Culture

Business Casual Superstar: Inspired by Molly Flynn (Melissa McCarthy, “Mike & Molly”)

Mike and Molly

I had to do it, you guys. I’ve never seen an episode of CBS’s “Mike & Molly,” about two people who meet at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting and fall in love, but still, I had to devote this week’s post to that show. I’m sure you’ve heard about the recent controversy surrounding this show, in which a Marie Claire blogger wrote a disgusting post about how watching fat people walk across a room grossed her out, and how fatties should get a room. Seriously.

Jezebel has the story, with lots of links to other blogs that have commented on this story, and links to the original Marie Claire stuff.

Like many people, I find this incident upsetting. Marie Claire is no towering example of fine journalism, it’s true, but that’s hardly the point. This is just crass, ignorant, and outright bigoted.

And it certainly does not encourage me to pick up a Marie Claire and leaf through it at the hair salon or my favorite Chinese place as I wait for my carry-out, much less actually buy a subscription. In fact, as ShopItToMe‘s newest trendsetter, I was offered a free year-long subscription to Marie Claire as part of a promotion.

Because of the magazine’s response to criticism, I joined the promotion but respectfully turned down the free subscription. I didn’t want it and didn’t care for it. First, I don’t really read magazines. Second, I get sent free women’s magazines all the time (currently I’m getting Bazaar and Vogue, before that it was Shape and Vanity Fair) because the industry is in such trouble that they’re desperate for new subscribers and are sending out loads of free issues, and these magazines all have the same fashion and lifestyle and diet and blah blah blah tips, so what do I care? They’re all interchangeable. Third, Marie Claire will pretty much always have a negative association for me.

It’s kind of like when you were younger and you were home alone with nothing to eat so you warmed up one of those frozen shrimp-and-penne-pasta things and then you got food poisoning and now you can’t stand any kind of pasta with shrimp or alfredo sauce.

Lucky for me, the SITM promotion managers are awesome and were like, oh, that’s totally cool that you don’t want to touch Marie Claire with a ten foot pole, how about Esquire instead?

Um…score?! I love Esquire!

But, my personal newfound aversion to the magazine aside, let’s get a couple things straight.

Let’s not pretend this is anything new or shocking. None of us are shocked that the Marie Claire blogger finds fat people gross. (Perhaps it should be mentioned that the blogger suffered from anorexia nervosa in the past.) Some of us share this opinion to a certain extent.

Even saying that this incident was some sort of look at the ‘back room’ of women’s magazines is just an oversimplification. I’ve heard the argument that this seems like one of those things where a bunch of fashion writers were in the editor’s office, talking about all the gross fatties out there, and they decided, what the heck, let’s put it out there, and the readership resoundingly panned it.

No. There was more to this article than just saying that fat people should try to be thinner. Frankly, that is the premise of every single women’s magazine out there. That is the premise of basically every single aspect of our popular culture. This is nothing new or shocking in that respect. I’m sure most of us would agree that the whole ‘try to be thinner!!1!’ thing isn’t all that offensive. We play into it every time we try out a new diet or cleanse or whatever.

The real problem here, at least in my opinion, is kind of (just barely) the same problem I had with Firas Atraqchi’s article in the Huffington post about why American Muslims shouldn’t support the Park51 masjid a couple blocks from Ground Zero, which we actually argued about quite a bit on Twitter.

He argued that as far as good deeds and philanthropy and all that went, American Muslims should donate to Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan and Sudan. I had no issue with that, but as I told him, first, the two issues were completely separate, and as far as his good deeds argument went, every Muslim donated to the causes of his or her choice in his own personal quest for completing good deeds that would yield a later reward. And there was no reason at all to place road blocks on the road to good deeds.

Similarly, here, there is absolutely no f–king good reason for putting road blocks on the road to humanity, which is the result/ramification of that blogger’s points in her bigoted article. It was absolutely offensive and horrifying to come across an argument that not only should fat people try to get thinner (fine, all of us ladies kind of understand that, as we eye our skinny jeans and pledge to give up soda for good), but they should have the decency to keep themselves out of the public eye until they do so, because their mere existence, much less their right to walk across a room or make out on television, is so horrifying to us ‘normals.’

Any time we start saying that X group of people is somehow less deserving of being a part of the ‘human group,’ we have a big, big problem.

Bleh.

And you know what? This wasn’t ‘provocative writing,’ the kind that’s published to draw criticism and discussion and publicity. This was just bigotry. And any writer or editor that can’t understand the difference, well, maybe he/she isn’t as well suited for his/her job as he/she thought.

But enough about that.

So to that end, today’s post is about Mike & Molly. I still haven’t seen an episode. I probably won’t because I watch too much television already. (The Office, Big Bang Theory, the Mentalist, occasionally 30Rock, occasionally How I Met Your Mother, South Park, occasionally the Simpsons, Family Guy, and sometimes Robot Chicken. Tooooo much television.)

But I wanted to do a post about it anyway, and feature an outfit that Molly Flynn would totally wear. (Molly’s played by Melissa McCarthy, who played Sookie on Gilmore Girls, and I love her. She’s so pretty and cute!)

Let’s get started!

This appears to be a very typical outfit for Molly: printed top, colored cardigan, and dark pants. The look is easy enough to recreate:

Floral Glitz Sleeveless Top ………. $12.09
V-Neck Cardigan in Green Spire ………. $24.50
Low Rise Boot Cut Jeans ………. $36.50
Studded Flats in Black ………. $22.50

I picked a pair of boot cut jeans and found this printed, kind of sparkly top in those pretty, vibrant blue and green colors. It was easy enough to match a comfy green cardigan to it, and because I wanted some more sparkle and interest on the feet, I went with these black studded flats to pull everything together.

And there we are! A pretty plus-sized outfit inspired by the adorable Molly Flynn of Mike & Molly.

  • Pingback: Business Casual Superstar #298: Inspired by Molly Flynn (Melissa McCarthy, “Mike & Molly”) « The Reasonably Prudent Law Student()

  • Kristina

    Well, that’s the thing; there was little to no kerfuffle when the Molly Flynn character appeared on Gilmore Girls as Lorelai’s side kick. She got to be the fat friend that the skinny one uses to solve problems. Therein lay a problem *that show never addressed either. Double standards abound.

    To be fair to the actress, and if the Marie Claire blogger had cared to acknowledge in her article, she had recently had a baby as well. Yes, she had a baby and didn’t think it best to try and whittle down to …. oh …. a palpable size 12 for the viewing audience. I mean, she should at least have done the Marie Claire blogger the courtesy of being a double digit size she could say out loud. Yeesh … I mean …. where are this woman’s priorities. She knew she was going to be critiqued on tv, so at least starve to keep bitches from Marie Claire on their side of the stupid fence. :p

    Anywho, I find things of every nature are nowadays so polarized. Anyone remember Roseanne. Roseanne as a tv show was pretty funny. I don’t remember anyone saying, ‘how dare ABC show people like Roseanne with a family’. And no matter how dysfunctional that may have been – all families are – they loved each other. I don’t recall people yammering on about what’s his face from that show …. King of Queens …. and how he was no looker but had on the outside what is considered a young and thin and pretty wife. She seemingly loved Doug for Doug. Cuz it sure as hell wasn’t for the afront to the UPS uniform they had him wear.

    So, pretty much the premise I got from Mike & Molly. People, is all people, regardless of looks, creed, gender, and religion, deserve love. And deserve the kind of love that is unconditional and is sought by all mankind. Mike & Molly are a reflection of ourselves and they aren’t prettied up for the sake of trying to tell the same story a thousand other shows try to tell – two people meet, kinda think they have things in common, try to see where it goes.

    The Marie Claire blogger has issues far beyond the Mike & Molly show. I feel for her. I’m also concerned for her that she subjected herself to watching 2 1/2 Men before Mike & Molly came on. C’mon …. if people want to be concerned about something be concerned THAT show is still on the air. Or that the kid on that show makes MORE THAN JON HAMM people …. MORE. That’s offensive.

    Ok. I don’t know where I was going with this but bless as always to Huma, for making me want to say something.

    Cheers,

    I think I’ll go have a donut.

    K

    • Huma

      Agreed on all counts. I loved MM as Sookie. Sure, she was the same size then, but so what?! She was amazing, loving, supportive, funny, talented – everything! And she fell in love with her produce man and got married and had babies and her size was NEVER an issue. There were no “Oh LOL Sookie gets asked if she’s pregnant all the time because she’s so faaaaaat” moments. None. They never used her size for LOLs.

      I’m not saying they do that here, in M&M, either. I mean, it’s a little more blurred because size is actually a big part of the show’s focus, but I agree, teh premise is that everyone deserves love and a full, happy life. That’s not glorifying obesity and it’s not using size for lolz.

      Oh, and a silly little sidenote re: King of Queens….maybe it’s because we’re so used to normal-ish guys having hot wives? 😛 I mean, when I think of that I always think of Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin, among others. Both are fat idiots with hot, smart wives. Hahahaha. Yeah, that had nothing to do with anything, but still. 😛

  • This is cool! And so interested! Are u have more posts like this? Plese tell me, thanks

    • Actually, yes, I post an outfit every week that’s inspired by a fandom character. :)