As the world awakes from the Christmas and New Year
holidays there have been a number of responses to Russell Crowe’s comments
about women in Hollywood made in The Australian Woman’s Weekly this month. Most
people who responded forget Russell Crowe is flogging a movie and in order to
create attention for that movie he has to say something controversial to get
people’s attention. This time he has chosen mature aged women and acting. Reading his
Twitter highlight feeds the comments seem to have got him a mention in every
major newspaper and magazine around the world. It is an interesting topic that has created a lot of discussion.
One of the most interesting blog posts I read was titled “Russell Crowe Says Older Women Don’t Get
Movie roles Because They Refuse to Act Their Age” by Amanda Marcotte
published in Slate.com. The blog post makes some interesting comments about
women in Hollywood backed up by research. I absolutely agree with these opening comments “The usual explanation for the divergence is
plain old discrimination, with the men who run the studios and make the
majority of movies assuming that audiences don’t want a bunch of aging women in
their epic tales of elderly men performing feats of strength”. It is the
studio in most circumstances that develops, funds and produces movies. They
determine the roles and the quality of the scripts for mature age actresses. If
mature age women wish to work and get paid they follow the job description as
any employee does.
The article quotes Russell Crowe “Meryle Streep will give you 10,000 examples and arguments as to why
that’s (crap), so will Helen Mirren, or whoever it happens to be,” he said. “If
you are will to live in your own skin, you can work as an actor. The article continues “He
continued, citing the two women who are tasked with playing all women over 50
that are allowed to be on screen (Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren)”. To be
fair Russell Crowe said “or whoever”. While Crowe recognises Meryl Steep and
Helen Mirren, his comments of “whoever” could include actresses fast
approaching those ages Cate Blanchett, Robyn Wright, Jennifer Connelly, Diane
Keaton and Julianne Moore. Russell Crowe has appeared in movies with Cate
Blanchett, Robyn Wright, Jennifer Connelly and Helen Mirren.
The author makes another interesting analysis about
Hollywood based on research conducted by Vulture. “As for the notion that there are a hefty and appealing number of roles
for older women ready to act their age, it is particularly hard to believe when
you at Vulture’s 2013 analysis of who is cast as the female lead romantic lead
for men in in their 40’s and 50’s. If Hollywood were indeed flush with roles
for middle-aged women, we would see middle-aged men couple off with women of
their own generation. Vulture found otherwise “As leading men age, their love
interests state the same and even the oldest me on our list have a few romantic
parings with a woman their own age (or even in their mid-thirties)” Instead you
get 57-year-old Denzel Washington paired off with 35-year-old Kelly Reilly. Or
49-year-old Johnny Depp with 30-year-old Rebecca Hall. Or 50-year-old Tom
Cruise with 33-year-old Olga Kurylenko. Or 50-year-old Steve Carell with
29-year-old Olivia Wilde…Looking at Vulture’s charts, it seems that it’s not
women who refuse to age gracefully onscreen. Instead we’re fed a bunch of
images of men who look like Crowe, like they are “trying to pretend (they’re)
still the young buck” by bedding down women who are often young enough to be
their daughters”.
Hollywood and the movie industry should be subject to the
same discrimination laws as other industries. An industry that casts women to
play age appropriate roles to me seems discriminatory rather than employing a
woman based on her ability to do the job. What is the problem when an actress plays
a character who is younger than or older than themselves and does a good job? Isn't
it the quality of the performance, not the age of the woman doing the job the
main thing? One of the reasons I believe established middle-aged actresses are not cast in these roles is because they don’t like the content of
the movies and these younger less established actresses are also probably less
expensive and less picky than someone a bit more mature.
Another interesting blog post was from Rebecca Rose titled “Always Full of Shit Russell Crowe Should
Act Their Age” published in Jezebel.com. She wrote “Funny how Crowe doesn’t bother to offer any
opinion about the mind boggling legacy of Hollywood men playing romantic leads
to women 10, 20 30 and sometimes 40 (!!!!) years younger than them. Because
it’s clearly sad old women daring to pretend they are outside their actual
birth ages that are ruining Hollywood. It’s good to know that he is only
bothered by the idea that women dare to expect the same treatment by studios as
their “sexy” older male counterparts. How wonderful that Streep plays “her
age”. I wonder if he is irked that the likes of Richard Gere, Jack Nicholson,
Kevin Costner, Sean Connery and Eastwood have basically laughed off the entire
concept of playing their age too. Thanks Crowe for reminding us, yet again that
women are always held in contempt for doing anything remotely similar to what
their male counterparts do with reproach". True words and Russell Crowe is guilty too. The Next Three Days with Elizabeth Banks and his latest movie, The Water Diviner with Olga Kurylenko comes to mind. Both leading women were 10 years or more his junior.
The job of Hollywood and the movie industry however, is to create
imaginary worlds and do not usually reflect real life. Even those movies
based on real life stories are exactly that, based on real life stories.
Hollywood and the movie industry does take liberties to sell movies and in order to
make a movie profitable. So women not acting their age or partnering men with
younger women are all part of the imaginary world of Hollywood to put bums on
seats and make profits. There are obviously movie paying watchers who like that sort of movie.
If we don't like the movies Hollywood and the movie industry is making then we shouldn't pay to see them. Of course we should express an opinion where ever appropriate, so the industry knows. Most of all we should engage in the discussion to create awareness and make changes as these two women have. Instead of complaining about a lack of roles for mature aged
women actresses, they do need to develop their own projects they and the market so
desperately desire and not just taking a pay check from a studio.
References
Marcotte, Amanda, 2015. “Russell
Crowe Says Older Women Don’t Get Movie Roles Because They Refuse to Act Their
Age www.slate.com published on January
5, 2014.
Rose, Rebecca, 2015, “Always
Full of Shit Russell Crowe Says Actresses Should Act Their Age” published at
www.jezebel.com on 4 January, 2015
