Thrice upon a time

[rivkat]

Let me specify that I, too, am enjoying the women of Once Upon a Time. However: Jennifer Morrison (born 1979) plays the daughter of Ginnifer Godwin (born 1978), who plays the stepdaughter of Lana Parilla (born 1977). (That’s one precocious mayor!) If there is a better illustration of Hollywood’s horror of women over 40, don’t tell me. I really don’t want to know.

Comments

[liviapenn]

*facepalm*

I haven't seen the show at all, but are there lots of flashbacks to these characters when they *were* the age that the actresses are? (Like, in "Revenge" there are lots of "fifteen-years-ago" flashbacks and some of the characters pull it off better than others...) I'm just trying to make some kind of sense of it! I think my head hurts....!

[raincitygirl]

Well, in Storeybrooke Land (one of the two parallel realities in the show), Ginnifer Goodwin's character and Jennifer Morrison's character are roommates. Yes, in Fairytale Land they're mother and daughter, but in Storeybrooke it kind of makes sense for them to be round about the same age.

Rivkat definitely has a point about the show avoiding women over forty, but there are bits and pieces of the youthful casting which make sense. Well, for a given value of sense. Seeing as how we're talking about a canon where Fairytale Land is a real place.

I don't know. It can all be rationalized away, but it still ends up with three generations of women being played by women who are all in the same generation. I would feel better about those casting decisions if we had ANY older female characters to pick up the slack of the main characters all being cast young.

[jenrose]

At least Jennifer Morrison's character isn't 20 playing 16?

Naw, I got nuttin'.

[samjohnsson]

Emma and Mary Margaret being the same cast age doesn't bother me, considering the temporal field. And Regina-as-queen probably had a spell to stay younger (may not even have been that much older than Snow when she married the King - such was not uncommon), and fell under the same temporal field. Narratively, it makes sense. But yes, it is definitely eyebrow-raising.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, no: the non-aging is consistent within the logic of of Storybrooke. Emma was separated from Fairy Tale Land when her dying father placed her in the magic cabinet that brought her to "our" world. That was right before the Evil Queen destroyed Fairy Tale Land and transplanted everyone to Storybrooke ... where time has stood still ever since, for 28 years, so no one has aged past the age they were when Fairy Tale Land was destroyed. That includes Snow White, and Regina, and all the males in Storybrooke as well.

Emma lived in the real world, so she did age and grow up normally over the past 28 years. She is an adult, and about the same age as (if not a little older than) her mother. Henry, her son, also born in the real world, is aging normally. Emma's coming to Storybrooke has re-started time, so everyone will start aging again.

As for Regina's, and Malificent's, apparently eternal youth in FairyTale Land: I think we can write that off as standard for sorceress-queens.

In fact, TV is not at all a bad place for mature women these days. Christine Baranski on The Good Wife, Madeleine Stowe on Revenge, Bonnie Blair on Fringe, Linda Hunt on NCIS-Los Angeles, Glenn Close on Damages, Kyra Sedgwick on The Closer... and those are just off the top of my head... all are middle-aged, and all are stars of shows where they play powerful, accomplished, and sexually confident characters.

[rivkat]

Saying "the logic is consistent with the rules of the magic world" is like saying "having immutable racial characteristics in my magic users is consistent with the rules of the magic world." While you can do it, since you're in charge of the rules, the rules you make say something about your view of the world. This is why arguments for the "realism" of violence against women, etc. as a reason for foregrounding it in Game of Thrones are hard to swallow when the actors lack, e.g., realistic teeth and hygiene. One can justify realism on some aspects and unrealism on others, but not because it's just natural that way.

[alexseanchai]

*nods*

[hederahelix]

I've seen a lot of people make the argument that we're getting more women characters who are over 40--including a lot of the ones from your list.

I would add Holly Hunter as Grace from Saving Grace to that list. I'm sure that there are more that I'm just not thinking of at the moment.

But with the exception of Linda Hunt from NCIS: LA of the ones I've seen who are allowed to be sexual being, I would point out that each one of them is not just thin but practically skelletally thin.

While Linda Hunt is not-conventionally attractive by Hollywood standards, she's also physically much smaller than all her castmates (a fact that the show often plays upon for comic effect), so perhaps she's not required to be as thin as all those over 40 actresses because she's already taking up so much less space and because the show seems to play for laughs the possibility that she's a sexual being despite what seems to me to be nearly Herculean efforts by Hunt herself not to turn those lines into crass comic relief.

When film and television begin forking over the regular inclusion of women over 40 who get to take up some physical space and still be sexually desirable without having to diet/exercise to the point that I can see their skeletal structure, then--and only then--will I believe that we've made some forward progress.

Disclaimer: I am perfectly aware that a certain percentage of women have a body type that makes them naturally inclined to be especially thin. I'm even willing to allow that some of the actresses on the above list--including Holly Hunter and probably Kyra Sedgwick--fall into that category. After all, I remember vividly how tiny Hunter's waist was in her costumes in The Piano.

What bothers me is that the criteria being applied to actresses who are cast in these roles for women over 40 seems to be limited *only* to women who have that body type as if no other body types exist and as if the only way a woman over 40 could be attractive would be to so thin. The only other option is to play a sexless mother figure, or to be typed as an object of ridicule if the character is over 40, not skinny and conventionally attractive, and still demands the right to sexuality.

[locknkey]

When film and television begin forking over the regular inclusion of women over 40 who get to take up some physical space and still be sexually desirable without having to diet/exercise to the point that I can see their skeletal structure, then--and only then--will I believe that we've made some forward progress.

It's distressing as a woman over forty and recently divorced to see on my TV. It's even harder when it seems to be echoed all the time in RL. Ageism is alive and well. I have no proof that women are harder hit by this in RL, but in media it seems there are many more actors over forty that are not shunted into the baking cookie grandma roll or the overweight-over-the-hill comic relief and most certainly are not denied their sexuality.

I was quite depressed for a while to learn that the odds of a woman over forty remarrying are about two percent and most men over forty are looking for younger woman whoa re also thin and athletic. I suspect those pervasive views play into what we see reflected in media as media often reflects the lowest common denominator.

[alexseanchai]

Snow hasn't aged since Emma was born, neither has Regina, and Regina might not have been that much older than Snow to start out with.

[rivkat]

See my reply immediately above: the choice to do it that way is a choice, with consequences.

[tehomet]

However: Jennifer Morrison (born 1979) plays the daughter of Ginnifer Godwin (born 1978), who plays the stepdaughter of Lana Parilla (born 1977).

I'm appalled. Genuinely.

[bonspiel]

Of the things that bug me about OUaT, this is by far not the biggest, because I can resign myself to the fact that having each character the same age in fairytale land and Storybrooke is a lot more practical for filming than trying to double-cast or do effects. But I agree with what you're saying that it's a little too convenient. I do think it's a very woman-focused show, but it would be lovely to have some older women characters too (preferably not all evil sorceresses).

[locknkey]

As a woman over forty, TV mostly makes me feel like I better start knitting and baking cookies for grandbabies, while I pick out the rest home I want to spend my final decades in. :(