Why You Don’t Body Shame Melanie Lynskey

Melanie Lynskey’s first role was as Pauline Parker, one-half of the murderous teen girl duo in Heavenly Creatures (1994). It was directed by Peter Jackson and starred Kate Winslet as Juliet Hulme. Since then, she has continued to play compelling characters in both comedies and dramas — all while facing the mean-spiritedness of Hollywood body shaming.

Melanie is a gorgeous, thin star, but she is not “Hollywood thin,” making her the target of criticism and cruelty. Some people can’t seem to handle the fact that there is someone in the movies who dares to work and perform without forcing herself into extreme thinness first.

Lynskey is not the only actress who has experienced this kind of vitriol, by any means, but she is tackling it head-on. Perhaps her words can be an encouragement to anyone else who is feeling pressure to change their body or judgment from friends and strangers about what they look like!

In a recent interview with Hoda Kotb on The Today Show about the next season of her show Yellowjackets, Melanie explained her response to body shamers.

Here are some key quotes from the interview:

• “I just sort of feel like it’s the year 2023. Are we not in a place where we can accept that people have different kinds of bodies? There’s still a lot of people with slender, wonderful bodies around on television. Just let there be a couple of women who represent the vast majority of women in the world.”
• “I just don’t really understand what the issue is and I’m just over it. It’s exhausting.”
• “I’m very lucky to be in a great relationship with somebody who just loves me unconditionally and makes me feel beautiful in sweatpants — literally.”
• “The responses I have gotten from women are the thing that have really kept me going, just women feeling seen and feeling validated and saying, ‘I feel like I’ve seen myself on television. I feel represented suddenly. And to me, that’s the bigger picture. That’s bigger than me feeling scared to speak out because there might be repercussions.”

Lynskey vs. Curry

Earlier this year, model-entertainer Adrianne Curry (who has been saying unpleasant things on the internet for well over a decade) posted a body-shaming Tweet about Lynskey’s two-episode run in The Last of Us.

Curry, who later deleted her Twitter account over the significant backlash she received, wrote of Lynskey’s character Kathleen: “Her body says life of luxury… not post apocolyptic [sic] warlord. Where is Linda Hamilton when you need her?”

Her implication, of course, was that Lynskey was somehow too fat or not athletic-looking enough to have gained such a high level of power. It reveals that Curry equates powerful with super thin, and it makes you wonder what else she thinks people in larger bodies aren’t capable of doing.

Lynskey responded directly to Curry’s claims, writing in a series of Tweets:

Other than getting to work with creative geniuses who I respect and admire, the thing that excited me most about doing #TheLastOfUs is that my casting suggested the possibility of a future in which people start listening to the person with the best ideas. Not the coolest or the toughest person. The organizer. The person who knows where everything is. The person who is doing the planning. The person who can multitask. The one who’s decisive.

Women, and especially women in leadership positions, are scrutinized incessantly. ‘Her voice is too shrill.’ ‘Her voice is too quiet.’ ‘She pays too much attention to how she looks.’ ‘She doesn’t pay enough attention to how she looks.’ ‘She’s too angry.’ ‘She’s not angry enough.’ I was excited at the idea of playing a woman who had, in a desperate and tragic time, jumped into a role she had never planned on having and nobody else had planned on her having, and then she actually got sh** done.

I wanted her to look like she should have a notepad on her at all times. I wanted her to be feminine, and soft-voiced, and all the things that we’ve been told are “weak”. Because honestly, f*** that.

I understand that some people are mad that I’m not the typical casting for this role. That’s thrilling to me. Other than the moments after action is called, when you feel like you’re actually in someone else’s body, the most exciting part of my job is subverting expectations.

I’m so grateful to Craig and Neil for creating a truly new character. Someone I have never seen before. And for trusting me with her. And for letting me be on THE MOST AMAZING SHOW.

And I’m also grateful because the love and support I receive from you all is so overwhelming and powerful- I feel like we are a community and I feel very seen and loved. Ok rant over and thank you all so very much.

–Melanie Lynskey on Twitter

Adrianne Curry did eventually re-activate her Twitter account, but Lynskey gained countless new fans in the meantime — and validated so many more. Later, Curry tried to say that people were just “making mountains out of molehills,” but anyone who has been body-shamed knows that it always stings when it happens, even if the critic was being flippant or not thinking it through. That’s why it’s so great that Lynskey responds to these critics from time to time; it helps people feel seen and heard!

Quick note: Curry wanted Kathleen to look like Linda Hamilton, but let’s remember that Linda Hamilton had time to participate in intense, hours-long, daily workouts to get to the physique she had in each of the Terminator movies — time that Sarah Connor probably wouldn’t have time to do!

Similarly, there’s no way that Kathleen in The Last of Us would have spent her valuable hours doing intense, body-sculpting workouts when she had a QZ to run, people to hunt down, and political rivals to murder!

More Reasons Not to Body Shame Melanie Lynskey

We already know that Melanie Lynskey isn’t afraid to challenge people on their bad behavior when they participate in body shaming. If you need more reasons not to body shame Melanie Lynskey, this is what I’ve got:

• It’s a crappy thing to do to anyone, but not everyone has a highly enthusiastic fan base like Melanie Lynskey. She is absolutely treasured by her fans — and body shaming her online invites their attention.
• She’s objectively gorgeous in the first place.
• She has certainly accomplished more than any of her body shamers: check out that IMDb filmography!