Melissa McCarthy’s ‘Photoshop Diet’ For ‘The Heat’ Poster
Melissa McCarthy’s “Photoshop diet” allowed the actress to lose a significant amount of weight with no diet or exercise in ten minutes — but the results have some web users crying foul due to its detour to uncanny valley.
What Melissa McCarthy’s Photoshop diet really is is what happened in the editing room for a poster featuring McCarthy and co-star Sandra Bullock in the film The Heat. The premise of the movie looks to be centered a lot on Melissa McCarthy playing the stock chubster next to Bullock’s thin and dainty foil, and the pair eventually bond despite McCarthy’s character being, like all fat people in movies, kind of gross and boorish.
Melissa McCarthy is often cast (perhaps always) in the role of “obnoxious fat lady,” which is why the decision to edit flesh from her face in the poster is even more puzzling. McCarthy makes no bones about being a larger woman in a Hollywood culture that limits her role choices due to that fact, and having portrayed yet another manners-less fatty seems to work less well when the star’s face is edited so she doesn’t look as fat.
UK site The Shiznit rails against the bizarre decision to make Melissa McCarthy unrecognizable with a Photoshop diet, saying:
“This poster for McCarthy’s forthcoming comedy The Heat from Bridesmaids director Paul Feig, however, is something f*****g else. Nobody is unclear what Melissa McCarthy’s body size is – she’s plus-sized and proud. So why have the designers of this poster done their utmost to Photoshop a good 30lbs off of McCarthy’s face? This is one of the worst Photoshop jobs I have ever seen, but it’s not just offensively bad craftsmanship – the intention behind it is downright nasty. ”
Melissa McCarthy’s weight loss hasn’t gone unnoticed across the web either, and we have to wonder as well — why bother predicating a character on McCarthy’s size (in part) to insult her by photoshopping her face to death in the poster?
