UKC

Russell Crowe is in hot water for suggesting that film actresses in their forties and fifties should resign them selves to playing "character" roles and not seek top billing. In short, they should act their age.
Cue uproar from certain groups.
But wait a minute, if you read what he actually said, he included male actors in his comments. Unsurprisingly this is not made very clear in many of the headlines.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

I've looked at a couple of articles, but I can't find what this is based on. Any sources?

In reply to Timarzi:

http://www.aww.com.au/news-features/in-the-mag/2014/12/russell-crowe-hollyw...

In reply to hokkyokusei:

The key sentence is the last one in the Meryl Streep paragraph. It clearly puts older male actors and older female actors in the same quandary - but what's newsworthy about that? Better to put a sexist spin on it, whip up a bit of a frenzy.

In reply to Tom Valentine: i think there is a fair point that if they a t there age roles are limited and badly paid.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Just the sexism industry causing more division, nothing new.

"Russell Crowe? He's 50, but unlike so many women – and increasingly, the men – he's actually allowed to look 50. His hair has gone grey, and laugh lines have formed on his face. It hasn’t made him less employable."

When there are plenty of grey haired fifty year old women (preferably with lined faces and no comedy clown make up) on TV and in film, then we might be making progress. There are plenty of us in the real world.

In reply to andreadawn:

I agree. There are no 50+ yr old grey haired women on TV. You never see Judy Dench these days, nor Helen Mirren, nor Amanda Redman. None of the female cast of any soap are over 50, and I know for a fact that Jennifer Aldridge, Jill Archer, Linda Snell, and the whole of female Ambridge are all 40 or younger. You never get films like "Best Marigold Hotel" being made these days, and Catherine Zeta Jones will be out of work soon. One foot in the grave, last of the summer wine, and all comedies rely on young totty for all the female roles.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Pfft, this is Hollywood. Their crimes are myriad and sinister in character and beyond the ken of mathematicians to quantify in number.
Sure, they lack roles for older women, but they also:
- Encourage the sexualisation of high school pupils by having 25yr olds play pupil roles where they sleep around with each other, teachers, other adults, etc. etc.
- Encourage the sexualisation of younger children by making movies about children falling in love and giving children the kinds of dialogue that is appropriate to adult relationships.
- Encourage body dismorphia by casting increasingly bizarre body shapes as sexy role models (see also Kiera Knightly and hugh jackman).
- Glamorise the taking of illegal drugs.
- Glamorise wanton sadistic violence.
- Promote torture as an acceptable and effective method of obtaining information by "good guys".
- Provide completely misleading examples of how serious various wounds and injuries are and how quickly or completely they might heal.
- Almost always portray a age related mismatched relationship as being between an older male and a younger female.
- Portray rape as completely acceptable (though, tbh, they stopped doing this particular one quite so badly more recently).
- Portray violence as the only possible solution to almost all problems.
- Ostracize reclusive minor groups by mixing seriously disturbing material with the portrayal of people in these groups (e.g. Gay, transgender, hockey players, ballet dancers, [any other group that isn't absolutely mainstream])
- Reinforce race stereotypes (e.g. Black guys are bad guys, asian guys are emasculated guys, English guys are villains, columbian guys are untrustworthy AND evil guys, etc. etc.)
- And my own personal favourite: Portraying 80 pound girls as ninja-kung-fu-I'm-hard-bruce-lee deadly killers with possible additional abilities of flying and dodging bullets and certainly the overall ability to clear an entire building of bad guys with nothing more than their feet and fists.

Honestly. The industry is a cesspool.

In reply to stroppygob:

"You never get films like "Best Marigold Hotel" being made these days"

"Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" being released in March. It's probably like "Best Marigold Hotel"

In reply to Welsh Kate:
Which was my whole point cariad.

In reply to Welsh Kate:

Which makes it a whole lot better than Grand Budapest Hotel (whatever Tripadvisor says)

In reply to Tom Valentine:

You are all forgetting their most heinous sin, the ridiculousness of any climbing sequence!

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Could you provide examples of him being in hot water, i.e. Outrage at what he said about women.

I don't think much of Crowe, but that is more to do with the fact that the walk on part he had in Neighbours 25 years ago was probably as far as his talent should have let him go.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

I think an interesting exercise would be to take the top 20 grossing films of the 80s and compare the current careers of the male and female leads.