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Monday, November 20, 2017
Three Generations Of Actresses On How Ageism Affects Women In Hollywood
NPR: NPR's Kelly McEvers talks with actresses Tippi Hedren, Melanie Griffith and Dakota Johnson about how the opportunities for women in Hollywood have changed over the generations.
The ageism of Hollywood is something that we have all known existed for a long time. It's clear in the movies we watch that never have older women, or if they do cast them in the same grandmotherly or fortune teller type over and over again. It's clear in the number of older women we see - or rather, we don't see - walking the red carpet. And it's clear in the regular theater world, too. While Broadway has gotten better about writing parts for older women, its only recently that those roles weren't played by younger actresses aged with hair and makeup and coached to act old. While older women are being seen more and more in film and theater, from War Paints casting of their fiery protagonists (albeit of famous Broadway divas) to the roles of older women as warriors in Wonder Woman or the late Carrie Fisher portraying an older Leia, there's still a significant lack of diverse roles for older women. And though the entertainment industry has always struggled to handle aging in their female stars, it's something that needs to be addressed. Older men get plenty of new, interesting, and deep roles, so why can't older women?
I think that the role of women in film is extremely sexist and ageist. While I know that the industry is in a constant flux and has changed a lot since Tippi Hedren’s prime, Dakota Johnson does point out an important flaw in the film industry. Age puts a time frame on actors and actresses success. Older women are often not the main character of films because films are written for a young audience. Youth is the loneliest time of all yet it is also the most written about and glorified. Youth is cherished and captured in such an extreme way in films. While I am unsure of the success a film that has a main character that is an older women - I think it wouldn’t hurt for the industry to branch out and stop recycling the same old stories with different actors.
This interview does a really good job of addressing agism in Hollywood. It seems to happen across the board and for female comedians it has become a joke because of how prevalent it is. Tina Fey and Amy Schumer even have skit about it. What bothers me most is the double standard and what it implies: that women are valuable as long as they are sexy. This same issue does not happen to men in nearly the same way. No one would say, “We can’t cast him he is too old,” but producers seem to say it all the time about women. There is this very sexist pretense that you have to be attractive to be put on screen and somehow wrinkles isn’t part of that. This idea also reinforces unreasonable beauty standards, that only young women can be beautiful which is blatantly untrue.
3 comments:
The ageism of Hollywood is something that we have all known existed for a long time. It's clear in the movies we watch that never have older women, or if they do cast them in the same grandmotherly or fortune teller type over and over again. It's clear in the number of older women we see - or rather, we don't see - walking the red carpet. And it's clear in the regular theater world, too. While Broadway has gotten better about writing parts for older women, its only recently that those roles weren't played by younger actresses aged with hair and makeup and coached to act old. While older women are being seen more and more in film and theater, from War Paints casting of their fiery protagonists (albeit of famous Broadway divas) to the roles of older women as warriors in Wonder Woman or the late Carrie Fisher portraying an older Leia, there's still a significant lack of diverse roles for older women. And though the entertainment industry has always struggled to handle aging in their female stars, it's something that needs to be addressed. Older men get plenty of new, interesting, and deep roles, so why can't older women?
I think that the role of women in film is extremely sexist and ageist. While I know that the industry is in a constant flux and has changed a lot since Tippi Hedren’s prime, Dakota Johnson does point out an important flaw in the film industry. Age puts a time frame on actors and actresses success. Older women are often not the main character of films because films are written for a young audience. Youth is the loneliest time of all yet it is also the most written about and glorified. Youth is cherished and captured in such an extreme way in films. While I am unsure of the success a film that has a main character that is an older women - I think it wouldn’t hurt for the industry to branch out and stop recycling the same old stories with different actors.
This interview does a really good job of addressing agism in Hollywood. It seems to happen across the board and for female comedians it has become a joke because of how prevalent it is. Tina Fey and Amy Schumer even have skit about it. What bothers me most is the double standard and what it implies: that women are valuable as long as they are sexy. This same issue does not happen to men in nearly the same way. No one would say, “We can’t cast him he is too old,” but producers seem to say it all the time about women. There is this very sexist pretense that you have to be attractive to be put on screen and somehow wrinkles isn’t part of that. This idea also reinforces unreasonable beauty standards, that only young women can be beautiful which is blatantly untrue.
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