fig. 1- Ray, R. (n.d).
“Women not only bear the brunt of the equation of beauty with youth, we perpetuate it – every time we dye our hair to cover the grey or lie about our age, not to mention have plastic surgery to cover the signs of aging” (Applewhite, 2019, p.89).
Films, as cultural works, reflect contemporary values, norms and beliefs held by society at large (Kamei, 2019). So when film industries exclude the representation of older women, their cultural products exemplify the intersectional inequalities that shape the film industry today.
Lauzen & Dozier (2005) argue that the percentage of older men portrayed in films from ages 40-60 (26% – 8%) were significantly higher than the percentage of older women portrayed in films (18-8%). This inequality, at least amongst Hollywood films, appears even worse when one considers the number of older male characters (27-44%) versus older female characters (9-18%) who play leadership-or other empowering roles-within the story.
In their analysis of over 25,000 scripts from 3384 movies in 88 different countries, Ng et al., (2023) show that across the Middle East and North Africa, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, and in East and South Asia, positive representations of older women in film are rare. Older women are often portrayed as victims of death, sickness, religion, witchcraft and other regionally specific stereotypes.
For the general movie-going audience, then, older women are less visible in film, and in the few instances that older women do appear, they are mostly presented in a negative light. For example, the over-bearing mother in films like Carrie, Turning Red, Mommy Dearest, and Precious, all provide a scapegoat for the problems portrayed in the film. Similarly, the uneducated but well-intentioned housewife or grandmother in films such as the Notebook, Happy Gilmore, the Nan movie, and Mrs. Doubtfire are only there to support the more prominent male characters. Mean older women portrayed in films like the Devil Wears Prada, 101 Dalmatians, Snow White, and Cinderella provide an envious, villainous foil for young, beautiful girls. (Lemish & Muhlbauer, 2012).
The tragic reality of this form of unequal representation is that it reinforces the idea that women must fear the consequences of ageing (Whelehan, 2009). The media we consume reflects a reality in which older female figures of authority such as Hillary Clinton and Angela Merkel have been subject to criticism due to their appearance, or when female stars are put under pressure to maintain a youthful appearance through cosmetic surgery. The world of film and the wider media landscape, in this way, constantly reminds us that for a woman to look her age is a form of social failure (Dolan &. Tincknell, 2015)
While we are slowly seeing an increase in the number of mature female actresses represented positively in mainstream Hollywood films and celebrity culture such as Meryl Streep, Demi Moore, or Michelle Yeoh, this change is too little and too slow to address the powerful intersectional inequalities of ageism and sexism that dominate the film global industry today (Woods et. al, 2022).
Bibliography
Applewhite, A. (2019). This Chair Rocks. Melville House UK
Dolan, J., & Tincknell, E. (2015, April 24). From ‘Old and Cold’ to Media Gold: The New and Troubling Visibility of Older Women? Commission on Gender Inequality and Power, London School of Economics, London, UK. https://www.lse.ac.uk/gender/research/Gender-Inequality-and-Power-Commission
Dorian R. Woods, Y. B. (2022). What is intersectional equality? A definition and goal of equality for organizations. Gender, Work and Organization, 29(1), 92-109. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12760
Kamei, M. (2019). Films as cultural artefacts. International Journal of Advance and Innovative Research, 6(1), 81-84.
Lauzen, M. M., & Dozier, D. M. (2005). Maintaining the Double Standard: Portrayals of Age and Gender in Popular Films. Sex Roles, 52(7), 437–446. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-005-3710-1
Lemish, D., & Muhlbauer, V. (2012). “Can’t have it all”: representations of older women in popular culture. Women & Therapy, 35(3-4), 165-180. https://doi.org/10.1080/02703149.2012.684541
Ng, R., Indran, N., & Yang, W. (2023). Portrayals of older adults in over 3000 films around the world. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 71(9). https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.18400
Ray, R. (n.d). Circa 1934 screenshot [Photograph]. Shutterstock. https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-1096220329-circa-1934—this-drama-older-woman
Whelehan, I. (2009). Not to be looked at: Older women in recent British cinema. In Williams, M., Bell, M., British Women’s Cinema (1st ed., pp. 170-183). London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203872000
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