Ben Affleck Fires Back at Fat-Shaming Critic Who Made Fun of His Gut and Back Tattoo
“I’m doing just fine. Thick skin bolstered by garish tattoos.”
Poking fun at sad, divorced, middle-aged Ben Affleck and his ugly back tattoo has become a pastime of celebrity bloggers everywhere (guilty!).
https://twitter.com/RafiDAngelo/status/975400075949150208
But Affleck isn’t going down without a fight. And we’re glad because fighting is great cardio.
A humor piece ran in the New Yorker of all places, titled “The Great Sadness of Ben Affleck,” remarking on the pitiable figure we see before us and what it says about our culture that we pity him.
Ben Affleck’s is the kind of middle-aged-white-male sadness that the Internet loves to mock—a mocking that depends on a rejection of this sadness, as well as a hedging identification with it. https://t.co/AHZrRgNrGs
— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) March 26, 2018
But mostly, it made fun of his back tattoo, which Affleck once falsely claimed was “fake” and “for a movie.”
“The tattoo—so gargantuan that the bird’s tail found itself dipping below the waistband of Affleck’s blue swim trunks—was plainly visible. In one image, the actor stands alone, looking off into the middle distance. His gut is pooching outward in a way that, in a more enlightened country like, say, France, would perhaps be considered virile, not unlike the lusty Gérard Depardieu in his prime but, in fitness-fascist America, tends to read as Homer Simpsonesque.”
He didn’t even let Matt Damon settle this one for him. Affleck took to Twitter to fire back, claiming he is doing “just fine.”
@NewYorker I’m doing just fine. Thick skin bolstered by garish tattoos.
— Ben Affleck (@BenAffleck) March 29, 2018
The Internet rallied around the unlikely body-positivity champion, celebrating him as the best Batman ever.
Just as a side note, you're the best Batman ever and I hope we get to see more of you in the role.
— Stemot (@Stemot1978) March 29, 2018
— Chris (@ChrisRa7en) March 29, 2018
Hey New Yorker, trying to sound literary and intellectual doesn't shield the fact that this is a whole story that essentially says Ben Affleck is fat now. https://t.co/6S3KZtLJYU
— Veena (@veenavenugopal) March 26, 2018
You know what, why doesn’t everyone leave Ben Affleck alone? That New Yorker piece was spiteful. It’s not often you see people putting the boot into a man for getting older, it’s usually done to women, but it’s just as mean and unnecessary. Leave him be.
— Fee McBee (@feemcbee) March 30, 2018