I know this has been brought up before, and this is not actually a real question, more just an observation. Today I saw an advertisement for a movie that stars Richard Gere and Winona Ryder, playing lovers. Winona is only maybe 30, but isn’t Richard Gere at least 60, maybe older? Another one, pairing Michelle Pfeiffer with Harrison Ford. The age difference isn’t quite as dramatic, but there was still at least a 20 year age difference. I know that these kind of relationships actually do happen occasionally, but the way that the movie studios make it out to be, you would think that every 20-something female was looking for men old enough to be their daddies.
Okay, so this sounds a little more like a rant than an observation.
Remember the pairing of Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta Jones? OMG. Just makes me sick.
I know that May/December romances exist, but lordy, does every moviemaker assume that we want at least a 30 year age difference in all romantic movies? No wonder older actresses can’t find work.
You’re just now noticing that there are sexual double standards? For every one of us that think it’s creepy for male geezers to take up cradle robbing there are probably many times more that would have an aneurism over a love scene between say, Elizabeth Taylor and Leonardo DiCaprio.
FWIW Richard Gere is 50 and Winona is 29.
Who can come up with even creepier May/December juxtapositions?
Ummm, the POINT of the new Richard Gere/Wynonna Rider flick is the huge age difference. Don’t you watch the previews at all? If they were closer in age, the movie wouldn’t work.
There is not a huge difference in ages between Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfieffer. Harrison in 57 and Michelle is 42. Ok, that’s almost 20, but not quite.
I think in other movies, the reason they pair older men with younger women is twofold.
The beautiful women attract men, who generally are attracted to younger women.
The older men that are chosen for the roles have been sex symbols all of their careers. So it attracts the women who have always been in love with Gere, Ford, Connery, whoever. But it also attracts younger women to the audience, who like older, more mature men.
Well, that’s my WAG, anyway.
Last night my new roommate and I watched “Playing by Heart” a fantastic movie where Sean Connery is paired with … wait for it … Gena Rowlands. They are both 70 years old this year, for the record. Both myself and my roommate commented on how nice it was to see him paired with someone his own age, and ** acting ** his own age, instead of trying to come off as an action/romance type star. Great movie, by the way.
Max Torque - Sheesh, the pre-emptive nuke of followups. I could come up with something worse…Christina Ricci and Wilford Brimley, but the oatmeal dude was never a romantic lead and neither was Bob Hope.
Pepperlandgirl - Good point about how male actors continue in romantic lead roles but women rarely do. Mature women get shuffled off into “matronly” roles, often undeservedly. Heck, I’m still mad for Shirley Jones but there would be rioting in the streets if they paired her with Matt Damon.
FYI, Gere is 50, Ryder is 29, Ford is 58, Pfeiffer is 42.
I agree with you, though. I think the real reason is that male actors’ careers last a lot longer than female actors’ do. Add that to the fact that women in hollywood are mainly viewed as eye candy with little or no acting talent, and it’s no wonder the men get cast with younger women. I have heard figures ( http://www.bctv.net/telcom/tel13/12gender.html ) that as many as 75% of TV and movie rolls are male, which doen’t help either. Women in Hollywood are a dime a dozen. The only place female actors have any kind of star power is in porn. How sad.
Watching Connery & Zeta Jones was awful. He’s old enough to be her grandfather. EWWW!
FYI, Gere is 50, Ryder is 29, Ford is 58, Pfeiffer is 42.
I agree with you, though. I think the real reason is that male actors’ careers last a lot longer than female actors’ do. Add that to the fact that women in hollywood are mainly viewed as eye candy with little or no acting talent, and it’s no wonder the men get cast with younger women. I have heard figures ( http://www.bctv.net/telcom/tel13/12gender.html ) that as many as 75% of TV and movie rolls are male, which doen’t help either. Women in Hollywood are a dime a dozen. The only place female actors have any kind of star power is in porn. How sad.
Watching Connery (70)& Zeta Jones (30) was awful. He’s old enough to be her grandfather. EWWW!
From the previews I’ve seen, the gist of the movie is all about the fact that Wynonna is dying of some disease (no doubt that “mysterious malady” so popular on soaps in which she’ll never suffer so much as a cramp or blemish and simply fall into eternal unconsciousness, looking radiant and lovely and showing no external signs whatsoever of whatever horrible disease is killing her.)
The age discrepecy is not mentioned at all in any of the previews i’ve seen.
Just as a sidenote, Entertainment Weekly did an interesting article about this type of older men/younger women syndrome some time ago. They offered the explanation that Hollywood is basically run by white yuppie men, who for the most part are middle-age or older, for whom the term “self-asorbed” is an understatement and who chase after sexy young starlets as trophies (to prove how virile and manly they still are). The reason you see so many of these types of couples is that these producers only want to make movies that reflect their fantasy images of themselves: “mature” manly types of men who can duke it out with bad guys and get the girl who is young enough to be his grand-daughter.
The article came with a sidebar which listed several of the pairings (Harrison Ford and Anne Heche in “6 Days, 7 Nights” was one of the movies I remember) and the respective ages of the couples. As a comparison, it listed the ages of the stars of that supposedly scandalous film “the Graduate” when an older woman seduces a younger man. In that film, Dustin Hoffman was 30 (although his character WAS slightly younger)
and Anne Bancroft (the SHAMELESS older woman!) was only 36!
Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sean Connery in Entrapment was a very obvious, recent example of this, but there have been many:
Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets
Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer in Wolf
Michael Douglas with Gwyneth Paltrow in A Perfect Murder
Warren Beatty and Halle Berry in Bulworth
Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep in Bridges of Madison County (this might not have struck anyone at the time, but there’s a 20 year age diff there)
Clint Eastwood and Rene Russo in In The Line of Fire
Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer in Russia House
Sean Connery and Julia Ormond in First Knight or for that matter
Richard Gere and Julia Ormond in First Knight
Richard Gere and Julia Roberts in anything! (a popular couple in many films, they are almost 20 years apart)
In some movies, the age difference is part of the plot, but in these that I’ve mentioned, I think it’s impact on the plot is negligible, and yet, this was the way they were cast.
And let’s not forget these RL couples:
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones
Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie
Warren Beatty and Annette Bening
I have to give props to Jack, though, he’s actually starred as romantic interest against some ladies pretty close to his own age, including one older: Shirley Maclaine in Terms of Endearment.
As for the ladies, Cher is right up there with Susan Sarandon (James Spader in White Palace, Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins in Bull Durham) in being paired with younger men in films as well, i.e. Nicolas Cage in Moonstruck.
We should keep in mind, though, that neither of the actresses mentioned above have been paired actors as much younger than them as is common among male to female December-May pairings in the movies.
But the movies where the age difference is part of the plot seems more true for older-woman/younger-man pairings, (like Moonstruck or White Palace) rather than older-man/younger-woman pairings. When a movie has an older-man/younger-woman pairing, the age difference is almost never mentioned. When a movie has an older woman with a younger man, the age difference IS the movie.
I agree with Fatangel. I didn’t get this idea at all. The previews I’ve seen focus on her “disease,” not the age difference. Supposedly it’s autumn, and she’s gonna die by Christmas.
I have to agree with Fat Angel (I’m not trying to be offensive, that’s the user name, go check if you don’t believe me).
I think the reason you see so many old farts with really hot younger women is because Hollywood is run by dirty old men. Of course, these same dirty old men probably get a lot of attention from young actresses trying to advance their careers, so maybe the old guys think that life is actually like that.
I was going to modify my post to say “At least, not as a matter of course, not part of the plotline.” but Kinsey beat me to it. However, I have seen the age difference between Winona’s character and Richard Gere’s mentioned in previews. He says something like, “You’re so young, and I’m . . .” and she goes, “Old. You’re old. Really old.” She obviously thinks it’s funny, but he gives her a look like “you didn’t have to take it that far.” I wasn’t expecting to see it addressed, so it stuck in my mind even though it was a pretty brief moment out of the greater preview. Since, she looks a lot younger than she actually is, I guess they felt compelled to speak to it. Maybe they’re going for some realism, even though I, too, doubt we will see Winona on the big screen doing something as ungraceful and unphotogenic as the Technicolor yawn just because she’s playing a character that’s dying.
Also, I think BeerDog may have a point with his theory on youth and old age in Hollywood . . . Those folks have a skewed view about a lot of things.
The fact is that older men date young women with considerable frequency in real life. On the other hand, you rarely see a woman hooking up with a man who is significantly younger.
It is a fact of life (an unpleasant fact for many) that old, successful men can and do get young women. This naturally angers older women, for whom the dating pool has been depleted (and particularly angers first wives, who get left behind for younger women). It also angers young men, who resent old rich guys for dipping into their (the young guys’) natural dating pool. I think it bothers young guys less though, because for them, there is at least the possibility that they may one day become successful and date younger women themselves.
I can’t help but notice that most of the posters who have a problem with the movie pairings of old men and young women seem to be female. How come?