Tag Archives: ageism

Ageism, Romance, and You: A Sliding Scale?

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hollywoodJust when I think Hollywood is starting to ‘get it’ I come across a bone-headed article that proves otherwise. When in being considered for the role of ‘the wife” in The Wolf of Wall St, Olivia Wilde, who was 28 at the time, was deemed to be ‘too old.’ A 28 year-old actress was considered too advanced her years to play that ol’ standard role of ‘the wife to a nearly 40 year-old actor. Hooray for sexism. Hooray for Ageism.

Hollywood Old is now 28.

We’re all aware of Hollywood Old, but, as, I keep observing in the industry, there’s also Romance Fiction Old. While Hollywood Old develops at 28, in romance fiction the continuum of old appears to be on some kind of sliding scale. Honest, there is a sliding scale of old.

I belong to a Facebook group that champions ‘older’ heroines in romance fiction. This isslide-rule a vibrant group started by an author who, like me, is weary of the idea that reaching a certain age means women are invisible, heartless, and dead below the waist. The group, Seasoned Romance (fab name, innit?) consists of authors and readers who want to challenge the status quo of Hollywood Old and Romance Fiction Old. The thing is within this group of like-minded challengers the sliding scale of old is obvious. What is considered ‘mature’ shifts. There are members who think that 35 is mature. There are members (like me) who think that any age over 40 is the real mature, particularly when I have no trouble finding a 35 year-old heroine in romance, but struggle to when it comes to finding women 40 and beyond depicted as leads in romance fiction.

While mid-twenties remains the age norm for a romance heroine, there are heroines pushing 40—but few romance heroines have crossed that magical number that leads to invisibility. The 40-something heroine is becoming more popular (YAY!), more authors are writing heroines who have hit 40, or are just over 40, yet those books are not easy to find, which is why I have my list of Contemporary Romance Older Couples and keep adding to it.

Have you forgotten about my BOOK LIST? Keep your suggestions for the list coming, as many of you have—but please, no Women’s Fiction. I want romance, where the love story is central and the leads are both over 40.

Just spit-balling, here, but I suspect this sliding scale may be related to the age of the writer/reader. The variation is part of looking at age through the eyes of youth—when you’re 16 anyone 30 is ‘old’, and 30 year olds having sex is so gross, but once you reach 30, you wonder how you ever thought 30 was old because it’s 50 that is really old, and people in their 50s don’t have sex because they’re almost dead, and that’s so gross, and so forth… Hello ageism.

skeletalWhat do you think? The sliding scale; I’m curious to find out if there is a generally accepted idea of ‘old’ in romance fiction. Do you set a limit to what is ‘old’ depending on how old you are, or do you, like me, think that people, women fall in love at all ages, and those stories deserve to be told? If romance publishing is discussing diversity across the board, there needs to be dialogue regarding sexism and ageism in romance fiction, doesn’t there?

You may say I’m simply bellyaching. You may say, Look, Sandra, it’s happening. Sally Field is 69 and playing a romantic lead in Hello, My Name is Doris. That’s way, way , way past Hollywood Old! Be grateful Hollywood said yes to a 69 year-old actress having a younger man love as her interest.

Yes, I’m grateful that an amazing actress other than Meryl Streep is playing a woman of a certain age.

Yeah, kudos for Sally being THE OVER 40 LEAD! I love Sally and she needs a hell of a lot more roles. However, did Doris have to be an ageist stereotype, did she have to be just another version of kooky older lady? Okay, okay. I’ll leave that for another time.

But COME ON.

Keeping ’em Young and Powerless

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Old Ladies10 February 2015: In a study titled It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World: On-Screen Representations of Female Characters in the Top 100 Films of 2014 , Dr Martha Lauzen from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University that found that a mere 12 % of the highest grossing films of 2014 had female protagonists. Secondary female characters and females with speaking roles were also underrepresented. Lauzen states, “As we grow older, we gain personal as well as professional power.”

Lauzen also suggests the consequence of having few female authority figures portrayed onscreen (and as I suggest in fiction, especially romance fiction) means that, “When we keep them young, we keep them relatively powerless.” Further to this, Lauzen notes that “The chronic underrepresentation of girls and women reveals a kind of arrested development in the mainstream film industry…It is unfortunate that these beliefs continue to limit the industry’s relevance in today’s marketplace.”

While the study shows the majority of film roles lack racial and ethnic diversity (the majority of roles are white), the study also indicates that ageism is still hard at work onscreen.

  • Female characters remain younger than their male counterparts. The majority of female characters were in their 20s (23%) and 30s (30%). The majority of male characters were in their 30s (27%) and 40s (28%).
  • Males 40 and over accounted for 53% of all male characters. Females 40 and over comprised 30% of all female characters.
  • Whereas the percentage of female characters declined dramatically from their 30s to their 40s (30% to 17%), the percentage of male characters increased slightly, from 27% in their 30s to 28% in their 40s.
  • The percentage of male characters in their 50s (18%) is twice that of female characters in their 50s (9%). 

I’m sure none of this surprised the female movie-going population. I’m sure it doesn’t surprise women who read fiction, write fiction, are awarded prizes for writing…

 

Lauzen. M. (2015). It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World: On-Screen Representations of Female Characters in the Top 100 Films of 2014. Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. Retrieved from http://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/files/2014_Its_a_Mans_World_Report.pdf .

Discrimination, Diversity, Ageism, and Romance Fiction

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AthenaIf you haven’t noticed, discrimination against older women is now a ‘thing,’ a topic of ongoing discussion –thanks to Hollywood, Russell Crowe (we’re getting a lot of mileage from you, Rusty), the fashion industry, and the BBC, but where’s the discourse on mature-aged women in the world of publishing fiction, particularly genre fiction?

Yes, romance fiction. I am looking right at you.

The 19 January 2015 Daily Mail UK has Sandra Howard suggesting that Selfridges (A UK department store) ‘Bright Old Things’ ad campaign is not a “nod to the older generation” or even directed to an older generation, but more of a tactic to sell clothes to the young.

If you missed it, on 16 January 2015, Holly Watt at The Telegraph reported that the BBC was shown to have an “informal policy” of discriminating against older women, and that this “imbalance” in the media shaped “social norms…” While similarly aged male counterparts have advanced or remained as reporters, presenters, and experts, older women have been under-represented as broadcasters. This lack of representation of older women feeds the cult of youth that privileges younger women, and renders older women as invisible, which is often something mature-aged women feel is their reality.

All this ‘discussion of age’ serves to highlight the discussion of diversity, which is another current hot issue. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AKA the Academy Awards) have been accused of ‘whitewashing’ the 2015 Oscar nominations. As The Wall Street Journal’s Ben Fritz reports, from 16 January 2015. Oscar Nominations Stir Up Controversy for being the least ethnic and racially diverse group of nominees in something like 17 years.

I want the inclusion of ethnicity, race, sexuality, religion, and gender in film, TV, and fiction, particularly romance fiction. That is why this 16 January 2015 article in The Guardian is good: The Six Hottest African Romance Novels for 2015. Yes, that’s African, not ‘African American.’ Ankara Press is “bringing African romance fiction into the bedrooms, offices and hearts of women the world over.” Ethnic diversity and colour diversity. Real life romance has no colour, but if you look at romance fiction you’ll discover how very white most of it is.

HeraThere is one thing that concerns me in the conversations on age discrimination and diversity. Although it is wonderful that ageism and the lack of diversity in the media is topical, age is seldom included in the discussion of diversity of fiction and genre fiction. There is no discussion of the discrimination against mature-aged women in publishing. That is, there is no discourse regarding the representation of women of age in genre fiction, particularly with how they are seldom or not at all represented in romance fiction.

 

 

 

 

A Romance By Any Other Name…

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I’ve been sitting on this for a little while, brewing my thoughts to get them just so. Usually, dears, we discuss that rare-but-subversive woman known as the Mid-life romance heroine–and lack there of. I’m heavy into that big ol’ taboo of fading beauty, saggy boobs, and gettin’ funky with middle-aged sex. This year brings us to another subversive, very particular taboo in romance fiction: The windy pop

Yes, kids, today I’m talking about farts. Turn away now if you can’t deal with my cheese-cutting-is-adolescent sense of humour.

Let’s get to it. I wonder why there exists a form of a double standard when it comes to Romantic Comedies and farting. In celluloid rom-com the bottom-burp (How many fart euphemisms can I work into this post?) is allowed. TV’s Sex And The City had an entire episode based around the humble bun shaker. Rom-com films and Chick Lit aren’t afraid of firing a little stink torpedo, but Contemporary romantic comedies in print form run screaming from the threat of a tiny squeaker. Is a fart not really a fart if you can watch it come to life in a moving picture?  In a big screen broad romantic comedy, like Bridesmaids, a little gas and diarrhea is fine, but why is it the game changes in print? Farting, like loose skin, or erectile dysfunction and vaginal dryness, or a little grey in the pubic area simply can’t play any part in the fantasy of romance in print. I wanna know why rom-com lovers can tolerate film & digital image gas but not when it’s printed on a page.

Here are some questions I pose to you, my worthy friends:

1. Is the issue with a printed fart your imagination? That is, is it because the mind’s eye vision of the passing of gas you read about much, much more malodorous than the one you watch on screen?
2. Or is it for the same reason you seldom find (or see) fictional 40+ romance heroines or older people having sex: it comes down to an ICK FACTOR?

If you answered yes to question 2, I say, hold on sweet talkin’ lover…it’s so sad if that’s the way it’s over.

Romance comes in all forms. If the romance is key to the story, why should the little bits like body shape, age, and less-than-perfect-all-too-human tooting ruin the fantasy? Yes, my romance fantasy may not be your romance fantasy. My idea of funny might not match yours, but maybe we can agree on a few things. Beyond slapstick stuff, comedy is generally situation based. Contemporary rom-coms are usually situational. Finding love is situational. Falling in love is situational. The fantasy of love is situational.

This situation completely works for me. It’s the sweetest fart story I’ve ever heard, and it’s ripe (excuse THAT pun) for inclusion in a big screen AND print version romantic comedy.  The story comes to me from VaVeros, author of Shallowreader’s Blog (http://shallowreader.wordpress.com/) It goes something like this:

Amy and Ryan (fake names, naturally) have just had their very first date. The date went well, very well, and Amy happily gives Ryan a ride home. She drops him off in front of his house. Windows down as she reverses out, Amy safely releases the gas she’s been, politely, holding in for the last few minutes. When she pauses to change from Reverse to Drive, Amy discovers Ryan leaning in at the passenger window to restate how much he enjoyed their first date. Of course Ryan was startled, but the air biscuit was all it took. Surprise gave way to laughter and then it was love, not at first sight, but first fart. Ryan fell in love with Amy the moment he saw (and smelled) her humanity. They’ve been married 15 years.

When it’s handled in the right way there’s not so much an ICK factor there as you might have thought, huh? You can see the entire romance blossom from that one little fizzler.

But what do I know. I’m a stinker for romance.