5 Gems From Jeffrey Wells, Film Criticismâs Greatest Troll
Uma Thurman
Jeffrey Wells developed a strange cult following of hate-readers for his stream-of-consciousness posts on everything from Uma Thurmanâs face to how fuckable Cameron Diaz is …
Youâre Jeffrey Wells, and youâve just seen 3:10 to Yuma. You thought it was OK, but it was missing something. Suddenly, it hits you: While you greatly enjoyed the movieâs topless scenes featuring Vinessa Shaw, you might be more favorable toward the movie as a whole if the director, James Mangold, were to personally supply you with nude photos of Ms. Shaw. Thatâs a reasonable request and something that normal people totally do, right?
Ever the go-getter, Jeffrey Wells personally emailed Mangold to inquireâbut he swore he wasnât going to do anything creepy with them.To say that Jeffrey Wells is Americaâs worst film critic is to do a disservice to just how truly, incredibly terrible this man is at his job.
Cameron Diaz
A movie blogger and entertainment reporter for the cesspool of industry gossip known as Hollywood Elsewhere, Wells developed a strange cult following of hate-readers for his stream-of-consciousness posts on everything from Uma Thurmanâs face to how fuckable Cameron Diaz is (answer: not so much these days). He recently made headlines again after a screening of Alejandro G. Iñårrituâs The Revenant, featuring a very cold Leonardo DiCaprio as a 19th century fur trapper on a quest for revenge. Taking a page out of the Dr. Pepper 10 playbook, Wells warned the âunflinchingly brutalâ film was not for women or âsissies.â
Wells was excoriated on Twitter for the comment, and in true Wellsian fashion, his version of a mea culpa to triple down. He claimed that the woman next to him was forced by her delicate constitution to â[shield] her eyes every five or ten minutes and even going into a curled-over, fetal-tuck position at times, literally bending over and almost chirping like a chipmunk during the extra-violent or extra-gross scenes and being such a total candy-ass that I nudged her a couple of times.â As you know, one womanâs behavior is obviously indicative of her entire gender. (It must be why all those female meteorologists dress alike!)
These comments might have seemed like the absurd, outrageous remnants of Mad Men-era sexism, but for Jeffrey Wells, itâs just another day in the neighborhood. If youâre new to the plague upon mankind that is his writing, here are 5 of Wellsâ most infamous controversies.
Feel free to rage-click away.
1. Move over, actress too fat.
Wells may have spawned Amy Schumerâs incredible 12 Angry Men parody, in which the comedienne ruthlessly mocks the idea that sheâs too ugly for basic cable. After the trailer for the Judd Apatow-directed Trainwreck debuted in February, Jeffrey Wells took issue with the idea that anyone who looks like âJennifer Anistonâs somewhat heavier, not-as-lucky sister who watches a lot of TVâ could believably star in a romantic comedy.
Amy Schumer
He wrote:
âDirector Judd Apatow is once again introducing a chubby, whipsmart, not conventionally attractive, neurotically bothered female comic to a mass audienceâfirst Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids (â11), then Lena Dunham in HBOâs Girls (â12) and now Amy Schumer, the star and writer of Trainwreck as well as the star of Comedy Centralâs Inside Amy Schumer. Sheâs obviously sharp and clever and funny as far as the woe-is-me, self-deprecating thing goes, but thereâs no way sheâd be an object of heated romantic interest in the real world.âWells had the same criticisms about Jennifer Lawrence, who apparently nobody wants to fuck either.
After the Hunger Games film franchise debuted in 2012, a number of criticsâincluding the New York Timesâ Manohla Dargis and the Hollywood Reporterâs Todd McCarthyâremarked that star Jennifer Lawrence didnât look hungry enough. McCarthy particularly called attention to the actressâ âbaby fat.â But no one went harder on the fat-shaming bandwagon than Jeffrey Wells, who remarked that Lawrence is âtoo bigâ to play the love interest of co-star Josh Hutcherson: âSheâs a fairly tall, big-boned lady.â
Jennifer Lawrence
Jeffrey Wells has elsewhere proved himself an equal opportunity fat-shamer by calling out A-list actors Chris Pratt, Vince Vaughn, and Jason Segel for being âquite overfed.â Wells wrote that Segel âhas a chunky, blemished ass and little white man-boobs, and he could definitely use a little treadmill and stairmaster time and a serious cutback program regarding pasta, Frito scoop chips, Ben & Jerryâs and Fatburger takeout.â If any of this surprises you, remember that this is the guy who once compared child obesity to heroin addiction.
2. This movie doesnât have enough nude photos in it.
Youâre Jeffrey Wells, and youâve just seen 3:10 to Yuma. You thought it was OK, but it was missing something. Suddenly, it hits you: While you greatly enjoyed the movieâs topless scenes featuring Vinessa Shaw, you might be more favorable toward the movie as a whole if the director, James Mangold, were to personally supply you with nude photos of Ms. Shaw. Thatâs a reasonable request and something that normal people totally do, right?
Ever the go-getter, Jeffrey Wells personally emailed Mangold to inquireâbut he swore he wasnât going to do anything creepy with them. A copy of the correspondence was leaked to Deadline, and Wells really missed an opportunity by not titling the subject line âRE: Tits or GTFO to Yuma?â He pleads:
âI am on my knees, Mr. Mangold, saying thank you, thank you and thank you again for persuading Vinessa Shaw to do her first flat-out, boob-baring nude scene. I was in heaven as Crowe drew her on his notepad. Please tell me thereâs somebody on the Yuma team who can slip me some stills of the shooting that day⊠please. Iâm serious. I know you think like I do in this respect, so please ⊠as one good hombre to another ⊠you donât have to be the guy who passes along the stills. Just tell the still photographer or the editor or whomever caught her as she posed. Iâm not a sleazebag eitherâI donât pass along stills to the Mr. Skin crowd or my friends. This would be just for my, myself & I.â
3. Itâs time to celebrate this womanâs âlast fuckable day.â
He might suck at soliciting nudes, but if thereâs anything that Jeffrey Wells does excel at, itâs explaining why this conventionally attractive person is not as conventionally attractive as you think. Heâs like a Vox explainer mixed with Donald Trump.
In the past, Wells has particularly set his sights on Uma Thurman and Cameron Diaz for aging, as all human women do (except for Raquel Welch). When What Happens in Vegas debuted in 2008, the movie blogger thought the premise stretched credibility. Was it because the filmâs plot is a far-fetched opposite-attract romance in which two hotties who hate each other are forced to split a Vegas jackpot after drunkenly getting married? No, itâs because Cameron Diaz is five years older than her love interest, Ashton Kutcher.
Hereâs his take:
âThing is, Kutcher looks his age (if not a year or two younger) and she looksâŠwell, like sheâs almost nudging 40, no? The last time Diaz radiated anything close to a spring-chicken glow was when she costarred in Thereâs Something About Mary (â98).â
Those comments are strikingly reminiscent of yet another Amy Schumer skit, âLast Fuckable Day,â in which actresses Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Patricia Arquette, and Tina Fey argue that thereâs always a day when the media decides an aging actress is no longer desirable. For Uma Thurman, that day was February 11, 2015âafter the Pulp Fiction actress debuted a surprisingly controversial makeup choice on the red carpet than many mistook for bad plastic surgery. This was the date that Wells decided to publicly disavow all knowledge of Thurmanâs hotness. âIf this is the new Uma then Iâm no longer interestedâŠno offense,â Wells wrote.
4. Women are like dogsâno, wait, the world would be better off if they were like dogs.
After taking in Neil LaButeâs reasons to be pretty in 2009, Jeffrey Wells mounts a defense of telling your girlfriend sheâs just average-looking, which he believes is a âcomplimentâ: âIf you substitute ânormalâ for a letter grade of B-plus, B, B-minus or C-plus, you could almost see ânormalâ as a kind of compliment.â
In what might be the most hypocritical thing heâs ever writtenâconsidering that heâs devoted his entire career to telling women why they arenât hot enough and will, thus, never land a manâhe argues that lackluster ladies are better off. According to Wells, these women âhave tasted a little rejection and have come to understand that love and relationships are a two-way street and that itâs not all about them and their whims or whatever.â He continues, âBy this standard women who are Cs should be even better (sweeter, kinder, fairer-minded, more spiritually resourceful, more turn-the-other-cheek) than Bs, and that C-minuses and Ds would be better still and so on.â
In fact, life would be a lot better if we stopped praising women all the time and reminded them that, really, all of them are nothing but Cs and Ds:
âTheyâve all been taught that all they need to do is look around and send certain signals and guys all around them will drop to their knees and start panting like dogs. Life would be heavenly and rhapsodic if women had the personality and temperament of dogs â forever loyal, non-judgmental, constantly affectionate. But thatâs a loserâs dream.â
5. If your child has a disability, donât take him to the movies.
But Jeffrey Wells doesnât just hate women, gays, and fat people: He has enough disdain to share with everyone. If everything youâve read thus far isnât shameful enough, what might be perhaps Wellsâ lowest moment was in 2013, when the blogger called out a child with Down Syndrome for âruiningâ a screening of Gravity by being too loud. âThe guy was making spastic noises all through the film,â he said. âAudible to many but nobody squawked except for my friendâs dad.â
Wells stresses that he doesnât blame the child exactlyâitâs his parents that are the real âmoronsââbut he negates that claim by being Jeffrey Wells. âHe appeared to be significantly impaired in that he would yell out loud every few minutes, thus distracting everyone else in the theater,â Wells writes. âThis is no more different than someone chatting on their cell phone, or texting with a bright LED light, or a group of teenagers showing up to do everything but watch the film at hand.â
If youâre ever in a movie theater with both a little boy with Down Syndrome and Jeffrey Wells, do us all a favor and have this troll escorted from the premises immediately. Until then, please do us all a favor, Jeff, and shut up so we can enjoy our movies in peace.
Nico Lang is a Meryl Streep enthusiast, critic, and essayist. You can read his work on Salon, Rolling Stone, L.A. Times, Washington Post, Advocate, and the Guardian. Heâs also the author of  The Young People Who Traverse Dimensions and the co-editor of the best-selling BOYS anthology series.
Meryl Streep