According to Hollywood movies, most women seem to vanish off the face of the Earth once they hit 50. A few exceptions are left behind (Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren, Diane Keaton) but for the most part, movies tend to keep casting young actresses opposite aging leading men.
This parody trailer makes fun of Hollywood’s habit of casting May/December romances, as a young woman and an elderly man fall in love—all while refusing to admit that he’s any older than she is.
When she introduces him to her mother and grandmother, both women appear to be in their early thirties. Considering the many films where actresses play mother to actors just a few years their junior, this isn’t so far off. Remember when Winona Ryder played Zachary Quinto’s mom in Star Trek, when she was 38 and he was 32? Seriously.
A while ago, Vulture published a series of graphs comparing the ages of leading men to the ages of their love interests. As stars like Harrison Ford, Denzel Washington and Johnny Depp aged into their 50s and beyond, their female co-stars remained consistently young. And that’s without even getting into the many action franchises like Die Hard and The Expendables, which exist purely to create comeback material for their aging stars. Meanwhile those actors’ female counterparts are consigned to grandmother roles and the occasional indie drama.
Hollywood, please stop doing this. You’re not fooling anyone.
Screengrab via UCBComedy/YouTube
