After Variety film critic Owen Glieberman wrote a critical piece titled "Renee Zellweger: If She No Longer Looks Like Herself Has She Become a Different Actress?", self-appointed patron saint of wronged Hollywood women Rose McGowan wrote a retort, which was published in The Hollywood Reporter. Here is an excerpt from her essay:
"Owen Gleiberman, this is not a counterpoint. There is no counterpoint, there is no defense for the indefensible.
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.
You are an active endorser of what is tantamount to harassment and abuse of actresses and women. I speak as someone who was abused by Hollywood and by people like you in the media, but I’m a different breed, one they didn't count on. I refuse and reject this bullshit on behalf of those who feel they can't speak. 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. I am someone who has withstood death threats from fan boys, had fat sites devoted to me. I've withstood harassment on a level you can’t comprehend, Owen.
I was so confused by the heaping tons of abuse, I actually forgot what I looked like. Which is awesome because I rose up from some serious ashes to finally have my say. Here's some truth: Men like you and the women who sit idly by and say nothing should know that aiding and abetting is a moral crime, and if it were punished in Hollywood, most of you would be in some form of jail.
...Owen, the last line in your article, “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” is quite the mind fuck.
Guess what? It is time to stop fucking with women's minds.
Do you know what my interests are, Owen?
My interests are bigger than pondering a stranger’s face. 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.
Let’s talk about Hollywood writers: Joan Didion, John Fante, Raymond Chandler, Robert Towne, Dorothy Parker, John Gregory Dunne, Preston Sturges, I.A.L. Diamond, Pauline Kael and Billy Wilder. These were writers on Hollywood.
You, Owen Gleiberman, are not they.
You are simply a bully on semiglossy paper."
Read the full piece at The Hollywood Reporter.
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