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Melissa McCarthy confronted a critic who said actresses should always be pretty in movies.

A message everyone should hear.

Hollywood, actors, sexism, body shaming, physical health
Image created from Pixabay.

The expectations for physical beauty in Hollywood are not so secret anymore.

He told her she was only a good actress when she looked attractive. She asked if he would tell his daughter that.

When comedian Melissa McCarthy met one of her critics, she didn't back down. She faced him head on and calmly explained why making those remarks are so hurtful, especially to young girls.

"Every time you write stuff like that," she told him, "every young girl in this country reads that and gets a little [part of themselves] chipped away."

But good news! She thinks it actually got through to him:

This double standard has followed all sorts of comedic actresses throughout the entertainment business.

McCarthy is one of the funniest voices of a generation. She's even earned an Academy Award nomination for "Bridesmaids" — something very rare for a comedic actor. Unfortunately, as a woman, her performances are often critiqued on what she looks like. She's not alone.

body image, psychology, celebrity, social issues

Melissa McCarthy dressed to impress for a gala event.

Image via Mingle MediaTV/Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons.


Here are a couple of very revealing quotes from other women who faced similar battles in the industry:

The first comes from Carol Burnett.

The Carol Burnett Show, NBC, comedian, double standard

Carol Burnett performs a comedy routine in 1958.

NBC photo by Elmer Holloway/Wikimedia Commons.

When she proposed the TV classic "The Carol Burnett Show" to the powers that be, they didn't think a woman could carry her own variety show:

"Yeah, Carol, you know, it's really, variety is a man's game. ... It's Gleason, Milton Berle. It's Dean Martin. It's Sid Caesar. You know, women. We've got this great sitcom we'd love you to do called 'Here's Agnes.'

Can't you just see it? Heeeeere's Agnes!" — Carol Burnett

The other from Mindy Kaling.

actress, comedian, producer, writer, gender equality

Mindy Kaling poses at a film festival in 2019.

Image via Montclair Film/Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons.

A woman from The Hollywood Reporter asked her what is the most asinine question people have said to you?

"'I think it's great that you deign to be on camera when you're so unappealing!'

I don't ... I mean, my fans and friends on the show are lovely and wonderful, and it moves me to tears to interact with them. It's always ... it's a backhanded thing people who actually identify as feminists who will say something that you're like, 'That is a very rude thing to say! How dare you!'" — Mindy Kaling

It's true. People think they can just say whatever they want to a famous person. It gets even worse when you're a famous woman.

It's not only up to women like Melissa McCarthy, Carol Burnett, and Mindy Kaling to point out when people have gone too far.

It's up to regular folks like you and me to point out when people are out of line, anywhere we hear it. Take Melissa's word for it:

"It's easy to take a swipe. And I'm like, just go the other way. Build it up. ... Put a little love and kindness in the world, and it does good things when you do that."


A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

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Representative Image from Canva

Let's not curse any more children with bad names, shall we?

Some parents have no trouble giving their children perfectly unique, very meaningful names that won’t go on to ruin their adulthood. But others…well…they get an A for effort, but might want to consider hiring a baby name professional.

Things of course get even more complicated when one parent becomes attached to a name that they’re partner finds completely off-putting. It almost always leads to a squabble, because the more one parent is against the name, the more the other parent will go to bat for it.

This seemed to be the case for one soon-to-be mom on the Reddit AITA forum recently. Apparently, she was second-guessing her vehement reaction to her husband’s, ahem, avant garde baby name for their daughter, which she called “the worst name ever.”

But honestly, when you hear this name, I think you’ll agree she was totally in the right.

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An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.

Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.

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Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

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Joy

Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

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Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

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