Disturbing Age Differences in Hollywood

For my last blog of the year, I want to vent about something particularly disturbing: the alarming (and, quite frankly, disgusting) age differences between male Hollywood stars and their female on-screen love interests.

Let's just take a moment to examine some especially troubling pairings I noticed just from 2014:

• Tom Cruise (51) and Emily Blunt (31) in Edge of Tomorrow (20 year difference)
• Jon Favreau (48) and Scarlett Johansson (30) in Chef (18 year difference)
• Colin Farrell (38) and Jessica Brown Findlay (25) in Winter's Tale (13 year difference)
• Sam Rockwell (46) and Keira Knightley (29) in Laggies (15 year difference)
• Aaron Eckhart (46) and Yvonne Strahovski (32) in I, Frankenstein (14 year difference)
• Johnny Depp (51) and Rebecca Hall (32) in Transcendence (19 year difference)
• Michael Fassbender (37) and Jennifer Lawrence (24) in X-Men: Days of Future Past (13 year difference)
• Colin Firth (54) and Emma Stone (26) in Magic in the Moonlight (28 year difference), pictured below

So fucking gross.

• Mark Wahlberg (43) and Brie Larson (25) in The Gambler (18 year difference)
• Bill Murray (64) and Naomi Watts (46) in St. Vincent (18 year difference)
• Jason Bateman (45) and Rose Byrne (35) in This is Where I Leave You (10 year difference)
• Robert Downey, Jr. (49) and both Leighton Meester (28) and Vera Farmiga (41) in The Judge (21/8 year difference)
• Adam Sandler (48) and Drew Barrymore (39) in Blended (9 year difference)
• Edward Norton (45) and Emma Stone (26) in Birdman (19 year difference)
• Chris Rock (49) and Rosario Dawson (35) in Top Five (14 year difference)

You get the picture. 

I think there's many reasons for this pattern:

First, Hollywood is scared of women over 40, and pretends that women over 50 don't exist. While men are encouraged to age with grace and dubbed as handsome "silver foxes" a la George Clooney, Liam Neeson, or Tom Cruise, aging women are quickly forgotten. 

The silver fox himself.

The only major female film stars over the age of 50 are Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren--and they essentially get ALL of the parts written for older women. Simply put, screenwriters don't want to tell stories about women over 50, audiences don't want to watch them, and major studios certainly aren't going to risk any money on financing or distributing them. Instead, aging male stars continue to get the coveted action roles and are cast in mega-franchises as they grow older, but their female love interests stay the same age... 

Meryl, killing it as always.

Second, Hollywood films are packaged, marketed, and sold around the male lead. With the exception of recent young adult franchises like The Hunger Games or this year's Maleficent and Lucy, studios don't believe that women can sell movies. So, while you might see age-appropriate casting during the few times that a MAJOR starlet like Angelina Jolie or Julia Roberts stars in a Hollywood film, this is very rare. Most of the time, the studio will spend $20M+ on the male lead (say, Denzel Washington or Mark Wahlberg) and then spend a fraction of that cost on an up-and-coming 20-something actress or model who just needs to look pretty next to him on the poster. 

Work it, Angie.

Third, we all know there are unrealistic expectations regarding female beauty. Commercials, billboards, magazines, the fashion industry, and more all perpetuate a myth of how women should look: white, stick-thin, wrinkle-free, and ideally in their 20s. Anytime a woman over 50 is shown in a beauty-related ad, it is usually to advertise some wrinkle-removing skincare product, and the woman in question is airbrushed to look about 30. Unfortunately, this constant photoshopping in the media has created the illusion that middle-aged women should and do look much younger than realistically possible. As a result, when women around, say, the age of 40 are cast alongside a 50-year-old male, it appears perfectly age appropriate! To most Americans, we assume that 40-year-old woman could be 50 and don't even flinch at the idea of her pairing with a man 10 years her senior. And when women conform to societal pressures to not age and get Botox or a face lift, they are chastised like Renee Zellweger recently was. 

Hey, remember Diane Keaton? Thanks to L'Oreal, she doesn't age!

Fourth, there is a cringe-worthy dating culture that shames older women. If we're being honest, middle-aged bachelors/divorcees are encouraged to seduce young 20-something women. However, if an older woman dates a younger man, she is labeled as a desperate "cougar" in the most unflattering way possible. Thus, it's no surprise that we don't see older women cast with younger men as their love interest (unless the narrative explicitly calls for it). Clearly, men view aging women as dried up, frigid, menopausal, and undesirable, while aging men only seem to grow more handsome, mature, and refined. This double standard means that there's a wealth of leading parts for men over 50 and about 1-4 leading roles for women over 50 in Hollywood each year. The only way to get Hollywood to cast older women is to get men to stop ignoring women over 50 and pretending they don't exist. When society changes, films will reflect that. 

A typical pairing. 

That said, it's not all bad. I already mentioned Meryl and Helen, but there are some other older actresses worth celebrating who do a great job finding complex leading roles. Julianne Moore (53), Naomi Watts (46), Cate Blanchett (45), Amy Adams (40), Jessica Lange (65), Juliette Binoche (50), Sandra Bullock (50), and Viola Davis (49) are some notable examples of older women who are still kicking ass in film and television. But Hollywood can do better. And, truth be told, the only way Hollywood will start improving is if we as audiences start attending films with older actresses and proving that they can make money! (For starters, PLEASE check out Julianne Moore in Still Alice when it comes out in 2 weeks!)

My hero.

Well, that concludes my last and final rant. Thank you SO much for reading my blog each week and letting me sort out all of my feelings, emotions and opinions on women in film.

And finally, for your reading (dis)pleasure, check out these alarming graphs of male leading men and their scarily younger female love interests created by Vulture. 

It's been real, y'all.

FEMINIST FILM/TV RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK: VEEP

Because Julia Louis-Dreyfus proves that women can be just as funny as men (and sadly, some people still don't get that), because it's fabulous seeing women exercise political power in film and television and because, most importantly, it's by far the best comedy on TV.