But you can’t have it all. That said, the female cast of Nine are all very attractive women. While watching the ominpresent trailer once again last weekend (in the warmup for Sherlock Holmes, of all things), something caught my eye. I scooted home after the film, put the Baker to bed and fired up IMDB to check some numbers. Lo:
Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson
3/27/75
Kate Hudson
4/19/79
Nicole Kidman
6/20/67
Penélope Cruz
4/28/74
Marion Cotillard
9/30/75
And, of course, there are also Dame Judi and the lovely Ms Sofia Loren, whom I am too much of a gentleman to inquire after. My point being that this movie is banking on the attractiveness of a cast of women who are all over the age of 30.
Now, you and I can easily shrug our shoulders and say “Well, of course women over 30 can be attractive. That isn’t remarkable.” The remarkable thing to me isn’t that you and I know it, but that the Weinstein Company knew it and didn’t push for, say, Kristen Stewart to be shoehorned in as a draw to the CW crowd. Megan Fox. Scarlett Johansson. Hayden Panettiere. Just writing this list makes me wish I were dead.
In a perfect world, age wouldn’t be an issue. Good actors would get high-profile roles. It would be a point of nonsensical obviousness that each of the many phases of life has its virtues and attractions. Everyone would accept that glamour is available to anyone who wants to work at it.
Boring, shitty actresses who strive to achieve the Prettiest Common Denominator would achieve nothing.
But, until that world comes to pass, I’m going to feel a happy little thrill when talented women with unusual looks, a normal body, or a birthday before the commonly accepted leading lady cutoff date are cast in roles that airily, defiantly presuppose their ability to be desired.
?
Looking back at this post with a few days past, I can see how it might be seen as not really feminist, but pretty sexist, i.e. “Let’s not let age descrimination get in the way of sexual objectification”.
But you know what? Fuck it. These are some fine ladies, and I love it when fine ladies look fine. I am glad that more fine ladies than ever before are around looking fine, even (and especially) when they don’t look like the rest of the fine ladies in some way.
Perhaps we have found the limits of my egalitarianism. I can live with that, I suppose.
great job keep it up