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Class, corpulence, and neoliberal citizenship: Melissa McCarthy on Saturday Night Live

2015; Routledge; Volume: 7; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/19392397.2015.1044758

1939-2400

Russell Meeuf,

Humor Studies and Applications

Examining Melissa McCarthy's performances as host of Saturday Night Live, this paper demonstrates how stereotypes of low social class are used to manage the seeming contradictions of obesity within contemporary US media culture. Despite the so-called obesity epidemic – in which obesity signifies moral and social decay – body image heroines such as the plus-sized McCarthy offer uplifting narratives of self-confidence and self-acceptance. These contradictory impulses, however, are simply two complementary modes of neoliberal self-governance, offering different forms of cultural citizenship based on self-transformation and self-promotion. McCarthy's stardom reveals the role that social class plays in managing these neoliberal trajectories. McCarthy's comic performances rely heavily on caricatures of vulgar, low-class obesity, and yet her public persona is that of a polite, middle-class everywoman. In this way, McCarthy's persona indicates how the stereotypes of the obesity epidemic can be appropriated by middle-class audiences as indicators of confidence within the regime of neoliberal self-actualisation.