It is clear that we are all meant to be grossly offended and shocked, and that is certainly the read Stewart got from the right-wing responses. I would expect nothing less. Unsophisticated thinkers have thick filters. They see what they want and if something doesn’t reflect their narrow views of humanity they simply change the filter to something easier.

I don’t know if I can speak for most conservatives, but at least among the punditry class I can safely say none of us were “shocked” or “outraged” at Stewart’s masculine cosplay. We were saddened…for her, not for ourselves.

I read the entire piece. Stewart and her interviewer went to great lengths to show her as happy, content, and at peace with herself. What I and many others saw was completely the opposite. I saw an emaciated young woman, forced to conform her body to the standards of the very industry she says (right there in the article and in many comments before and after) abused and disrespected her body her entire life. I saw a woman begging for agency over her own body, and landing on the false premise that the only way for a woman to have agency over herself is to be more like a man.