We have moved from an industry that asked, "Can she still carry a film?" to an audience that demands, "When is she getting her own film?"
The 1990s and early 2000s were particularly brutal. The rise of the "chick flick" relegated women over 40 to the role of the mom in the bleachers or the shrill boss. Films like Something’s Gotta Give (2003) openly satirized the double standard when a 60-year-old man dating a 30-year-old woman was a "stud," while a 50-year-old woman dating a 30-year-old man was a crisis. milftoon+lemonade+movie+part+16+27l+portable
Michelle Yeoh, when accepting her Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once , said, "Ladies, don't let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime." It was a message not just for actresses, but for the entire cinematic world. The prime of mature women in entertainment is not a moment in the past. It is the present, and it is just now beginning to show us what it is truly capable of. We have moved from an industry that asked,
Consider Grace and Frankie (2015-2022). Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, with a combined age of nearly 150, led a hit show for seven seasons. It didn’t shy away from sex, friendship, ambition, or the messy realities of divorce and aging. It proved that the audience’s appetite for stories about older women was a vast, underserved market. Michelle Yeoh, when accepting her Oscar for Everything
The next frontier is about . We need more stories about working-class older women. We need more stories about sexuality in retirement homes (as seen in the brilliant Australian film The Nightingale or the series The Kominsky Method ). We need more women over 70 leading action films. We need to see unretouched skin, flabby arms, and gray roots on the red carpet.