Rose McGowan has no time for male critics of female physicality.
McGowan took Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman to task in a recent op-ed for The Hollywood Reporter. The focal point of the actress’ piece was Gleiberman’s take-down of Renée Zellweger on the grounds of her appearance in the upcoming film “Brigette Jones’s Baby.”
“She doesn’t look like Renée Zellweger,” he wrote. “I thought: She doesn’t look like Bridget Jones! Oddly, that made it matter more. Celebrities, like anyone else, have the right to look however they want, but the characters they play become part of us. I suddenly felt like something had been taken away.”
While he said he liked the movie, he concluded: “I just hope it turns out to be a movie that stars Renée Zellweger rather than a victim of ‘Invasion of the Face Snatchers.’ I hope it turns out to be a movie about a gloriously ordinary person rather than someone who looks like she no longer wants to be who she is.”
McGowan ― who says she has endured her fair of harassment and bullying in the industry because she is a woman ― is not having it. She wrote about Gleiberman’s “white-male privilege,” noting how he is perpetuating an environment of fear.
Renee Zellweger is a human being, with feelings, with a life, with love and with triumphs and struggles, just like the rest of us. How dare you use her as a punching bag in your mistaken attempt to make a mark at your new job. How dare you bully a woman who has done nothing but try to entertain people like you. Her crime, according to you, is growing older in a way you don’t approve of. Who are you to approve of anything? What you are doing is vile, damaging, stupid and cruel. It also reeks of status quo white-male privilege. So assured are you in your place in the firmament that is Hollywood, you felt it was OK to do this. And your editors at Variety felt this was more than OK to run.
Fear is something Zellweger has pushed back against after facing a barrage a criticism and headlines over her appearance back in 2014. She said the scrutiny taught her something valuable.
“What good comes from knowing that something like that happened? Less fear. Sure,” she told Entertainment Weekly last year. “So when people come up to me to ask ‘How did that feel?’ I don’t know, and I like it like that. I don’t know. I know it sounds pretty unlikely that a person might be able to make herself, I guess, keep clear of those words or of that experience, but I have and it takes effort. But I have succeeded.”
Read McGowan’s full piece at The Hollywood Reporter.
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