The Paint Tin

An article written last year for Independent, a British journalism platform, notes the rather reserved stance that Anne Hathaway had taken about already being passed over for roles at 32, roles that are going to, you guessed it, younger women. "I can't complain about it because I benefited from it. When I was in my early twenties, parts would be written for women in their fifties and I would get them," she told Glamour. "Now I'm in my early thirties and I'm like, 'Why did that 24-year-old get that part? I was that 24-year-old once. I can't be upset about it, it's the way things are."

The passivity of Hathaway is quite remarkable. It is perhaps her stance on the subject that helps the system continue. Read the whole post here. 

Women being valued for their beauty is not a new idea, nor is the ageism against female actors in Hollywood. An actress might have a harder time finding satisfying roles as she embraces her age, grey hair or less than supple skin. Meryl Streep, one of a handful of popular actresses over 60 that have continued to appear in movies, is now 67, but thought her career would be over at 40 (as cited in Mic.com) after she was offered role after role as a witch, she knew that Hollywood has certain ideas about when one starts being considered ‘getting up there’ in years, what kind of capabilities older women have as actors, and what kinds of roles are suitable for them (which, if their sexuality is not the main focus, are more ‘grotesque’ like a witch. 

Going through the research and other non-academic sources, I didn’t really see until now the prevalence of the age gaps among genders in Hollywood. Now I see it everywhere. I see that older men are able to take advantage of their wrinkles and grey hair because we as a society have interpreted that as related to being sexy and distinguished and wise. Women, on the other hand, are not shown as capable with age, or with increased knowledge, and their sexiness or comfort in their skin is not made automatically apparent like it is with male actors. Younger and younger actresses are being cast to play the love interests of men that are only getting older. It’s interesting that older women can be the protagonists of movies if romance or sexuality is the defining plot line. It seems women have to constantly balance their sex appeal and wanting to be continuously working as respectable actors. These posts were not focused on how ageism in Hollywood affects audiences of these films, but the experiences are not unrelated. Ageism AND gender are important to look at when it comes to income disparities. Hollywood movies are telling us a lot of things about how we perceive aging and how it affects individuals and society as a whole. 

Photo: moviepilot.com

In “Leading Men Age, But Their Love Interests Don’t” (vulture.com) the ages of leading actors and actresses on the release date of popular Hollywood movies depict an unmistakable trend: as male actors gain years on the silver screen, (as shown in a smooth upward line) their love interests’ ages appear to stabilize mainly around the early-twenties to mid-thirties. Looks like the ‘half your age plus 7′ rule doesn’t always apply in on-screen romances, especially if you’re male. (We’ll have to dig further into the creation of that rule, and why we think that that specific age difference is the last frontier before it gets ‘creepy’, but that’s a whole other can of worms).

Amy Schumer meets actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tina Fey, and Patricia Arquette celebrating Julia’s ‘Last F*ckable Day’ basically meaning her career has been deemed over by faceless authorities in the media. With discussion of how men don’t have their day, the skit comments on the double standard of aging in Hollywood. While not bringing up wages, it implies that an actress’ sex appeal is what keeps her in the public eye (and keeps her career afloat) and not whether she would be suitable for a role based on her acting skills. Getting older seems to be the number one enemy to actresses in Hollywood and affects the roles they are offered, as Tina Fey notes:

Looking at the intersection of gender and age shows the reasons why older female stars will earn less money than their male counterparts on the silver screen. In a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Management Inquiry, De Pater, Judge, and Scott (2014) have found that “average earnings per film of female movie stars increase until the age of 34 but decrease rapidly thereafter. Male movie stars’ average earnings per film reach the maximum at age 51 and remain stable after that”. The authors acknowledge the gender-wage gap and employment differences in predominately male arenas, citing that in 2010, median earnings of full-time working women were still 81% to that of men (De Pater et al 2014). While this doesn’t comment on racial differences in wage earning, it is found that as women get older, they earn less than men of their same age group (younger people have a smaller wage gap). While the authors also acknowledge that any movie has risk of failure and casting the most sought-after actor doesn’t guarantee success (see also Ch. 6 in ‘Mix It Up’ by David Grazian), they find that actors salaries reflect their market value (with older men earning more than older women as they age). There is a double standard for aging, with women entering the industry on average 6 years younger than men, winning awards at younger ages, and facing less-than-attractive role opportunities as they age (De Pater et al 2014). They find that age has different social meanings for men, who’s “well-worn faces convey maturity, character, and experience” while a woman’s face is “valued for appearing young” (2014). 

Using age, gender, number of awards and nominations, and earnings for their most recent films, they authors find that ageism is very much alive for women in Hollywood. While some might be skeptical of the research methods for this study (finding the information on websites like IMDb.com), I trust these findings because they utilize historical gender wage gap information and connect it to ageism. The study comments not only on the Hollywood wage gap, but also on how getting older is seen as a privilege or an obstacle, depending on one’s gender.

Here’s a link to the full article: (Located in Sage Journals, free viewing for USF-affiliated persons) 

What is it about getting older that is so frightening to our society? Are we going to lose friends and family if we develop wrinkles and grey hair? Is it the beginning of the end? What happens when we, especially women, are constantly bombarded with images from Hollywood and other media that claim to have the secret to the anti-aging Holy Grail? While women of all careers and classes in America might feel varying degrees of the pressure to look youthful (therefore more beautiful and valued), I will focus my posts on how women on the silver screens of Hollywood are not allowed to age in the same way that their male co-stars are. What does this say about beauty expectations in the industry, and how does it translate into society in general?

The natural process of aging has been vilified, especially for women. They might fear that with age, they could lose someone’s love for them. Increased age might bring very-real internal health concerns--are they going to become dependent on others? While concerns like these could happen to anyone regardless of gender, where could ideas about being ‘less capable’, ‘less valued’ in society have stemmed from if women embrace getting older? Women are constantly told by media and other pop culture formats that a lot of their power comes from their sex appeal, or their youthfulness, or beauty. Showing yourself as young equates to showing yourself as powerful, full-of-life. One source that constantly promotes this thinking is Hollywood. Analyses of popular American movies from Tinseltown have mapped the ages of male and female actors in these films, and have shown that as actors like Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson, Denzel Washington, and Robert DeNiro are allowed to age and still appear in movies, while their female co-stars don’t seem to be aging at all (meaning that as female actors get older, it might be harder to find the same type of roles as before). Older men can still claim the sexiness of age, while their on-screen female counterparts stay mostly under the big 4-0. The following posts are meant to analyze these age trends in Hollywood, and show that perhaps age is way more than just a number.