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

[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.