How female stars are fighting back against the ageing in Hollywood stereotype

Goldie Hawn probably put Hollywood's skewed view of women best in The Five Wives Club when she said: "There are only three ages for women in Hollywood: babe, district attorney, or Driving Miss Daisy."

It's long been the precedent that while the men get older onscreen, the women stay the same age, with ageing female stars finding it more difficult to land interesting roles male actors would get without a second thought. It's a ridiculous sentiment. Women age, so why wouldn't audiences want to see stories about that on the silver screen?

Demi Moore, Nicole Kidman, and Laura Dern are just some of the Hollywood stars rallying against the —let's face it — dated stereotype that female actors over a certain age aren't as big a box office draw as their younger counterparts.

In the same way marginalised voices like BIPOC actors and members of the LGBTQ+ community are getting more recognition in Hollywood, so too are older women with films like The Substance, Babygirl and The Idea of You pushing for that change through progressive storytelling.

The Substance (in cinemas this week) is inspired largely by the damaging stereotype. It centres on former star-of-the-moment Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore) who is fired from her job as a TV aerobics coach the day she turns 50. Keen to revitalise her fading celebrity status, Elisabeth takes a black market drug known as The Substance to create a younger, more perfect version of herself (Margaret Qualley). The catch? They have to swap every seven days without fail or there are devastating consequences.

Moore's new film is inspired by her own experience in Hollywood, and certainly feels like it'd ring true for a lot of female actors in the industry who find themselves passed over for younger stars —minus the body horror aspect, one would hope.

Read more: How Demi Moore's real life inspired the most grotesque film of the year

The film tackles the issue head on in a bold, grotesque and thrilling way that should definitely make Hollywood executives think twice about underestimating the talent and skills of older female actors.

It may still take time for it to happen, as Naomi Watts shared in a 2022 interview with Entertainment Weekly that she was once told her career would end when she reached 40: "I was told, ‘You better get a lot done because it’s all over at 40 when you become unf***able.’

"And I’m like, ‘What? What does that mean exactly?' Then you think about it, and you go, ‘Oh, right. When you are no longer reproductive, when those organs are no longer functioning, you are not sexy, so, therefore, you are not hirable.’ That just made me so mad."

The actor rightly called out the hypocrisy of how women and men are treated in Hollywood, adding: "We don’t talk about a man aging hardly ever. We don’t talk about his grey hair. In fact, if we do, it’s like, 'Oh, he gets more handsome, more desirable, more powerful.'"

Watts hit back that it is "the same for women" because they've got "powerful experiences" too the older they get so women should be able to feel just as proud of that — and she's right.

That's why it's so thrilling to see movies like Babygirl, Lonely Planet and The Idea of You get the buzz they have on the festival circuit and outside of it. All three films — which are led by Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, and Anne Hathaway respectively — centre on women who begin relationships with younger men.

Read more: Demi Moore: There didn’t seem to be a place for me in Hollywood in my 40s (PA Media)

In Babygirl (in cinemas 10 January, 2025) it's about a relationship with an imbalance of power between a powerful CEO (Kidman) and her intern (Harris Dickinson), something we've seen countless times onscreen between older men and younger women. While Lonely Planet and The Idea of You explores the idea of women finding love in unlikely places and when they don't even expect it themselves.

They show that women continue to be desirable as they age, and the more Hollywood shows that narrative the more likely it is that the public will start to find it more commonplace too.

Kidman has gotten rave reviews for Babygirl, and The Idea of You proved a big hit on Prime Video. Dern's Lonely Planet is being released straight onto Netflix, but it feels perfectly suited for a cosy movie night watch, and already seems to be generating buzz.

So what can we take away from all this? Well, women deserve their stories told at any age for one, and female actors certainly don't become less desirable when they reach a certain milestone. At the very least it seems that Hollywood is finally catching up with the times.

The Substance premieres in UK cinemas on Friday, 20 September. Lonely Planet lands on Netflix on Friday 11, October, and Babygirl will be released in cinemas on 10 January.