Ann Dowd, who plays Aunt Lydia, is an average looking middle aged woman

[gollygee]

Since when did being compared to an average woman become an insult? Huckabee wasn't even compared to her because of her looks, but apparently any comparison of any kind to any woman who isn't young and beautiful is an insult? Where did this come from?

This is the strangest part of the whole Michelle Wolf thing.

(Edit: Ann Dowd is also an amazing actress.)

[JustAnotherGen]

1. She acts like the Character in the book

And as portrayed on TV -

A dour, grim, sneering, vicious monster who carries water for an UnAmerican leader.

[BannonsLiver]

3. I've watched the show one time and was able to figure that out.

[mercuryblues]

8. I haven't watch the show or read the book

and even I was able to figure that out.

[gollygee]

4. I agree that was Wolf's comparison

but I have read online that people consider it to be an insult regardless because they seem to think it is inherently insulting to be compared to an average looking middle aged woman. Regardless of the comparison between what Huckabee does and Aunt Lydia's job. I don't understand this idea of it being horrible to be compared to an average woman. I read in a local online source that "of course" anyone would be offended by being compare to someone who "looks like that." It's weird.

[Caliman73]

9. Says alot about them doesn't it?

When guys call other guys a "cocksucker" or when people say, "You run like a girl" or "you're a retard", it is easy to see why people would be offended by the use of that language because the implication is that there is something inherently wrong with homosexual sexual activity, or perhaps even women performing oral sex on men. That is the insult, subservience, being gay, etc... Same with running, throwing, hitting, etc... like a girl. The connotation is that it is BAD, WRONG, and you should be insulted.

It is obvious that Wolf was comparing Huckabee's personality and role, to that of Aunt Lydia, and I have not even watched the show, though I have seen the movie and understand the context of the show. I immediately assumed that Aunt Lydia, was a duplicitous character who supported a tyrant. I did not know what she looked like and did not care.

It says more about those responding to the insult, that they are so focused on the physical aspects of the character rather than who the character is and what her role is in the series.

[JustAnotherGen]

17. That says a lot more about the people

Who say it's bad to look that way - doesn't it.

[Blue_Adept]

2. People are so ready to be offended that they'll misinterpret so many simple things

Especially since there are a lot of people who've never read the book or watched the show to understand the character. Usually I just go with SHS as being a more serious Baghdad Bob but that only works with a crowd of a certain age.

[gollygee]

6. But they hear that and the first assumption is that Ann Dowd is ugly and no one would want to be

compared to her? That it would be horrible and shameful and humiliating to be compared to Ann Dowd?

[iamateacher]

5. Ann Dowd is attractive

She is also 30 years older than Sarah H. Sarah does dress and act older than her age. But I agree, the reference was to the character of Aunt Lydia.

[MuseRider]

7. Ann Dowd is amazing.

She is a terrific actress and it is probably really rewarding to her that someone who thinks that someone else is evil would compare one of her characters to that person. It would mean to me that she was doing a fantastic job of acting.

I have no doubt that is what was meant.

[Sophia4]

10. Aunt Lydia, not Ann Dowd, was the reference.

The Aunts are a class of women assigned to indoctrinate Handmaids with the beliefs of the new society and make them accept their fates. Aunt Lydia works at the Red Center, the re‑education school where Offred and other women go for instruction before becoming Handmaids.

Although she appears mainly in Offred’s flashbacks, Aunt Lydia and her instructions haunt Offred in her daily life. Aunt Lydia’s slogans and maxims drum the ideology of the new society into heads of the women, until even those like Offred, women who do not truly believe in the ideology, hear Gilead’s words echoing in their heads.

The only time when Aunt Lydia is seen in the novel is at the Salvaging.

http://the-handmaids-tale.wikia.com/wiki/Aunt_Lydia

More about Aunt Lydia at that website in case you don't know the story.

Republicans live in a world in which their own virtue is never questioned. It's the world of the prosperity church, and they feel good in it.

Being roused to reality by a comedian is more than they can take. It's like being awakened precisely at the moment of a dream that was just delightful . . . just being cruelly jarred awake by a noise just as something wonderful was happening. And when you realize that you are awake and that your beautiful dream wasn't real, you feel the loss of that dream, and you are angry.

Doesn't happen often. But it's very hard, usually impossible, to recreate that precise marvelous moment just before when the dream disappeared, that moment when you were still dreaming.

The Republicans had to wake up just for a moment and see and feel the misery that is their comfortable dream-lie. And it hurt. They will try to go back to their dream, to their illusion, but it won't seem quite as wonderful as it did before they woke up. This was a turning point on some level, but we won't see the benefits of the turn for quite some time.

[oasis]

11. Ann Dowd/"Dowdy"Sarah.

Brilliantly subtle.

Got to hand it to Michele Wolf on that one.

[Solly Mack]

12. Ann Dowd is awesome but then that wasn't what Wolf meant.

I do think that the (some of the) people who do not think Ann Dowd attractive are more likely to take Wolf's comments as an attack on appearance (of SHS).

But that says more about how they think and where their biases come into play.

If you feel guilty about thinking SHS unattractive, you might overcompensate by defending her against any slight - even imagined ones.

If you think any woman over a certain age less attractive than youth, then you might hear Wolf's words as an attack on the appearance of SHS - but, again, that says more about those people than it does Wolf.

Wolf did not attack how SHS looks - and those pretending she did most likely have negative opinions of how SHS looks. That's their baggage, not Wolf's.

I've also noticed the usual suspects in the press and among the punditry have chosen to take offense by mischaracterizing Wolf's comments simply to go on the attack against "elites" and all the other code words for liberal.

[gollygee]

13. I realize that's not why the comparison was made!

Read the second sentence I wrote, the one that starts with, "Huckabee wasn't even compared to her because of her looks . . ." I've read the book, watched the series, watched the earlier movie. I know who Aunt Lydia is.

Though I should have said Sanders. I forgot the Sanders part.

I realize Wolf wasn't comparing them because of looks! I'm commenting on the fact that people ASSUMED it was a comparison based on looks. Why did people jump to that? There's nothing horrible about how Ann Dowd looks. Why would people even think that? I think our society sees any comparison between women, and especially to a woman who isn't young and beautiful, to be a stinging indictment of how someone looks. Most people don't look beyond that. Why is that?

[Solly Mack]

16. We know you know. :)

I was just restating the obvious because with all the (feigned) confusion, it bears repeating.

[MineralMan]

14. The character, not the actor, was referenced.

There is a difference, you know. Actors play characters, but do not become those characters.

I fail to take your point, I'm afraid.

[gollygee]

15. Maybe read my post, and then read my reply just before this. nt

[procon]

18. Yeah, "looks" is an easy target for anyone who never read the book

or watched the show. There has to be some intellectual connection to understand Wolf's reference to Aunt Lydia, an evil character in The Handmaid's Tale who, a willing tool of the patriarchal government. Aunt Lydia gleefully tortures captured women to force them into submission as vessels of State mandated pregnancy, hence her naming Pence.

Most Republicans grabbed for the low hanging fruit and started howling about Wolf's attacking Sanders "looks", presumably because they know nothing about the premise of the novel or its relevance today. Amazingly, far too many DUers, joined them. When Wolf alluded to Sanders as Aunt Lydia's doppelganger, the similarities as lying mouthpieces who support authoritarian regimes were obvious, but her critics only takeaway was "makeup".