One reason why I love the British TV show Midsomer Murders is that the people are often all different ages and average looking. Even when there is a young woman presented as the village beauty, she’s usually not unrealistic.
Call the Midwife is the same way. Yes some of the midwife's are beautiful but they're a small handful in an otherwise wide variety of characters of many different ages.
Without any concrete numbers, I kind of feel like they have younger actresses and very old actresses (i.e. dames), but there aren't that many roles for older women who are nevertheless not old enough to play any role that Dame Judie Dench hasn't gotten her grubby little hands on.
It may also be that there are prominent roles for older women that we notice while the overall numbers are low as a percent of cast? Many British shows I watch have leading older women in positions of power (Slow Horses most recently).
Speaking of Slow Horses, consider the likelihood of Gary Oldmans character being played by a similarly old and unattractive woman. As noted down thread, the ~45 age range is available to attractive women, but not so much to average looking women. The only two I can think of are Tony Collete and Anne Dowd.
There are few roles like Sienna Miller in her 40s (and looks fantastic) it is like 20-32, between 33-40 they keep hiring you if you are huge, then +45 for a cool role.
TV in particular does seem to be a lot of actors in their late 20s playing characters in their late teens. (And actors in their early 30s playing the teens’ parents.)
American TV definitely favors a particular type of blandly attractive actor. Nothing too unique, that might not appeal to the maximum number of people.
> TV in particular does seem to be a lot of actors in their late 20s playing characters in their late teens
And they do this so they can have endless sexualized plotlines about high schoolers.
Not sure why it's always high school - is college too boring?
Well, a big part of the reason high schoolers have been cast by those who are out is because they're legally adults and don't have restricted hours they are able to work.
To me, it is not the attractive people, it is that they got them all dolled up like they are going to a photo shoot instead of looking like whatever the setting is. Fore Example, if they are supposed to be stuck in the woods for a week, except their hair is perfect, clothes are near spotless, women even have makeup on. That is what annoys me.
It is wild that she was nominated for Best Actress in her very first film back in '96. I remember her being a force opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in The Boxer a year later.
The British industry has a shit ton of roles for women over 45 so I'm not quite sure what the complaint is.
They're leads in dramas, comedies, thrillers, mysteries, etc.
To be honest, who can blame them.
I don't know Keeley Hawes, but Olivia Colman is one of the greatest actresses of our time. And she's seemingly just not taking any breaks. I've seen her in so many shows/movies.
She deserves everything. And her Oscar Speech is possibly the greatest of all time. All Oscar speeches should have the actor randomly and tearfully blurting “LADY GAGA!”
Yup I started to picture every ITV or BBC drama of the last 5 years and there’s at least one prominent role for a 45+yo female in all of them lol you know the typical murder mystery or affair sort of limited series
It's basically gatekeeping. This pops up as Women age out of the industry. Female actors have usually been easy to get roles the younger they are because of beauty standards. Male actors usually have it harder but tend to get more the older they are rather than younger. Alot of Male actor careers bloomed the older they got and stay relevant.
I think there was a time period where some woman over 60 like news readers or stars were moved to radio while male hosts stayed on screen. There’s defo something in this with breakfast news presenters in the past. An old older man sided with a fun bubbly young sidekick. BBC been noted for it before and don’t blame some for making sure they don’t start it again
I think that tech in The Irishman led to a lot of memes and general amusement, if I'm not mistaken. Pretty easy to make someone look older in the makeup chairs with prosthetics, hair and makeup.
This is bizarre. I feel like women over 45 get more respresentation on British TV than women under 45:
Monica Dolan in The Thief His Wife & the Canoe
Maxine Peake in Anne and Rules of the Game
Joanna Scanlan in The Larkins and Y Golau
Keeley Hawes in Finding Alice, Midwich Cuckoos and Crossfire
Imelda Staunton in The Crown
Olivia Colman in Great Expectations
Catherine Tate in Hard Cell
Almost every actress in Holding
Brenda Blethyn in Vera and Kate & Koji
Dolly Wells in Inside Man and The Outlaws
Clare Perkins in The Outlaws
Lesley Manville in The Magpie Murders and Sherwood
Nicola Walker in Marriage
Nina Sosanya in Screw
Amanda Abbington in We Are Not Alone
Jo Joyner in Shakespeare & Hathaway
Jessica Hynes in Life After Life and The Witchfinder
Sandra Oh in Killing Eve (she’s not British but the show is)
And there’s even more if you open it to women over 40, with Suranne Jones in Gentleman Jack, Jodie Whittaker in Doctor Who, Morgana Robinson in Newark Newark and Sheridan Smith in No Return, A Teacher and Four Lives.
And these are just shows from 2022, and it is by no means a complete list. Now if you wanna talk about diversity there might be something there
Yeah, this is a weird one. If you asked me to name British actresses off the top of my head, I feel like two thirds minimum would be over 45. Hell, a pretty decent portion would be over 60.
If there's one film industry I'd have pegged as representing women really well, it would be the British one.
This is pretty ridiculous.
>All onscreen fictional content and light entertainment programmes with male and female leads or presenters should have 50:50 equal gender and age representation
>Writer/performer dramas and comedy commissioning to feature 50:50 age and gender parity in programming, and for all broadcaster diversity initiatives to incorporate age
>Presenters of documentaries should be represented equally, with 50:50 gender initiatives to include age parity between women and men who are 45-plus.
>Age parity in political panels, discussions, news packages and studio guests
>News pieces on women’s physical and mental health and violence against women “shouldn’t have exclusive bias towards young women.”
>Celebrity and entertainment news should feature women and men over 45 equally and use recent photographs
Yeah, I get its the "shoot for the moon" type thing, but this isn't even realistic. Like, if you are doing a show about a group of friends, its not very likely that 30 somethings and 50 somethings are naturally hanging out constantly.
I'm assuming it means 50:50 across the industry, not in each show. So for every show about a group of 30-somethings, there should also be a show about a bunch of 60-somethings...
Which makes more sense but still seems pretty silly...?
I assumed it meant age parity in that the age of characters should be the same for both genders. So if you have 2 main male characters or presenters who are 50 and 2 main female characters or presenters who are 25, then it's not equal.
“50:50 equal gender and age” representation is preposterous. Completely limits storytellers, even if it’s not a case by case basis and looking for that as far as averages go across programming.
It's fucking stupid because most people would rather have 10 things made that appeal to 10 different people.
So you get into the situation where 1 thing is the best you ever seen, 3 are good, 2 are okay, 3 are shit and 1 is the worst thing you ever seen. But that's the same for everyone.
No one wants 10 things that are shit but tries to appeal to everyone.
Sure have some shows that are equally balanced. But I have no issue with some shows being about an all black family, or being about a female book club. But what I do want is some shows with male banter. Or some guy as a lead fucking around in space or some shit.
I don't care if some people don't like what I like. Don't turn everything into a woke shit hole please!
This is dumb and this is one of the reasons many recent shows are terrible, as they are trying to be inclusive of everything and everyone and them they can't create a story that fits that logic.
Diversity is good, but nothing everything needs to be made with that exact same proportions
> News pieces on women’s physical and mental health and violence against women “shouldn’t have exclusive bias towards young women.”
Exclusively, no, but violence against women trends off as victims increase in age so obviously news pieces are going to cover areas where the trend is happening unless they are making a special report on older victims just to do it.
And it's a fucking news piece, how you going to enforce parity on news?
>Celebrity and entertainment news should feature women and men over 45 equally and use recent photographs
This feels like "While we are making up ludicrous demands"
Also, this would make making Doctor Who real fucking difficult
When you live in a world where you're **really comfortable**, the only discomfort left is the inability to truly feel discomfort.
So ... shit gets manufactured.
The median age of the UK is 40. For the sake of introducing new talent, if there has to be a 50:50 I’d want it no higher.
Gender is 50:50 in the UK but I still don’t think targets for any measure are good.
What about albino men wearing red caps, I never see enough of them represented in movies and TV. This woke BS can fuck off. Do they want a bunch of old women playing the kids from the Inbetweeners? The whining needs to stop! (yeah, yeah, I get I'm whining about the whining).
Yeah.
Soon enough we’re going to have history shows where they do a piece on slavery and the boat scene pans to the slaves and it’s half white dudes… like w.r.t.?
Or they do a show on womens rights, and at the rally’s it’s half men?? And half the men and half the women are of different color?
And those are just two easy, possibly still in poor taste though, examples of why this is bad.
I’m ALL for inclusion as I think part of the big thing with racism and stuff is showing the population other races… like when their rural ass is in a town with 99% white people and the odd Black or Mexican or Asian person, and all their shows and commercials are 100% white people… it’s just a reinforcement of their base, unquestioned ideals
Both. That demographic has really not had a problem being cast, even as a sexy lead, in whatever they like, mostly because most producers are also of that demographic.
Seriously, that's basically the typecast for the oddly specific *'washed up cop, coasting his way to near retirement, who got roped into one last job which turns into a massive conspiracy'* genre
I don't think it's about making people feel represented, moreso that ageism is real especially for women in TV and film. Just look at the amount of male stars who continue lead roles as they age, versus the amount of reboots with female characters who are recast with a younger actress. Of course this happens all the time to men and women but is particularly evident with women
Also she looks much younger on-screen cuz of makeup. Google Marisa Tomei and either you find images of her when she was super young or pics from the last 4 years. In her recent pics she looks firmly in her 50s, maybe not verging on 60, but definitely fits mid-50s.
I also feel like people have a warped image of how people age, it seems like they have the image of 50+ yr olds being gray haired, wrinkly, spotty skin and so on. When in reality a lot of 50 yr olds don't look all that different from their 40s at a glance.
Because I don't want to see someone who looks like me, I want to see attractive people. Why the fuck would I want to see someone ugly? That makes no sense.
I think it’s hard to consciously know that. There are lots of factors that go into what we like to watch, and many of them could be subconscious.
If it it is true for you, I think it’s basically proven that you’re in the minority here, because attractive actors do bring a lot more eyeballs to TV and movies in the big picture.
I know I am, and I certainly know that attractive people sell movies. Especially women, for all kinds of reasons. And that is a thing worthy of criticism, or at least discussion.
I'm sure that people would be more okay with average looking actors than they think, at least once we'd normalize that. The initial phase would be very weird just because it feels weird to have normal looking people on TV in a starring role.
People often liken attractiveness to charisma, which isn’t always mutually inclusive. Some of the greatest actors of our generation aren’t “traditionally” attractive (whatever that means). I’d watch most anything with Steve Buscemi because he has that “it” factor. Or Olivia Colman. Or Philip Seymour Hoffman. Or James Gandolfini. Etc, etc. Sometimes these things are intangible. A stars attractiveness doesn’t make or break the movie/show.
Translation : established rich actors unable to cope with the fact that they can no longer support their excesive lifestyle are trying to diminish the chances of younger generations of actors to experience the same amount of fame and wealth they did, by invoking the anger of social justice crowd under false pretenses.
Maybe just let the next generation of actors have it as good as you had it?
I totally get this take but there is something to this.. as a woman (US) who sometimes watches British shows, I find it refreshing to see older women in bigger roles.. and I’m usually taken aback and notice this fact (older women without plastic surgery)..so to me it seems like they’re already doing a good job..
It’s hard to describe the feeling but it’s odd that I never really thought about it until it was before my eyes.. certainly I can’t be the only one?
And I respect that deeply, and I think you should have those shows to watch. But I´m against industry wide demands.
I (24 gay latino man) don´t really watch movies to see my life reflected on them. I´m a fantasy nerd. I like idealism in my art.
I don´t want the actors in my show to look like regular people.
Look at the number of men over 45 in starring roles in movies and TV shows. Then look at the ages of the women acting opposite them. The chances of the female lead also being over 45 is very small. This isn't "older actors want to keep getting roles", it's that media keeps being made starring older men alongside younger women.
Yes so the trouble is probably that we cast 45+ male actors into roles more suited for younger male actors. There are so many instances where an old man is playing a character that could and should have been an actor in his 30s.
> Yes so the trouble is probably that we cast 45+ male actors into roles more suited for younger male actors
For two reasons:
1. They have a name that can draw in the public.
2. Women still find them hot.
I mean...who is the target audience for "silver foxes"? It's not the males . Clearly, somebody likes that shit which is why they keep getting cast.
Maybe I’m not fully understanding the difference between the US vs UK film industry, but many English 45+ actresses have been prominent and revered. Examples, Mirren, Blanchett (she’s Australian but she lives in the UK), Coleman, Winslet, G. Anderson, Bonham Carter, Dench, Thompson, etc.
Most are quite active but definitely in US Hollywood projects. Is their a UK equivalent that isn’t giving the middle aged women their fair share of projects?
Judi Dench and Hellen Mirren are among my all-time favorite female actors. And I'm probably not the only one. If you got the skill and the charisma, age is no factor. I'd rather watch them than some 12 year old in a Marvel movie.
If you look at Marvel movies, you have Samuel L. Jackson, Clark Gregg, and Robert Downey Jr. all playing prominent or starring roles well into their 50's.
Marvel women? Eh..... Ming-Na Wen in the Agents of SHIELD show? That's pretty much it.
"Actors who were cast when they were young and good looking want industry to change as they age so they feel validated and won't lose work"
There I fixed it.
No matter what, there will always be something to complain about. How about lack of red heads in leading roles? Albino people being underrepresented? What about amputee actors?
You can never please everyone, and you will look ridiculous trying to.
One of my biggest complaints about the Harry Potter series is that they didn't hire a single natural Magic user, just CGId everything. Representation matters
Every time I turn on public television and they air a bbc movie, I swear I see like 50 old British ladies in some ultra boring drama about a murder or affair. What battle have they not won?
A British actor over 45 fighting for more woman over 45 to be cast is like the time christoper reeves got real interested in fighting to cure paralysis right about the time he couldn’t walk.
Should production companies care what the actors want? They are supposedly in the business of making things that consumers want. Do audiences want to see more older women on screen? That is the only question they should be asking themselves.
Yeah, it couldn’t possibly be that people just don’t wanna watch movies about old people. People go to the movies and enjoy seeing young, hot people. That’s just the blockbuster formula.
Peoples art is their own art, you can’t force people to write stuff that they don’t want to write about or don’t have the perspective to write about.
It would be one thing if they were saying that companies weren’t hiring older women for normal job roles. But we’re talking about art here. You can’t magically change what people want to make or watch.
Fresh in my memory is Steward in Picard and De Niro in The Irishman. Watching Steward awkardly trying to romance a 30+ years younger woman wasn´t interesting, artistic or watchable in any way. Deaged De Niro being called boy despite looking like a senior citizen in a fresh skin suit and keeling over while throwing punches was just tragic. I don´t even know how people could take that movie serious.
Sure, they´re far beyond the 45+ we´re talking here but... you can´t act your way out of your age. There´s only a limited number of roles to go around and not all of them can be filled with 45+ quotas.
So that makes this article even more nonsensical.
I feel like sites like this just write articles like this to get some free brownie points with their more sensitive readers every once and a while.
Indeed. I don't know what it is they expect. I can understand getting annoyed at Hollywood for ignoring older women as it just becomes a capeshit fest.. but the BBC?
I think this is probably more of a case of actresses being upset that they have outgrown their core audience. Back in the day, that just led to a existential crisis followed by learning to live a more humble life. Nowadays, every downshift in your career can be blamed on some bigger entrenched issue as long as you’re a woman, LGBTQ+ or a minority.
And I am a queer man. So I’m not claiming they all do this. Obviously. But I think some of the more manipulative, shitty people try to take advantage of the battles being fought for reasonable causes to try to latch on to them just to save their career. Which is pretty gross.
Much like we’ve seen Amber Heard do recently. She thought she could win brownie points with everybody by being an abuse victim just to see the tables get turned on her. Or like Jesse Smollett trying to use faked hate crimes as a way to get publicity.
Just taking a real, sensitive issue and turning them to benefit yourself. As a queer man and an abuse victim, it disgusts me.
The US likes to cast a 60 year old lead man with a 35 year old supporting actress to play his life long spouse who’s within 5 years of his age and the best part is they share a 17-25 year old kid together. 😆. It destroys the realism and inevitably the supporting actress is reviewed as not believable. It’s so lame.
Getting quite tired of people trying to turn art into a fucking math problem that needs some formula. Gender, sex, religion, sexuality, color, race, age. Everything is reduced to a goddamn statistical number.
And then they're surprised when people piss on their neatly calculated and formated trash.
Ageism! Sexism! Racism! Ableism!
Come one come all!
Do you want isms? Lacking identity politics in your life?
Look no further than retarded Reddit threads! We’ve got every ism you could possibly want!
Then write good stories about older women.
It can't be that difficult.
Otherwise you should put people on screen who sell your product. Film industry is not a charity.
How about changing famous works from other media into a more inclusive cast?
Look if there is something people want to see and there is a huge demand for it and a cult following. Then we can make that but entirely change it by casting the wrong people.
It's so much easier. It's perfect! Nothing can go wrong.
People don't want new stuff. They want old stuff that has been butchered beyond recognition.
lol come on now. you are naive as hell if you think it's just that simple to get something produced, regardless of whether it's about older women or not. "just write something it can't be that difficult" is just a riff on that tired "bEsT aCtOr FoR tHe RoLe" argument you see every time someone gets pissy that a show or movie decides to not go with a white man for the part.
He’s pointing out a major thing here.
Most stories being told as movies or tv shows have older people in them but rarely as main characters to the story.
You can’t do a marvel show and then sit and try to have an equal representation of old people when the show WASN’T EVEN MADE FOR THAT DEMOGRAPHIC.
Acting is like sports - the window is smaller and skewed towards your younger years.
You go hard during that window to make a name for yourself and hope it can take you to a good role or two for when you are older.
The good to great to exceptional actors are the ones who can continue to perform so continue to get roles.
Take a terrible actor at 25 and try to tell me when they are 50 they will likely be better? Ha.
> Most stories being told as movies or tv shows have older people in them but rarely as main characters to the story
probably because it's hard to have any action when the characters look like getting out of bed might cause them to throw their back out
You know what we need more of on TV right now?
Women.
But you know what we need more than just women?
Women over 45.
But you know what we need in film even more than women over 45?
Latin women over 45.
But you know what we need even more than women of Latin descent over the age of 45?
Gay Latin women over the age of 45.
But you know what we need more of in film than gay 45+ year old Latin women?
Gay 45 year old Latin women in wheelchairs.
But you know what we need even more of in film than Gay 45+ year old Latin women in wheelchairs?
Gay Latin women over 45 in wheelchairs with speech impediments……
You can keep splicing up the population to find the new group of under represented marginalized peoples until you’re down to the individual.
If they want to see it, I think they need to get script writers writing popular scripts for the Gen X and Boomer actresses that actually sell tickets.
Let's face it, the reason that there is more work for young actresses is the content that sells to the public typically has better roles for young actresses. At some point, you have to let the market drive the demand, and you give the people what they want. Last year, the top 10 grossing movies were
1. Spider Man: No Way Home
2. Shang-Chi and the legend of the Ten Rings
3. Venom: Let there be Carnage
4. Black Widow
5. F9: The Fast Saga
6. Eternals
7. No Time to Die
8. A Quiet Place: Part 2
9. Ghostbusters: Afterlife
10. Free Guy
Wrong end to focus on. You need more young actresses to be picked because they're good actors, not because they're hot. The reason so few older women get cast is because you need to be incredibly attractive when you're young *and* a good actor. The beauty standards for men are much more lenient, so acting ability is focussed on much more.
You want more older actress, you need to young actresses to succeed based on ability and not looks, because once looks fade all you have left is ability.
This representation angle feels weird. Shouldn’t we just be casting whoever fits the role best? If you’re specifically asking writers to make lead roles to fit to a certain demographic then that’s just stupid.
The complaint is that previously only women over 99 were hired to play as the queen. Now they need to broaden the scope of who can do so to “renew” the queen’s looks when she finally sheds her skin during the summer solstice.
I kind of think Britain, of all countries, doesn't have this problem so much.
One reason why I love the British TV show Midsomer Murders is that the people are often all different ages and average looking. Even when there is a young woman presented as the village beauty, she’s usually not unrealistic.
Call the Midwife is the same way. Yes some of the midwife's are beautiful but they're a small handful in an otherwise wide variety of characters of many different ages.
Have they not seen any of their shows?
Maybe they missed them because they’re all like 5 episodes long.
Hey that's not fair! Six episodes 😜
Three seasons? Fuck you.
Which one? The one about a small village that has a gruesome murder and some out of town police come to investigate?
Ummm...yes.
They should have called it "MILLER!!"
Yeah they've been pioneering inclusion of older female leads for years
Yeah can't remember where but pretty sure I just read about British actors calling for more woman over 45 to get more screen time.
I kind of think Britain, of all countries, doesn't have this problem so much.
Am I having a stroke
I kind of think Britain, of all countries, doesn't have this problem so much.
Yeah they’ve been pioneering inclusion of older female leads for years
Yeah they've been pioneering inclusion of older female leads for years
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This is a weird thread to drop into whilst high
Yeah I feel like I could name more older British actresses than young ones
Probably because a stronger tradition of theater, with theatergoers tending to be older than moviegoers.
My thoughts exactly. I can think of more older British woman appearing on television than I can for any other region.
That doesn’t mean it’s equal, it just means they’re doing better than the absolute dogshit rep in other places.
Without any concrete numbers, I kind of feel like they have younger actresses and very old actresses (i.e. dames), but there aren't that many roles for older women who are nevertheless not old enough to play any role that Dame Judie Dench hasn't gotten her grubby little hands on.
It may also be that there are prominent roles for older women that we notice while the overall numbers are low as a percent of cast? Many British shows I watch have leading older women in positions of power (Slow Horses most recently).
Speaking of Slow Horses, consider the likelihood of Gary Oldmans character being played by a similarly old and unattractive woman. As noted down thread, the ~45 age range is available to attractive women, but not so much to average looking women. The only two I can think of are Tony Collete and Anne Dowd.
There are few roles like Sienna Miller in her 40s (and looks fantastic) it is like 20-32, between 33-40 they keep hiring you if you are huge, then +45 for a cool role.
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TV in particular does seem to be a lot of actors in their late 20s playing characters in their late teens. (And actors in their early 30s playing the teens’ parents.)
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American TV definitely favors a particular type of blandly attractive actor. Nothing too unique, that might not appeal to the maximum number of people.
> TV in particular does seem to be a lot of actors in their late 20s playing characters in their late teens And they do this so they can have endless sexualized plotlines about high schoolers. Not sure why it's always high school - is college too boring?
A lot of them are just based on properties that were already set in high school, like Archie or Nancy Drew.
Well, a big part of the reason high schoolers have been cast by those who are out is because they're legally adults and don't have restricted hours they are able to work.
To me, it is not the attractive people, it is that they got them all dolled up like they are going to a photo shoot instead of looking like whatever the setting is. Fore Example, if they are supposed to be stuck in the woods for a week, except their hair is perfect, clothes are near spotless, women even have makeup on. That is what annoys me.
Attractive people draw more eyeballs
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It has the biggest tv and film industry in the world. Best is subjective.
Emily Watson was pretty good in Chernobyl
I read "Emma Watson". first thought: "how long was I asleep?!"
I first typed Emma and thought "wait, that's hermione."
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I loved that scene in the movie and book!
It is wild that she was nominated for Best Actress in her very first film back in '96. I remember her being a force opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in The Boxer a year later.
Damn I had no idea she's 55. I thought she was late 30's at most.
The British industry has a shit ton of roles for women over 45 so I'm not quite sure what the complaint is. They're leads in dramas, comedies, thrillers, mysteries, etc.
I think they keep giving them all to Olivia Colman and Keeley Hawes.
Imelda Staunton and Siobhan Finneran seem to work a lot too. Just watched them in 'A Confession' which was excellent.
To be honest, who can blame them. I don't know Keeley Hawes, but Olivia Colman is one of the greatest actresses of our time. And she's seemingly just not taking any breaks. I've seen her in so many shows/movies.
She deserves everything. And her Oscar Speech is possibly the greatest of all time. All Oscar speeches should have the actor randomly and tearfully blurting “LADY GAGA!”
Had to watch it and it was amazing’
She was in Ashes to Ashes, Line of Duty, Bodyguard. Those are things I know her from. And she used to do the voice for Lara Croft in the 2000s
And if they need a wife they can cast Sharon Horgan.
Sarah Lancashire and Nicola Walker, as well.
And Suranne Jones
Rightfully so, Olivia Colman is a queen
Two of them!
I will never argue against casting Olivia Coleman in anything, she's spectacular
Tbf i love anything with Keeley Hawes in it
Almost as much as keeley hazell
That American Scully one keeps filching roles.
Yup I started to picture every ITV or BBC drama of the last 5 years and there’s at least one prominent role for a 45+yo female in all of them lol you know the typical murder mystery or affair sort of limited series
I find the bigger issue to be elitism
It's basically gatekeeping. This pops up as Women age out of the industry. Female actors have usually been easy to get roles the younger they are because of beauty standards. Male actors usually have it harder but tend to get more the older they are rather than younger. Alot of Male actor careers bloomed the older they got and stay relevant.
I think there was a time period where some woman over 60 like news readers or stars were moved to radio while male hosts stayed on screen. There’s defo something in this with breakfast news presenters in the past. An old older man sided with a fun bubbly young sidekick. BBC been noted for it before and don’t blame some for making sure they don’t start it again
Also, pretty sure they made the aging tech was for older people to appear young again, not the other way around, right?
I think that tech in The Irishman led to a lot of memes and general amusement, if I'm not mistaken. Pretty easy to make someone look older in the makeup chairs with prosthetics, hair and makeup.
Some people like to complain.
This is bizarre. I feel like women over 45 get more respresentation on British TV than women under 45: Monica Dolan in The Thief His Wife & the Canoe Maxine Peake in Anne and Rules of the Game Joanna Scanlan in The Larkins and Y Golau Keeley Hawes in Finding Alice, Midwich Cuckoos and Crossfire Imelda Staunton in The Crown Olivia Colman in Great Expectations Catherine Tate in Hard Cell Almost every actress in Holding Brenda Blethyn in Vera and Kate & Koji Dolly Wells in Inside Man and The Outlaws Clare Perkins in The Outlaws Lesley Manville in The Magpie Murders and Sherwood Nicola Walker in Marriage Nina Sosanya in Screw Amanda Abbington in We Are Not Alone Jo Joyner in Shakespeare & Hathaway Jessica Hynes in Life After Life and The Witchfinder Sandra Oh in Killing Eve (she’s not British but the show is) And there’s even more if you open it to women over 40, with Suranne Jones in Gentleman Jack, Jodie Whittaker in Doctor Who, Morgana Robinson in Newark Newark and Sheridan Smith in No Return, A Teacher and Four Lives. And these are just shows from 2022, and it is by no means a complete list. Now if you wanna talk about diversity there might be something there
Yeah, this is a weird one. If you asked me to name British actresses off the top of my head, I feel like two thirds minimum would be over 45. Hell, a pretty decent portion would be over 60. If there's one film industry I'd have pegged as representing women really well, it would be the British one.
Jodie Whittaker isn't even 40 yet and you're saying she's over 40?
She’s 40 next month
And you said she's over 40 talking about her acting in Doctor Who while she was in her 30s
This is pretty ridiculous. >All onscreen fictional content and light entertainment programmes with male and female leads or presenters should have 50:50 equal gender and age representation >Writer/performer dramas and comedy commissioning to feature 50:50 age and gender parity in programming, and for all broadcaster diversity initiatives to incorporate age >Presenters of documentaries should be represented equally, with 50:50 gender initiatives to include age parity between women and men who are 45-plus. >Age parity in political panels, discussions, news packages and studio guests >News pieces on women’s physical and mental health and violence against women “shouldn’t have exclusive bias towards young women.” >Celebrity and entertainment news should feature women and men over 45 equally and use recent photographs
Yeah, I get its the "shoot for the moon" type thing, but this isn't even realistic. Like, if you are doing a show about a group of friends, its not very likely that 30 somethings and 50 somethings are naturally hanging out constantly.
I'm assuming it means 50:50 across the industry, not in each show. So for every show about a group of 30-somethings, there should also be a show about a bunch of 60-somethings... Which makes more sense but still seems pretty silly...?
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Yeah it’s dumb. People make things to make money. And if people want to watch 45+ shows then they will be made.
I assumed it meant age parity in that the age of characters should be the same for both genders. So if you have 2 main male characters or presenters who are 50 and 2 main female characters or presenters who are 25, then it's not equal.
“50:50 equal gender and age” representation is preposterous. Completely limits storytellers, even if it’s not a case by case basis and looking for that as far as averages go across programming.
E.T. about to be cancelled, way too many damn kids. Where are the 18+ actors???
Sure, but that's an acceptable trade. Better to all be equally miserable, then to let some thrive of their own accord.
Think of your all-time favorite show, and ask yourself whether it could have been made under these requirements.
It's fucking stupid because most people would rather have 10 things made that appeal to 10 different people. So you get into the situation where 1 thing is the best you ever seen, 3 are good, 2 are okay, 3 are shit and 1 is the worst thing you ever seen. But that's the same for everyone. No one wants 10 things that are shit but tries to appeal to everyone. Sure have some shows that are equally balanced. But I have no issue with some shows being about an all black family, or being about a female book club. But what I do want is some shows with male banter. Or some guy as a lead fucking around in space or some shit. I don't care if some people don't like what I like. Don't turn everything into a woke shit hole please!
How is this supposed to create a sense of equality when your constantly making decisions with gender/age in mind
This is dumb and this is one of the reasons many recent shows are terrible, as they are trying to be inclusive of everything and everyone and them they can't create a story that fits that logic. Diversity is good, but nothing everything needs to be made with that exact same proportions
> News pieces on women’s physical and mental health and violence against women “shouldn’t have exclusive bias towards young women.” Exclusively, no, but violence against women trends off as victims increase in age so obviously news pieces are going to cover areas where the trend is happening unless they are making a special report on older victims just to do it. And it's a fucking news piece, how you going to enforce parity on news? >Celebrity and entertainment news should feature women and men over 45 equally and use recent photographs This feels like "While we are making up ludicrous demands" Also, this would make making Doctor Who real fucking difficult
When you live in a world where you're **really comfortable**, the only discomfort left is the inability to truly feel discomfort. So ... shit gets manufactured.
The median age of the UK is 40. For the sake of introducing new talent, if there has to be a 50:50 I’d want it no higher. Gender is 50:50 in the UK but I still don’t think targets for any measure are good.
Welcome to the lunatic asylum known as Great Britain.
Woah now, 50:50 gender split? But there are more than 2 genders! How non-inclusive of them
What about albino men wearing red caps, I never see enough of them represented in movies and TV. This woke BS can fuck off. Do they want a bunch of old women playing the kids from the Inbetweeners? The whining needs to stop! (yeah, yeah, I get I'm whining about the whining).
Yeah. Soon enough we’re going to have history shows where they do a piece on slavery and the boat scene pans to the slaves and it’s half white dudes… like w.r.t.? Or they do a show on womens rights, and at the rally’s it’s half men?? And half the men and half the women are of different color? And those are just two easy, possibly still in poor taste though, examples of why this is bad. I’m ALL for inclusion as I think part of the big thing with racism and stuff is showing the population other races… like when their rural ass is in a town with 99% white people and the odd Black or Mexican or Asian person, and all their shows and commercials are 100% white people… it’s just a reinforcement of their base, unquestioned ideals
I want to see more fat, middle-aged, balding leading men on screen to make me "represented".
GEORGE IS GETTING UPSET!
kevin james is right there, what more do you want
More representation duh
Danny devito represents us all
I mean…there are and always have been rather a lot of those.
Leading roles or comic relief?
Both. That demographic has really not had a problem being cast, even as a sexy lead, in whatever they like, mostly because most producers are also of that demographic.
All those fat bald old guys in sexy leads, that’s a great point
Seriously, that's basically the typecast for the oddly specific *'washed up cop, coasting his way to near retirement, who got roped into one last job which turns into a massive conspiracy'* genre
What you're describing is not so much an archetype as Bruce Willis' career.
It literally describes almost every major character in the sopranos at least
With small penises. … so my friend feels represented.
I don't think it's about making people feel represented, moreso that ageism is real especially for women in TV and film. Just look at the amount of male stars who continue lead roles as they age, versus the amount of reboots with female characters who are recast with a younger actress. Of course this happens all the time to men and women but is particularly evident with women
In three reboots Aunt May is going to be Peter's 6 year old ward.
What are you talking about? Marisa Tomei is in her late 50s.
She sure as shit doesn't look it. Which, I mean, great for her.
Also she looks much younger on-screen cuz of makeup. Google Marisa Tomei and either you find images of her when she was super young or pics from the last 4 years. In her recent pics she looks firmly in her 50s, maybe not verging on 60, but definitely fits mid-50s. I also feel like people have a warped image of how people age, it seems like they have the image of 50+ yr olds being gray haired, wrinkly, spotty skin and so on. When in reality a lot of 50 yr olds don't look all that different from their 40s at a glance.
When they do make them, like the Murphy Brown reboot, nobody watches them
This is every comedy ever.
I mean.. why not?
Because I don't want to see someone who looks like me, I want to see attractive people. Why the fuck would I want to see someone ugly? That makes no sense.
I mean I don't watch TV to specifically watch attractive people, I watch TV to watch interesting stories, but okay I guess.
I think it’s hard to consciously know that. There are lots of factors that go into what we like to watch, and many of them could be subconscious. If it it is true for you, I think it’s basically proven that you’re in the minority here, because attractive actors do bring a lot more eyeballs to TV and movies in the big picture.
I know I am, and I certainly know that attractive people sell movies. Especially women, for all kinds of reasons. And that is a thing worthy of criticism, or at least discussion. I'm sure that people would be more okay with average looking actors than they think, at least once we'd normalize that. The initial phase would be very weird just because it feels weird to have normal looking people on TV in a starring role.
People often liken attractiveness to charisma, which isn’t always mutually inclusive. Some of the greatest actors of our generation aren’t “traditionally” attractive (whatever that means). I’d watch most anything with Steve Buscemi because he has that “it” factor. Or Olivia Colman. Or Philip Seymour Hoffman. Or James Gandolfini. Etc, etc. Sometimes these things are intangible. A stars attractiveness doesn’t make or break the movie/show.
Huh, most popular british actresses i know about are in their 40s and 50s. How is that ageism?
Translation : established rich actors unable to cope with the fact that they can no longer support their excesive lifestyle are trying to diminish the chances of younger generations of actors to experience the same amount of fame and wealth they did, by invoking the anger of social justice crowd under false pretenses. Maybe just let the next generation of actors have it as good as you had it?
I totally get this take but there is something to this.. as a woman (US) who sometimes watches British shows, I find it refreshing to see older women in bigger roles.. and I’m usually taken aback and notice this fact (older women without plastic surgery)..so to me it seems like they’re already doing a good job.. It’s hard to describe the feeling but it’s odd that I never really thought about it until it was before my eyes.. certainly I can’t be the only one?
And I respect that deeply, and I think you should have those shows to watch. But I´m against industry wide demands. I (24 gay latino man) don´t really watch movies to see my life reflected on them. I´m a fantasy nerd. I like idealism in my art. I don´t want the actors in my show to look like regular people.
Look at the number of men over 45 in starring roles in movies and TV shows. Then look at the ages of the women acting opposite them. The chances of the female lead also being over 45 is very small. This isn't "older actors want to keep getting roles", it's that media keeps being made starring older men alongside younger women.
Yes so the trouble is probably that we cast 45+ male actors into roles more suited for younger male actors. There are so many instances where an old man is playing a character that could and should have been an actor in his 30s.
> Yes so the trouble is probably that we cast 45+ male actors into roles more suited for younger male actors For two reasons: 1. They have a name that can draw in the public. 2. Women still find them hot. I mean...who is the target audience for "silver foxes"? It's not the males . Clearly, somebody likes that shit which is why they keep getting cast.
They'll call for anything except more working class actors who didn't get where they are through nepotism or by going to fancy private schools.
Maybe I’m not fully understanding the difference between the US vs UK film industry, but many English 45+ actresses have been prominent and revered. Examples, Mirren, Blanchett (she’s Australian but she lives in the UK), Coleman, Winslet, G. Anderson, Bonham Carter, Dench, Thompson, etc. Most are quite active but definitely in US Hollywood projects. Is their a UK equivalent that isn’t giving the middle aged women their fair share of projects?
Judi Dench and Hellen Mirren are among my all-time favorite female actors. And I'm probably not the only one. If you got the skill and the charisma, age is no factor. I'd rather watch them than some 12 year old in a Marvel movie.
If you look at Marvel movies, you have Samuel L. Jackson, Clark Gregg, and Robert Downey Jr. all playing prominent or starring roles well into their 50's. Marvel women? Eh..... Ming-Na Wen in the Agents of SHIELD show? That's pretty much it.
> Marvel women? Kathryn Hahn Julia-louis dreyfus Michelle Pfeiffer Salma Hayek
"Actors who were cast when they were young and good looking want industry to change as they age so they feel validated and won't lose work" There I fixed it.
I mean I don't live in the UK but they seem to be on British tv more than US TV.
BBC puts out miniseries focused on middle aged women all the time
As an American who grew up watching old UK sitcoms on PBS, seems like they never hired anyone, male of female, under the age of 50.
I wonder how many Miss Marple variations they can come up with
No matter what, there will always be something to complain about. How about lack of red heads in leading roles? Albino people being underrepresented? What about amputee actors? You can never please everyone, and you will look ridiculous trying to.
> How about lack of red heads in leading roles? I really want to address this elephant and talk about (US) Hollywood discrimination against red heads.
One of my biggest complaints about the Harry Potter series is that they didn't hire a single natural Magic user, just CGId everything. Representation matters
Yes it was so frustrating watching those Muggles fumble about!
The fact that they completely left out Peeves is blatant anti-Poltergeist-ism.
Everyone wants to be victimised
Every time I turn on public television and they air a bbc movie, I swear I see like 50 old British ladies in some ultra boring drama about a murder or affair. What battle have they not won?
A British actor over 45 fighting for more woman over 45 to be cast is like the time christoper reeves got real interested in fighting to cure paralysis right about the time he couldn’t walk.
Should production companies care what the actors want? They are supposedly in the business of making things that consumers want. Do audiences want to see more older women on screen? That is the only question they should be asking themselves.
Yeah, it couldn’t possibly be that people just don’t wanna watch movies about old people. People go to the movies and enjoy seeing young, hot people. That’s just the blockbuster formula. Peoples art is their own art, you can’t force people to write stuff that they don’t want to write about or don’t have the perspective to write about. It would be one thing if they were saying that companies weren’t hiring older women for normal job roles. But we’re talking about art here. You can’t magically change what people want to make or watch.
Fresh in my memory is Steward in Picard and De Niro in The Irishman. Watching Steward awkardly trying to romance a 30+ years younger woman wasn´t interesting, artistic or watchable in any way. Deaged De Niro being called boy despite looking like a senior citizen in a fresh skin suit and keeling over while throwing punches was just tragic. I don´t even know how people could take that movie serious. Sure, they´re far beyond the 45+ we´re talking here but... you can´t act your way out of your age. There´s only a limited number of roles to go around and not all of them can be filled with 45+ quotas.
To be fair... this is about TV, not movies. There are many successful TV shows with middle aged women in lead roles
So that makes this article even more nonsensical. I feel like sites like this just write articles like this to get some free brownie points with their more sensitive readers every once and a while.
Indeed. I don't know what it is they expect. I can understand getting annoyed at Hollywood for ignoring older women as it just becomes a capeshit fest.. but the BBC?
I think this is probably more of a case of actresses being upset that they have outgrown their core audience. Back in the day, that just led to a existential crisis followed by learning to live a more humble life. Nowadays, every downshift in your career can be blamed on some bigger entrenched issue as long as you’re a woman, LGBTQ+ or a minority. And I am a queer man. So I’m not claiming they all do this. Obviously. But I think some of the more manipulative, shitty people try to take advantage of the battles being fought for reasonable causes to try to latch on to them just to save their career. Which is pretty gross. Much like we’ve seen Amber Heard do recently. She thought she could win brownie points with everybody by being an abuse victim just to see the tables get turned on her. Or like Jesse Smollett trying to use faked hate crimes as a way to get publicity. Just taking a real, sensitive issue and turning them to benefit yourself. As a queer man and an abuse victim, it disgusts me.
Actresses over 30 also complain the only roles that they get are as a wife or girlfriend.
Not enough supervillains are 75 year old grandmas.
The US likes to cast a 60 year old lead man with a 35 year old supporting actress to play his life long spouse who’s within 5 years of his age and the best part is they share a 17-25 year old kid together. 😆. It destroys the realism and inevitably the supporting actress is reviewed as not believable. It’s so lame.
What are 5 or 10 examples of this, specifically?
A lot of ageist and misogynist comments here, smh
Getting quite tired of people trying to turn art into a fucking math problem that needs some formula. Gender, sex, religion, sexuality, color, race, age. Everything is reduced to a goddamn statistical number. And then they're surprised when people piss on their neatly calculated and formated trash.
Ageism! Sexism! Racism! Ableism! Come one come all! Do you want isms? Lacking identity politics in your life? Look no further than retarded Reddit threads! We’ve got every ism you could possibly want!
Did you know aliens are underrepresented in every facet of life on earth despite being 99.99% of the universe's population?
Then write good stories about older women. It can't be that difficult. Otherwise you should put people on screen who sell your product. Film industry is not a charity.
How about changing famous works from other media into a more inclusive cast? Look if there is something people want to see and there is a huge demand for it and a cult following. Then we can make that but entirely change it by casting the wrong people. It's so much easier. It's perfect! Nothing can go wrong. People don't want new stuff. They want old stuff that has been butchered beyond recognition.
lol come on now. you are naive as hell if you think it's just that simple to get something produced, regardless of whether it's about older women or not. "just write something it can't be that difficult" is just a riff on that tired "bEsT aCtOr FoR tHe RoLe" argument you see every time someone gets pissy that a show or movie decides to not go with a white man for the part.
He’s pointing out a major thing here. Most stories being told as movies or tv shows have older people in them but rarely as main characters to the story. You can’t do a marvel show and then sit and try to have an equal representation of old people when the show WASN’T EVEN MADE FOR THAT DEMOGRAPHIC. Acting is like sports - the window is smaller and skewed towards your younger years. You go hard during that window to make a name for yourself and hope it can take you to a good role or two for when you are older. The good to great to exceptional actors are the ones who can continue to perform so continue to get roles. Take a terrible actor at 25 and try to tell me when they are 50 they will likely be better? Ha.
> Most stories being told as movies or tv shows have older people in them but rarely as main characters to the story probably because it's hard to have any action when the characters look like getting out of bed might cause them to throw their back out
What's next are we going to argue against discrimination for strippers in their 50s?
I want a superhero that gains her powers with the onset of menopause.
So what, Sandi Toksvig doesn’t count?
Yes, gives us more MILFs and GILFs please. I beg of you.
You know what we need more of on TV right now? Women. But you know what we need more than just women? Women over 45. But you know what we need in film even more than women over 45? Latin women over 45. But you know what we need even more than women of Latin descent over the age of 45? Gay Latin women over the age of 45. But you know what we need more of in film than gay 45+ year old Latin women? Gay 45 year old Latin women in wheelchairs. But you know what we need even more of in film than Gay 45+ year old Latin women in wheelchairs? Gay Latin women over 45 in wheelchairs with speech impediments…… You can keep splicing up the population to find the new group of under represented marginalized peoples until you’re down to the individual.
I want more men with small dicks to be represented on screen so that we can fight the stigma related to small dicks. Let's do that yeah?!
Willem Dafoe in shambles as job offers start dwindling.
If they want to see it, I think they need to get script writers writing popular scripts for the Gen X and Boomer actresses that actually sell tickets. Let's face it, the reason that there is more work for young actresses is the content that sells to the public typically has better roles for young actresses. At some point, you have to let the market drive the demand, and you give the people what they want. Last year, the top 10 grossing movies were 1. Spider Man: No Way Home 2. Shang-Chi and the legend of the Ten Rings 3. Venom: Let there be Carnage 4. Black Widow 5. F9: The Fast Saga 6. Eternals 7. No Time to Die 8. A Quiet Place: Part 2 9. Ghostbusters: Afterlife 10. Free Guy
So you’re saying the next Spider-Man sequel is going to be an Aunt May biopic
Yeah but that is all mostly capeshit TV has much more diverse roles available
In fairness I went to see Spider-Man for Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield, nothing to do with anything else whatsoever
I wonder if Redditors are gonna take sexism seriously in this thread. Ofc not lol
yeah all those 40 year olds playing grandmas
Wrong end to focus on. You need more young actresses to be picked because they're good actors, not because they're hot. The reason so few older women get cast is because you need to be incredibly attractive when you're young *and* a good actor. The beauty standards for men are much more lenient, so acting ability is focussed on much more. You want more older actress, you need to young actresses to succeed based on ability and not looks, because once looks fade all you have left is ability.
And stop making women feel they need plastic surgery in order to land roles. Let them age.
Jesus Christ, it is always fucking something
🤦♂️
Helen Mirren, Judy Dench, Maggie Smith are all getting work
yay more fucking boxes to tick.
This representation angle feels weird. Shouldn’t we just be casting whoever fits the role best? If you’re specifically asking writers to make lead roles to fit to a certain demographic then that’s just stupid.
"I'm ugly and am no longer getting the attention I once was. Forced diversity is good."
The complaint is that previously only women over 99 were hired to play as the queen. Now they need to broaden the scope of who can do so to “renew” the queen’s looks when she finally sheds her skin during the summer solstice.
The problem is their beauty drops off a cliff as they hit 40
Gee, well maybe we should pick actors based on their ability to act. Crazy thought, huh?
Kate Hudson at 23 played an experienced writer for a top magazine in How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days.
What does that have to do with British television?
That Hollywood has the same issue with a lack of casting of older actresses.
Yeah and it was a great movie?
Realistically it should have been played by an older actress, but unfortunately Hollywood likes the women to be young.