I was just reading
this article by Dodai Stewart over on Jezebel.com, entitled "Film Schooled: The Truth About Women and Hollywood..." and it got me to thinking.
(I know. Dangerous, so dangerous.)
According to this article, movie executives don't seem to think there's a place for actresses over a certain age. (Heaven forbid there be films involving women over 30.) I quote:
"What movie would you make for them?" asks our former studio chief. "They can't date anymore, they're all mothers. After a while, trying to extract the same story from the same tropes gets old."Another quote:
"These actresses? They're fucked. Good luck to Kate [Hudson] and Reese [Witherspoon]. When Cameron [Diaz] was getting cold, she bet on herself, took just a million dollars on Bad Teacher.
But even that's not a romantic comedy. The mid-budget studio film -- what used to be the sweet spot for romantic comedy -- is getting painfully squeezed."I don't deny that romantic comedies are so clichéd that it's tough to find a fresh new story in that avenue. But to say that women who are over 20-something and have personal lives and kids at home can't have interesting roles and that the only thing out there for women is a rom-com and once they're too old or already 'been there, done that' for that kind of role that they're done? That there's nothing for them? They're too 'old' for their characters to 'date'?
Is that the only type of role women are supposed to fill?
That's bullshit.
And why don't we see these things said about men? Tom Hanks has done rom-coms (
Splash,
You've Got Mail), and he has kids and a family, but he's still got plenty of roles available to him. He's not 'fucked.' He's not unable to 'date' in films. (And don't give me that Tom Hanks is talented and/or versatile, and these women aren't. Reese Witherspoon has won an Oscar too, and she's played some terrific roles, like in
Walk The Line and
Election.)
I just eyeroll the attitudes of movie executives in Hollywood. Isn't there anyone out there who's interested in building a studio that steps outside the box and offers stories and roles for men
and for women that don't force them into stereotypes?
One former studio chief says this: "I think ... all the women in [Kate Hudson's] age group -- I would even include Reese Witherspoon -- need roles tailored for them and that those kinds of movies are not being written."
Why aren't they being written? If statistics show that women buy 50% of all movie tickets, why don't we see more films written with female roles in mind?
What makes a 'female role'? So, let me get this straight: men can play anything but women are relegated to playing mothers or romantic partners, and that's it? That's the extent of their stories to be told? (Unless, of course, they're terrorized victims, of physical or emotional abuse of some sort, needing to be saved by the leading male character. That seems to be the other cliché to be played by women.) And why do they assume that the
only thing women want to see are romantic comedies?
Maybe new stories need to be written. And then made by smart, brave people willing to take chances.
I ask you, my dear LJ friends, what types of rich, in-depth, kick-ass stories would you like to see made with female characters? What would make you spend your hard-earned dollars in the theatre or to check out a new TV show? What would make you go, 'Wow, that looks interesting, I totally want to see that'?
