Rose Byrne (who recentluy starred in Bridesmaids, Neighbors, and Annie) is the latest actress to speak out about the “age” old issue of gender discrimination in Hollywood.
Byrne, who was busy promoting her new movie Spy with Melissa McCarthy, told PrideSource that women have long been discriminated against and are still intentionally discriminated against in film and television. She lamented:
“The statistics are still so dreadful for women in film…Now the ACLU is doing an investigation into it because they’re starting to realize it’s actually discrimination-it’s not just good ol’ fashioned misogyny that everyone’s quietly tolerated for years. The business is sort of the wrong way in the sense that the statistics are just really dreadful for women in terms of speaking parts and paychecks for women. All that stuff that was leaked through the Internet when Sony was hacked -- it all speaks for itself. ”
Byrne is the founder of “The Dollhouse Collective,” an organization that advocates female filmmakers and their stories. She added, “It’s legitimate discrimination based on gender, which is illegal…Any discrimination is, whether it’s sexually, race or gender.”
It's downright interesting when left-wing Hollywood starts feeling pressure from the ACLU to let the girls in. The ACLU of Southern California and the national ACLU women’s rights Project stated last week that “they will ask the California civil rights agencies to investigate a “systemic failure” to hire women directors.”
“Women directors aren’t working on an even playing field and aren’t getting a fair opportunity to succeed," they argue. "Gender discrimination is illegal. And really Hollywood doesn’t get this free pass when it comes to civil rights and gender discrimination.”
Fellow actress Maggie Gyllenhaal also recently spoke about her experience with age/gender discrimination. Gyllenhaal, who is 37, was told she was “too old” to play the love interest of a 55-year-old man.
“It was astonishing to me. It made me feel bad, and then it made me feel angry, and then it made me laugh. "I'm 37, and I was told recently I was too old to play the lover of a man who was 55," Gyllenhaal said. "It was astonishing to me. It made me feel bad, and then it made me feel angry, and then it made me laugh…Every time we think things are getting better for women in Hollywood, something comes along to remind us — naaah.”
Byrne and Gyllenhaal are the only the latest of a long list of female actresses that have spoken out on the same topic. Here are some of the others:
“Once women passed childbearing age they could be only seen as grotesque on some level,” Oscar winner Meryl Streep told Vogue in 2011.
“As soon as a woman gets to an age where she has opinions and she’s vital and she’s strong, she’s systematically shamed into hiding under a rock -- and this is by progressive pop-culture people,” Sarah Silverman complained to W. Kamau Bell on his show Totally Biased in 2013. (Brent Bozell offered a response for that.)
“[Men are] f*ckable forever. They could be 100 with nothing but white spiders coming out [of their privates], but they’re f*ckable,” said Tina Fey this year.
“By the time you’re 28 you’re expired, you’re playing mommy roles,” Zoe Saldana told The Telegraph in 2014. "I just won't allow it."
At a Women in Motion award in Cannes, Jane Fonda told an audience: "It’s critical that women are at the heart of the international film industry, not just as glamorous icons but as creators, as artists, as decision-makers, ensuring that the narrative – of not just half but 51 percent of the worlds population – is fully present.”
Hollywood is always the first to flaunt anything they do for an initiative or campaign, whether it’s equality for the LGBT community, or advancements for minorities, but seem to forgo those same advancements and fighst for equality that women deserve.
