Melissa: Does Her Size Get In The Way?
Jeffrey Wells spouts an opinion: Melissa McCarthy ‘is a brilliant major-league comedian, but for me the metaphor of morbid obesity gets in the way of her comic delivery. I’ve been laughing at chubby or overweight types my whole life, but how do you laugh at a person who will obviously be coping with a shortened lifespan due to unhealthy eating habits? Slow caloric suicide isn’t funny. Much of McCarthy’s humor is all about making fun of herself for being in awful shape (unable to leap a counter in “Tammy,” huffing and puffing in “Identity Thief”) but if a person like me says “she’s so out of shape she’s not funny†it’s a hate crime and I get labelled as a bigot. I’m not being cruel like Rex Reed was when he called her a “hippo.” I’m just saying I can laugh at Oliver Hardy or John Candy but not McCarthy. I’ve always been on the fence about Fatty Arbuckle.’
