Posted on 01/18/2004 5:53:14 PM PST by Sub-Driver
Female, forty and furious January 19, 2004 - 11:24AM
On the attack ... Sharon Stone, Holly Hunter and Meg Ryan.
Hollywood's most formidable female stars have united to condemn "sexist" film moguls for failing to find roles for women over 40.
Meg Ryan, Holly Hunter, Charlotte Rampling, Sharon Stone and Whoopi Goldberg are among a group of 30 actresses who have taken part in a documentary by Rosanna Arquette to be screened in Britain this summer.
The documentary is seen as a thinly veiled attack on moguls such as Harvey Weinstein - the portly co-owner of Miramax - who control the film industry and the careers of Hollywood actresses.
Arquette, 44, who rose to fame when she starred opposite Madonna in the 1985 film Desperately Seeking Susan, said that her interest in what happened to 40-year-old women in Hollywood was sparked by the experience of
Debra Winger, the star of Terms of Endearment, who announced that she was quitting in 1996 aged 40. "Ageing," Arquette said this week, "equals career death."
In the documentary, called Searching For Debra Winger, Winger, who has been nominated for three Oscars, tells how she decided to quit and reveals that while she was working on An Officer And a Gentlemen the notorious producer Don Simpson told her that she needed diet pills.
Julianna Margulies, 37, who starred in ER opposite George Clooney, speaks frankly about the rigours of the casting couch. "You ask anyone that has been in those [audition] meetings. They say, 'Yeah that actress is great but would you f*** her?' And they ask all the men in the room."
The documentary will provoke heated debate in Hollywood, which has long been accused of discriminating against women for their age and beauty. Arquette told London's Sunday Telegraph that she had already received criticism from film bosses. "There are a lot of misogynistic men who are very angry about it," she said. "They've told me, 'It's just a bunch of chicks sitting around bitching about us'."
In the film, Daryl Hannah, 43, says that the root of the problem lies "with the guys who run the studios. They choose projects that they identify with and they say, 'I'd like to be that man having an affair with a chick of 18'."
Samantha Mathis, 33, agrees. "It's the revenge of the nerds syndrome, all these guys couldn't get a girlfriend in high school. They are smart but they have no social skills; suddenly they are running studios in a position of power."
Arquette's subjects are candid and often angry about the way the industry has spat them out once they have aged. Martha Plimpton, 33, says: "For women it's either, she's a starlet or she's an old hag." Whoopi Goldberg adds that film producers "want you to think that you're done" once actresses had turned 40.
Arquette, who is currently filming another documentary about musicians, continues to act and has recently been filming two comedies with the British actresses Imogen Stubbs and Jennifer Saunders.
She says that certain elements of Hollywood have always annoyed her. "I find it offensive that in Hollywood a 68-year-old movie star is paired with a 30-year-old, or someone even younger. You think, 'Come on, who are you kidding'. It is offensive."
Other interviewees said that they had financial problems when the parts dried up. Theresa Russell, 46, says: "It was really hard, I didn't get an audition for years and I started running out of money. I thought, what else can I do? I resent being in this situation. They want to put you out to pasture."
In any other profession, she says, "your work would get better the older you got". Holly Hunter, 45, who won an Oscar for The Piano, believes actresses are at their peak at 40. "The deal is that actresses who are good have probably never been better once they hit 40. Once I hit 40 I had charms that I didn't have when I was 30 and I want to use them."
Teri Garr, 53, who has appeared in more than 50 films, including Tootsie, insists that films should reflect the existence of older women in real life. "There are people who are my age and older who still exist in the world, so there should be writers who write stories that include them. There should be parts for us, even if they are smaller."
She adds: "I remember when I was young the great actresses telling me, 'Wait till they tell you your face has been ravaged by time'."
Diane Lane, 39, dislikes the vocabulary used to describe older women's looks. "If you want to live you must age. Beauty has to be a certain way [in Hollywood]." If you age, she says, "it is described as 'damaged beauty' or 'sad beauty' or 'aged beauty'." She adds: "Character actresses will always work freely because they are not coming from the immaculate time when one looked perfect." Adrienne Shelley, 38, the star of The Unbelievable Truth, tells of how much sex plays a part of being a Hollywood actress. She says: "I get a call in my car on the way to an audition from the agent. He said, 'What is really important is that they think you are f***able'.
"The man walks in and looks right at my tits and I saw in his face that there was no way I was going to get the part. And yet in the real world there is no way I would give this guy the time of day."
Lane urges women to make more of an issue of the problem. "When women don't want to talk about these issues it is so awful," she says. "Hiding away just perpetuates the problem.
"Women want to watch other women of their own age sometimes. All these young people are great but let them watch each other. We want to watch us."
You are correct, but it really all depends on who pursues it, or investigates it. It's really easier to sting those businesses that are suspected of this, or have established patterns or reports of this activity.
Also, all this talk of how poorly women age brings to mind how a lot of men look w/their shirts off after the age of 45 or so. What the hell happens to their pecs, they become so mushy. Quite the turnoff, if you ask me. Men look better w/craggly faces though.
Babs & Goldie & Susie Sarandon are only interested in making movies that Babs & Goldie & Susie can star in.
Hollywood actresses are glad to go along with the mentality when they're in their 20's. None of these whiners stepped aside for better older actresses when they themselves were in their prime, they were glad to go along with the looks only part when they went for their boob jobs, liposuctions, and facelifts. All that makes them look weird when they're older.
On the contrary, it's a great analogy. In sports, the name of the game is drawing fans to the stadium. In acting, the name of the game is drawing an audience to the theatre. In sports, a team draws fans to the stadium by winning. In acting, one way to draw an audience to the theatre is to feature attractive young women in a film. If an athlete can no longer contribute to the team in a way that draws the fans, the athlete should be let go. If an actress no longer has the looks to draw an audience, another actress should be cast in her place.
It may not seem fair, but it's reality. As I said in my previous post, I doubt any of these women were complaining when they were the ones benefitting from this reality fifteen years ago.
The fact that they've made huge sums of money before their fortieth birthdays is all the more reason why they have no justification to complain. If they haven't properly planned for a time when the big contracts won't be there, that's their problem. No one who makes millions of dollars playing pretend gets sympathy from me when the pretend game goes away.
Proof positive that the very women claiming bigotry and hatred ooze the same bigotry and hatred out of every pore.
It's all about whether the camera loves you, which in turn is about whether all those eyes sitting there in the dark will be contented gazing upon you.
Acting, as distinct from creating the work to be presented, is about LOOKS. All the BS about how tough it is to be a "good" actor is just that -- BS. Brad Pitt is not famous because of his acting chops. He's famous because he makes women drool.
By the way many actors recognize this truth about their industry. Spencer Tracy, Anthony Hopkins, Bruce Willis, Marlon Brando and Henry Fonda have all made remarked about the extreme and literal superficiality of the acting "profession."
I would wonder why she would even be complaining --- it would seem that she could still get pretty good acting roles. Her career wasn't based on being a bimbo.
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