Karol Markowicz

Karol Markowicz

Opinion

Female filmgoers flip off feminist fury

Last week, Maggie Gyllenhaal told the media she’d recently been turned down for a role as the love interest of a male lead because she was too old.

Gyllenhaal is beautiful. She is also 37 years old.

The actor she was “too old” to love (or be loved by) is 55.

If this sounds strange to you, it is probably only because you are seeing the numbers on the page, and not picturing the last who-knows-how-many romcoms you’ve seen. Gyllenhaal’s case might seem outrageous, but it’s par for the course.

All the predictable hand-wringing followed Gyllenhaal’s admission. Patriarchal Hollywood was ageist, discarding women at a certain age but keeping men around even as they grayed and wrinkled.

“As long as women in the industry tacitly accept this treatment, change will be impossible,” wrote Julie Zeilinger, editor of the feminist blog the F Bomb and staff writer at Mic.com.

“Ageism and sexism continue to be pervasive issues in Tinseltown,” blared The Huffington Post. “A study of the top 265 earning actresses and actors in Hollywood films between 1968 and 2008 released last year by the Journal Of Management Inquiry revealed actresses are paid less as they get older, with wages increasing steadily through their 20s and dropping rapidly after 34. Meanwhile, actors’ salaries do not peak until 51 years old and do not decrease with age.”

It’s true, of course, that Hollywood is a place obsessed with appearances and men are given far more leeway than women about the way they look. But if there’s one thing that Hollywood is obsessed with even more than looks, it’s money.

Hollywood is an industry, a business, that produces what its customers will pay to see. And who’s seeing these movies with the lopsided age difference? Not stuffy agents of the patriarchy.

After Gyllenhaal’s comment, The Guardian pointed out that “Autumn in New York” had a 50-year-old Richard Gere playing opposite a 28-year-old Wynona Ryder, while Humphrey Bogart was 41 to Ingrid Bergman’s 27 in “Casablanca.”

The Wrap offered as more evidence of ageism “Pretty Woman,” where Richard Gere, again, was 40 and Julia Roberts was 22, as well as “Magic in the Moonlight,” which featured perennial romantic comedy favorite Colin Firth at 53 opposite Emma Stone at age 25.

These are all, let’s face it, chick flicks. Are women mad as hell and not going to take it anymore? If so, they should act like it: Shun movies where the love story features a couple who are generations apart in age.

That would include almost any movie featuring George Clooney, ladies — including even “Up in the Air,” in which Vera Farmiga plays a love interest who is seemingly his contemporary but is actually 12 years his junior.

Richard Gere would have to be given up pretty much completely: in “The Affair,” where his wife was “older” actress Diane Lane, she was still 16 years younger than he was.

Is it possible that Hollywood casts younger women opposite older men because that’s actually what women want to see?

No one is tougher on women than other women. The most gorgeous women in the whole world appear on red carpets and have every detail of their appearance scrutinized and judged harshly by other women.

It isn’t men sitting at home sniping “she looks old” or “she got fat” or other comments often heard in groups of women giving another woman the once-over. It’s not crazy for women to want to see youthful beauty while surrendering to a movie fantasy.

Or maybe women enjoy seeing an older man in a make-believe setting?

The Channing Tatums and Zac Efrons of the world lack the gravitas that older leading men can provide. Women will see movies with these young, cute actors, sure — but not with the loyalty they’ll show for Gere, Clooney, etc.

If women want to see change on the big screen, they can certainly make that happen. But first they have to decide if that’s what they want — or just what they want to want. It’s OK to want to see something in a movie that you don’t want to experience “in real life.”

And it’s hypocritical for women to pretend otherwise.