I read that yesterday and thought there was some insight in it, but I also thought the author came too close to endorsing rather than describing.

I also thought the author came too close to endorsing rather than describing.

Yeah, and he also trafficked in really broad generalizations: all men think about boobies all the time (Really? Even the gay men?); all wars are about Protectin' Our Wimmins (even the ones over oil?); all musicians are in it for sex (even the ones sleeping on couches and making no money and no fans?).

But he clearly hit a nerve, given the number of comments on that article. Of course, half of them are demanding he write such an article about how awful women are.

I think he was more right than wrong. A war over oil is a war to get a resource, to make our country stronger, to make us richer, to make the oil men richer, to help the oil men be attractive to women. (It's not so much Protecting' Our Wimmins, as to Get Wimmins In Bed.) Even if the warmongers are only swaggering around each other, going "I'm a badass, I ordered Iraq to be bombed," it's to establish dominance over the other men.

Hubby keeps telling me that men are very simple creatures, at heart. I believe him. Yeah, there are some stellar examples that can transcend the base urges, but that ping is probably there, the urge to want/take/have.

There were about 100 things in that article that made me angry but clearly this man has no eyes if he says:

In a comedy movie, the male wacky sidekick can be the chubby Zach Galifianakis or the nearly deformed Steve Buscemi. But if the female wacky sidekick isn't attractive, like the overweight Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids, then every scene needs to be about how ugly and fat and mannish she is. That has to be the core of her character.

Melissa McCarthy is really pretty, and Steve Buscemi is pretty darn sexually attractive to a bunch of women, myself included.

I think he's saying that McCarthy is an exception because she is attractive, but the rest of the fatties out there have to be shamed on screen to be permissable.

And he's not necessarily saying he believes these things, he's saying that's the reaction of many people--which is sadly very true.

And the Bridesmaids character was not at all done up to be conventionally pretty, not like McCarthy herself.

I think he's saying that McCarthy is an exception because she is attractive, but the rest of the fatties out there have to be shamed on screen to be permissable

...I think he was pointing out that BECAUSE she's fat (regardless of if some people find her pretty), to be a sidekick she had to be all about grossness and fatness and NOT be pretty. Whereas a guy sidekick can be ugly (c'mon, even if some people find him attractive, Steve Buscemi is weird looking to most people) and that's just an extraneous fact--he can do other sidekick-y things, and not every scene has to be "OOOH, HE"S SO FAT! LOOK AT HIM HITTING ON THAT GIRL, HE"S MAKING A FOOL OF HIMSELF!" (ie McCarthy in the plane scene)

Yeah, looking at it again it's not as clear. And I haven't seen Bridesmades, so.

I thought he was carving out some kind of exception for her (which is problematic anyway - "except for this one attractive fattie..."). But I totally agree about his larger point.

Yeah, what meara said.