Ageism in Hollywood Slowly Gaining Attention
This past Wednesday, actress Olivia Wilde revealed how she was deemed “too old” to be cast as Leonardo DiCaprio's girlfriend in The Wolf of Wall Street. While the 32 year-old actress later explained how she harbors no ill feelings, the ageist agenda which caused her to be rejected for the role seems to be a common reality for many women in the film industry.
Ageism can be defined as the “prejudice or discrimination on the basis of a person’s age”, and until recently, ageism in Hollywood has gone unnoticed and unreported for decades. Ageism in the film industry has been known to specifically target women. Ageism not only undermines the talent of many “older” actresses, but it also creates a stereotypical standard of what is considered “desirable” and what is considered “beautiful”.
“What we see in Broadcast television is that the majority of female characters are in their 20s and 30s. That is just a huge misrepresentation of what is reality and that really skews our perceptions.” Martha Lauze, founder of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film said.
According to a documentary titled Miss Representation, Women in their teens, 20s, and 30s are roughly 39% of the U.S. population, yet make up 71% of the women shown on television. Women 40 and older are 47% of the U.S. population, but only make up 26% of the women seen on television.
Ageism also perpetuates the dull, one-dimensional characters that many women are forced to portray. Actress Liv Tyler, 38, joined in on the conversation stating, “When you’re in your teens or 20s there is an abundance of ingénue parts which fare exciting to play. But at [my age], you’re usually the wife or the girlfriend, a sort of second-class citizen.”
Unfortunately, ageism has also evolved into a double standard between male and female actors. Actors such as Mel Gibson (60), Brad Pitt (52), and Tom Hanks (59) are still considered “handsome” and appear in numerous films every year. The double standard which ageism perpetuates can be seen when actress Carrie Fisher, famous for playing Princess Leia Organa in the “Star Wars” franchise, was scrutinized over her appearance in the recent installment, labeled as to have “aged badly”. On the other hand, Fisher’s colleague Harrison Ford is 14 years her senior, and still manages to land leading roles and is seen as “visually pleasing”.
Hollywood gets away with casting older male actors to romance much younger women. Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal was considered “too old”, at 37, to play a love interest of a 55 year-old man. This phenomena is not new, and has been in effect since Hollywood’s beginnings: Vivien Leigh was 12 years younger than Clark Gable during the filming of 1940’s Gone With The Wind.
Actresses like Helen Mirren (70), Meryl Streep (66), and Julianne Moore (55) are rare in Hollywood, and even Helen Mirren criticized ageism in Hollywood, calling it “outrageous”. Actress Viola Davis called out Hollywood ageism in her acceptance speech at the 2015 SAG awards, thanking How to Get Away With Murder writers for “…thinking that a sexualized, messy, mysterious woman could be a 49 year old dark-skinned African American woman who looks like me.”
Hollywood ageism continues to preserve false pretenses of beauty and body image, which end up being internalized by the public. Although I still personally believe ageism in the film industry is often overlooked, seeing high profile stars speaking out against ageism is reassuring that it is slowly becoming a concern.
