over use of the N-word.

I don't know why. But I doubt Mike and Molly refers to fat people as tractor-sized hippos. Reed's nasty word choice went well beyond the normal light-hearted fat jokes.

 

Wow. A Threesome reference. Don't see those ... well, ever.

 

Rex Reed was just being nasty. Plain and simple. I don't think one needs to think this thing into the ground. No decent, integrated-with-the-real-word reviewer would refer to McCarthy as a "hippo." She's obviously not that big. Or "tractor-sized." She's obviously not that big. Reed was just being mean because he didn't like her or the movie.

So I called him a "starfish." Which is perfectly OK.

 

Ahh, The Gong Show. Good times.

 

On the flip side of that dancer:

 

A movie critic referring to a well-known large-size actress as fat is the kind of insight it must take years to hone.

 

Odd side-note to the Gong Show thread-jack...

A few weeks ago a friend and I were trading Gong Show references on Facebook -- I have no idea why -- and I discovered virtually everyone involved in that show is still alive. If you wanted to do a reunion you could absolutely pull it off.

Chuck Barris, Jaye P. Morgan, Jamie Farr, Gene Gene the Dancing Machine, The Unknown Comic, Arte Johnson, Rex Reed, Gary Mule Deer, Rip Taylor... even the band leader, Milton DeLugg, is now like 95 but still working. The former Munchkin who threw confetti at the winner is alive. Gene Gene the Dancing Machine has lost both his legs so he probably isn't dancing much, but he's alive.

The only person I think of as a regular on the show who's dead is Pat McCormick.

There's got to be a great oral history to be done here.

 

Gawker piece makes both points about Reed and McCarthy.

gawker.com/5982868/melissa-mccarthy-called-a-female-hippo-by-critic-after-humiliating-herself-in-identity-thief?popular=true

 

Are Letterman and Leno and Conan and Stewart assholes, too, for their monologue material about Chris Christie?

Conan:

.be&t=2m8s

Letterman:

Stewart, Fallon, Letterman:

Granted, Christie has played along with it, but are those examples any different than what Reed said? I seriously don't know. Just trying to understand where one reviewer is an "asshole" and late-night hosts are comedians.

 

With Leno, you could throw in the term "hypocrite"