A couple of months ago I read this Geek Twins article on 10 Oscar winning actors who disappeared after bad sci-fi movies. And one thing I noted was women on the list like Jennifer Connelly and Halle Berry disappearing from Hollywood was not that surprising, because generally by the time actresses get into their 40s they get offered fewer and fewer roles. It got me thinking of the #timesup and #metoo social media campaigns on sexual assault, much of it focusing on Hollywood. And really I think a large part of Hollywood's cultural problem in that area is that women are still largely seen as just pretty faces who are expendable.
A line in LA Confidential sums up the attitude when a Hollywood guy says basically that every day in LA a dozen girls get off a bus looking to be movie stars. It's probably true. And more to the point, that's how actresses have been seen pretty much since the beginning. If you don't want to do this kissing scene or sex scene or nude scene, we'll just get someone who will. If you don't let me grab your ass or fuck you, you won't get the part. If you complain about me to the press, we'll just replace you with some underwear model, ie the Transformers movies.
About 13 years ago I read Ingrid Bergman's biography for some background on a story. After winning an Oscar for Gaslight in 1944, she was blacklisted a few years later for having an affair with an Italian director and running away with him. After she came back in the 50s she won another Oscar for Anastasia. But then in the 60s even though she'd made her comeback, the roles started drying up. Why? Not because of blacklisting, so much as she was just getting older. Instead of the romantic leads she was being offered mom roles. And then later grandma roles. She ended up leaving the country again, pretty much for the rest of her life.
You can say that was the 50s and 60s, not today! But how many things do you see Jennifer Connelly or Halle Berry in these days? It's not just because they did a bad movie or two. It's because they're getting to that "certain age" where casting directors aren't going to ask them to play 30-something romantic leads or action heroes or anything. It's probably mostly mom roles at this point.
Until Wonder last year (which got some slight awards buzz) when was the last time you'd really seen Julia Roberts in anything? In the 90s she was America's Sweetheart and commanding $20M paydays and then she won the Oscar for Erin Brockavich, but within 10 years after that she was pretty well gone from the A-list. One of the last big roles she had before Wonder was appropriately Mother's Day. Back in '88 or so she was one of the young daughters in Steel Magnolias and now she's one of the moms in that other movie 25 years later. That's the cycle for women in Hollywood.
And of course there's a double-standard to it all. When they cast action movies with guys it's like The Rock (46), Tom Cruise (55), and Liam Neeson (65). When they cast action movies with female leads you get Jennifer Lawrence (27), Alicia Vikander (29), Gal Gadot (33), or old-timer Scarlett Johansson (34). You see the difference there? It's still not even if you think of all the Chrises (Pratt, Evans, Pine, and Hemsworth) who range from 35-38. You've had guys like Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, and Paul Newman still in big movies in their 70s-80s! Sure there are exceptions like Helen Mirren in the Red movies, but by and large the standard is that when it comes to casting women you want them young, whereas guys it doesn't really matter. And you can bet that as soon as Scar-Jo, J-Law, or any of those others start showing lines or their breasts sag, they'll be relegated to mostly mom roles too.
Hollywood women also aren't immune to the same pressure as normal women when it comes to babies. This Geek Twins article talks about how Natalie Portman isn't in Marvel movies now so she could focus on her new baby and such. When women have a baby, they're expected to be around and take care of the kid. It's not like a man, who can just go back to work the next day. With women, people look down at them if they go right back to work so there can be pressure to not go back right away. And with such short windows, taking 2-3 years off for a woman can pretty much end her A-list career. You say to the casting director you're not working for a little while and they'll just find someone else. I mean there are a dozen more pretty faces getting off the bus, right?
The other double-standard then is that we mock women who get facelifts, breast implants, and so forth. Like all the jokes about Joan Rivers. But we really don't give a shit about male stars who wear hairpieces like Bill Shatner, John Travolta, or Nic Cage. You suppose any of them get facelifts? No, of course not! But why shouldn't women try to look young and sexy when that's still primarily what they're judged on?
Since this is still the prevailing attitude, is it really surprising to find out so many male execs, directors, and stars are perverts? Sure there's been some progress made but there's still the mindset that every day another batch of pretty girls is showing up ready to take the place of those in the movies. Until that changes, you're going to continue hearing stories of groping, propositioning, and blackmailing.
How do we change that mindset? I guess we have to keep appreciating women even when they do start to get older. We have to give them the same suspension of disbelief as we do Harrison Ford or Liam Neeson. Until then nothing will really change. You can get rid of bad apples like Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby, but there are still plenty more in the barrel.
2 comments:
Maybe. I tend to think it's more complicated than that. Infinity War made me think of Thanos in a different way. I had sympathy for this monster even if his goals were to kill half the life in the universe. I think humanity, men and women, and the never ending circle of both sexes is in many ways like this, i.e., everyone is a monster. Roots for #metoo most likely arise out of toxic masculinity, which I think is like a stage four cancer. You want to get to it and treat it before it is at stage four because by then it is too late. However, if you don't get to it in time, the only way to get rid of it is to "surgically remove it" or "kill it dead." I think that people who complain about toxic masculinity don't realize there isn't a cure for it, except (maybe) at the end of a rifle. But to do that makes a monster of the person proposing the cure, but they desperately want a cure for it, but no one is willing to address exactly what that cure should be or whether it is ethical or not. Anyway...it's hard for me to wrap my head around, but in the end I think it is an unsolvable problem. It is the nature of monsters to be monstrous, or something like that. I'm glad though that people like you think that you've spotted the problem differently than I have, and that you think it is treatable. If it were left up to me, I'd have no clue even where to begin to correct anything of all this.
I think one reason you can have older men in lead roles is because women are more loyal to them as fans. We remember them when they were young and enjoy seeing them again. We don't care if they're not perfect anymore. The average man isn't like that when it comes to women...unfortunately.
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