This change is also a correction of the male gaze. For too long, cinema was a medium of looking at women. Mature women in entertainment are now the ones doing the looking—the judging, the desiring, the discarding. They are allowed to be unlikeable. They are allowed to be predatory. They are allowed to be vulnerable without being pathetic.
To understand the present triumph, we must first acknowledge the historical prejudice. In classic Hollywood, the archetypes for women over 40 were limited to three categories: the nagging wife, the comic relief grandmother, or the tragic, sexless spinster. Studios believed that audiences—both male and female—wanted to see youth, beauty, and fertility on screen. Male leads like Sean Connery and Harrison Ford could age gracefully into their 60s and 70s opposite actresses 30 years their junior. Meanwhile, actresses like Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, and Susan Sarandon spent the 1990s openly complaining about the "desert of roles" that emerged after 45.
We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies, Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation, the Claims Conference, EVZ, and BMF for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. View the list of donor acknowledgement.
This change is also a correction of the male gaze. For too long, cinema was a medium of looking at women. Mature women in entertainment are now the ones doing the looking—the judging, the desiring, the discarding. They are allowed to be unlikeable. They are allowed to be predatory. They are allowed to be vulnerable without being pathetic.
To understand the present triumph, we must first acknowledge the historical prejudice. In classic Hollywood, the archetypes for women over 40 were limited to three categories: the nagging wife, the comic relief grandmother, or the tragic, sexless spinster. Studios believed that audiences—both male and female—wanted to see youth, beauty, and fertility on screen. Male leads like Sean Connery and Harrison Ford could age gracefully into their 60s and 70s opposite actresses 30 years their junior. Meanwhile, actresses like Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, and Susan Sarandon spent the 1990s openly complaining about the "desert of roles" that emerged after 45. ava addams milf