As much as I want to ignore the fact women my age are so underepresented, I have to acknowlege that there has to be a huge shift, very soon, so that all ages of men and women can go and enjoy the same film. I’m really trying to make that happen. My protaganist is only 17 in the beginning but ages 40 years in the story and so I will get to use some 50+ year old actresses. I’m praying for a miracle and getting myself out there as an actress all at the same time. I’m also in school studying to be a director so when everything converges to get this film made, I hope to alter some stinkin thinkin of ageist attitudes. We, meaning the baby boomers, are such a huge demographic. I will not let this rest until I can make a dent in our film industry. Tenacity reigns!! Thanks for being there, Pilar.

However, the commenters above have a point. Everyone in Hollywood has drank some amount of Kool-Aid in order to be there. So even people who sincerely claim to be doing something different for the women of the world are still stuck within a distorted paradigm.

I used to work for a female producer and the world in which they operate bears no resemblance to those of mere mortals. Anne Heche is a semi-unconventional choice only within the totally predictable profile for women on screen. They do get a lot more cred for Jane Adams, however.

Let’s cut her a little slack. She walked herself back into a shitstorm and she picked a feminist blog to do it on. Do you watch the show? What do you think of it?

…Right, because we know gay men wield so much power in the mainstream film industry.

Yes. It is possible for a woman to be sexist, even those women who you wish to be poster women for women in hollywood. In fact, women try to get that coltish patter of being one of the guys in order to get funding. I don’t think it is a mistake that this woman is sexist. The character drawn for Anne Heche is uptight, bitchy and cold – kinda cardboard, and not bitchy in that good way that is empowering like, say the Pam the vampire way on True Blood or even the ladys on Ab Fab. This woman does not think much of women over 35 (which is not old, by the way), and it shows.

Thank you for posting this clarification from Colette Burson. I think the addendum makes her remark makes sense. The whole thing about ‘older’ actors (older than 35, fer chrissakes) and roles is like the chicken-or-egg conundrum, isn’t it? We need more roles to be written, yet we need the actors to be available to play them. To me it’s similar to the issue of having more women’s sports broadcast on national TV; an audience is needed to sustain it, yet an audience can’t be built without the broadcast. Sigh.

On another issue, I find the different trajectories of Anne Heche and Ellen DeGeneres careers very interesting. They both suffered when they came out (separately), then Ellen revived hers through her performance as an animated character (Dorie) and further parlayed it into a very successful talk show gig. And while Anne Heche lost her leading lady status, she was able to bounce back in TV. So–maybe the moral of the story is that there are second chances for ‘older’ actors who have fallen out of the mainstream graces?