Leading Men Age, Leading Women Don’t | Vulture
There are more charts if you click through.
It took me a long time to realise why the male age line isn’t straight, but it’s because the years along the bottom axis aren’t equally spaced. Good visualisation of a depressing point, otherwise.
A very visual interpretation of Hollywood’s attitude towards women. After 30 or 35, women no longer get good roles in Hollywood (they do in Britain though – see Dame Judi Dench, Helen Mirran, Diana Rigg, etc). However, some leading men continue to be cast as romantic leads despite their age, Richard Gere being a prime example. I’d like to see Morgan Freeman on this same chart, especially as he often plays parts without a female romantic lead tied to his role (e.g. the Batman Dark Knight trilogy, Now You See It, Bruce & Evan Almighty, etc).
But this is a very good example, a visual example, of how Hollywood discriminates against women, especially as they get older.
Oddly enough, Hollywood also discriminates against short men – forcing them into comedic roles. (When’s the last time you saw a Hollywood Blockbuster with a lead who was less than six feet tall?)
