Matt McGorry Nails Takedown Of Piers Morgan

In an essay for the U.K.'s Daily Mail on Thursday, Piers Morgan criticized Ellen DeGeneres' performance at Wednesday evening's People's Choice Awards, only to reveal that his essay was actually a joke. Then, on Thursday afternoon, actor Matt McGorry was quick to point out the flaws in Morgan's actual arguments about equality, which oversimplified gender dynamics. McGorry is no stranger to Twitter controversy — he frequently shares articles about racial injustice and sexism across the globe. In his Twitter bio, McGorry describes himself as an "activist and intersectional feminist." But it's not every day that he goes after a fellow celebrity — especially in a 10-part Tweetstorm. During DeGeneres' performance in question, she shared a shirtless photo of Chris Hemsworth while accepting the People's Choice Award for "Favorite Humanitarian." Morgan wrote in his Daily Mail essay that this was sexist, only to later clarify that he'd been joking for the first part of the essay and found DeGeneres' performance funny. Morgan's essay wasn't all in good humor, though — he used DeGeneres' performance to mount a sort of defense for cricket player Chris Gayle, who was fined this week for saying, "Don't blush, baby," to a female reporter. Morgan argues that women should "view male humor in the same way they view their own," suggesting there's a double standard between the media's reaction to Gayle's and DeGeneres' actions. But, as McGorry pointed out on Twitter, the incidents are hardly comparable. For one thing, Gayle didn't appear to be joking — Cricket Australia chief executive officer James Sutherland said in a statement Gayle's comments "border on harassment." It'd be hard to argue the same for DeGeneres' sharing of the Hemsworth photo.

And as McGorry notes, women are subject to "much harsher beauty standards than men and are much more likely to be discrim[inated] against in nearly all areas." A double standard implies that both parties are on equal footing — and that's not the case for men and women throughout history (and today). Morgan may have intended his article as a lighthearted essay, but his comparison of the two incidents isn't a great one, and McGorry's Tweetstorm perfectly illustrates the reasons why.

Morgan, for his part, dismissed McGorry's tweets with a single reply.