Rose McGowan already has enough experience with Hollywood misogyny to write an entire book on the subject. Luckily — or not — the industry keeps coughing up more evidence of how singularly horrible it can be for women: especially ones who choose to do weird and unnatural things such as get older. Last week Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman wrote a very sexist article about his thoughts on such women in light of the trailer for the new Bridget Jones movie, essentially blaming actress Renee Zellweger for removing his god-given right to her image as it existed 12 years ago. “I suddenly felt like something had been taken away,” he muses.
McGowan, who has become a feminist hero in recent years for speaking up about the savage way Hollywood treats women, has now penned an on-point response to Gleiberman’s article. “Her crime, according to you, is growing older in a way you don’t approve of,” McGowan wrote in The Hollywood Reporter today. “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.”
McGowan goes on to detail her own experiences with Hollywood sexism. “I am someone who was forced by a studio to go on Howard Stern where he asked me to show him my labia while my grinning male and female publicists stood to the side and did nothing to protect me,” she continues. “I am someone who has withstood death threats from fanboys, had fat sites devoted to me. I’ve withstood harassment on a level you can’t comprehend, Owen… My interest is destroying the status quo. My interest as a card-carrying member of society is to STOP the brainwashing Hollywood and the media have for too long gotten away with. The brainwashing that you have long been a friend to and a supporter of.”
There’s little humor to be found in Gleiberman’s original piece of garbage, but McGowan arrives at a small dose of dark comedy by replacing Zellweger’s name with the names of male actors. “He worked with costars who reinforced his supernova status, through their fame or their beauty or both. ROB LOWE, with pillowy cheeks and quizzically pursed lips and that singular squint, was beautiful, but not in the way that a BRAD PITT or GEORGE CLOONEY was.“
Boom. Gleiberman, for his part, has declined to comment on McGowan’s piece — evidently preferring to prey on women who have made a very clear decision to stay out of the spotlight.
Credits
Text Hannah Ongley
Photography Hot Sugar