Stay informed with free updates
Simply register at Life and arts myFT Digest – Delivered straight to your inbox.
Demi Moore triumphed last weekend by winning a Golden Globe, her first major award in an acting career spanning more than four decades, for her role in The substancea film promoted as a satire on the entertainment industry’s preoccupation with youth and beauty.
Moore plays the spandex-clad Elisabeth Sparkle, laid off as a television fitness instructor after turning 50 and facing the death of her career until she discovers a mysterious “substance” that holds promise for a young man. Upon drinking this spooky liquid, she splits in two, producing a fresher version of herself, played by Margaret Qualley, who attracts the attention of entertainment executives and propels her to stardom.
In her acceptance speech, Moore touched on the film’s themes of the challenges of women in the industry. Thirty years ago, she said, a Hollywood producer dismissed her as a “popcorn actress”: popular but not substantial. “I bought and believed that, and that gnawed at me.” A few years ago, she hit a low point and thought, “maybe this was it, maybe I was complete. “I’ve done what I was supposed to do.” But then the script The substance landed, a sign from the “universe” that his career was “not over.”
The sentiment mirrors that expressed by Pamela Anderson, whose character in the upcoming film The last showgirl He also deals with his professional disappearance. Anderson, best known for running around sun-drenched beaches in a red swimsuit, told W magazine that before receiving the script she was “thinking, I’ll probably never make a movie of any substance. “I was punishing myself a little bit.”
Without a doubt, the frustrations of these two actresses reflect an industry that pigeonholes attractive women. (Although for a normal person like me, the life of a popcorn actress seems pretty good.) By winning a Golden Globe for a role that depends on her losing her physical attractiveness, Moore follows a tradition of good-looking actors who They seek critical recognition with a somber appearance. or simply. Charlize Theron won an Oscar for playing serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monsterlike Nicole Kidman for getting a prosthetic nose to become Virginia Woolf in the hours.
These actors, in addition to winning awards, are often called by that fashionable and inflated term: brave. Such aggrandizement was denounced last year by Kate Winslet, who said she was tired of being praised for not wearing makeup or for having an average, rather than thin, body size. “I’m not in Ukraine, I’m an actor.”
Moore’s win at age 62, along with 73-year-old Jean Smart’s Golden Globe win for the comedy series. tricks – is seen as a sign that older women are finally getting their due, including taking romantic leads (the lecherous witches) opposite younger men, and reversing a Hollywood trope. in the new movie little girlKidman (57) plays a CEO in a fetishistic affair with an intern played by Harris Dickinson (28). This is just one of a recent series of films starring older women and younger men. Kidman was in A family affair last year starring Zac Efron, and Anne Hathaway was in The idea of you with Nicolás Galitzine. Later this year, the new Bridget Jones film will see Renée Zellweger fall in love with a man more than two decades younger.
This is a change from the 1967 film. the graduatein which Anne Bancroft, who plays the seductive Mrs. Robinson, was only six years older than Dustin Hoffman, who played Benjamin Braddock. The image of Woody Allen, in his forties, kissing schoolgirl Mariel Hemingway in manhattan It haunts me to this day.
However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I admire Moore for navigating a fickle industry for so long; she certainly seemed much more robust than Andrew McCarthy in his documentary about the cohort of actors dubbed the “Brat Pack” who came of age in 1985 with The breakfast club and Saint Elmo’s fire. But how much acting did he do in The substance Beyond transforming from fabulous to disgusting with the help of pustular prosthetics?
I hated the movie. The only reason I watched to the end was because my fellow moviegoers seemed to be riveted to their seats. When the lights came up, each of us confessed that we mistakenly believed the others were having fun.
I felt a growing desperation with every shot of Qualley’s firm thighs, glossy lips, and creamy complexion. It became impossible to separate satire of Hollywood beauty standards from fetishization.
Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, says high-profile cases of older female characters “skew our perceptions of how media representations may be changing.” Fifty-two percent of the male characters in the top 100 grossing films, he claimed. foundare 40 or older, compared to 28 percent of female characters.
Smart’s role in tricks Like Deborah Vance, a Las Vegas comedian who adapts to changing sensibilities, she’s a “unicorn,” Lauzen says. “The extremely rare character who remains ambitious in his third act of life and experiences great success.” Has a cost like the fictional comedian says her protégé: “You have to scratch and scratch and it never ends. And it doesn’t get better, it just gets harder.” Still, it’s better than swallowing dough.
Emma is the jobs and careers editor at the Financial Times.
Discover our latest stories first: follow the FT weekend on instagram and unknownand register to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning