Part of my job is keeping an eye on what movies and TV shows are coming out. So every week, I peruse the upcoming releases. Recently I saw something that filled me with an irrational white-hot fury.
“Nonnas.”
Based on a true story, the movie stars Vince Vaughn as a man who opens a restaurant and hires local nonnas to cook for it. The titular grandmothers are played by all-time greats Susan Sarandon and Lorraine Bracco, along with Talia Shire and Brenda Vaccaro. But who wants to spend their retirement toiling away for Vince Vaughn? I seethed. I Googled the poster and only became more incensed. There was Vaughn, looming over his little brood of brassy broads, smiling paternally down at them. They, unsurprisingly, just beamed at each other. Some of these women are our best actresses — and this is all we have for them?
I paused, wondering why this innocuous movie made me so mad. I realized: it’s a cumulative effect. I flashed back to Oscar night. I’d been riding high all season, filled with elation at the prospect of Hollywood lifer Demi Moore finally getting her due for her unvarnished performance in “The Substance.” The Academy Award seemed a done deal. And then, Mikey Madison’s name was read out. I actually emitted an anguished scream, right in the middle of the newsroom.
It’s a well-known fact that Hollywood is less than kind to its older female denizens. The truth of it, however, has started to smart more and more as I myself age into a demographic under-represented both onscreen and behind the camera. Where are my old-lady stories?
Worse still, it feels like the rare movies about older women all fall into the same pattern: a quartet of well-known older actors band together for a whimsical book club (“Book Club,” “Book Club: The Next Chapter”) or summer camp (“Summer Camp”) or cheerleading squad (“Poms”) or vacation (“80 for Brady”). Are these actors being packaged by the pound? It’s like studio executives think we won’t see a movie with women over age 50 unless there are at least three to four white Oscar winners crammed into feel-good lockstep.
Otherwise, “if they are offered a role,” says Women in Film & Television Toronto executive director Karen Bruce, “it’s often a supporting role as a wife or girlfriend, and most often to be depicted as frail, frumpy and/or feeble.” She also cites a Geena Davis Institute report that discovered only 25.3 per cent of characters over 50 are female; characters over 50 are most often white and heterosexual as well, worsening the lack of representation.
Sure, there are one-offs, but even a lot of decent recent films about older women often hinge on their relationship to men, whether it’s dutifully tracking down a missing husband (“I’m Still Here”) or an obsession with a hot intern (“Babygirl”).
The numbers don’t yield much good news. The San Diego State University Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film releases annual research on the state of women in film; their most recent study showed that the percentage of female characters in speaking roles went up a mere two percentage points from 35 per cent in 2023 to 37 per cent in 2024. Major female characters? They only crawled up one measly percentage point from 38 per cent in 2023 to 39 per cent in 2024.
And ageism continues to run rampant. “The percentage of female characters plummeted from 35% in their 30s to 16% in their 40s. In stark contrast, the percentage of male characters increased as they aged from their 30s (25%) to their 40s (31%),” the study says. “Just 26% of female characters were 40 and older, whereas 55% of males were 40+. Only 5% of female characters were 60 and older, compared to 9% of male characters.”
Film programmer Danita Steinberg co-runs We Really Like Her! at the Revue Cinema, Toronto’s only screening series dedicated to women in film. She is quick to quote Goldie Hawn’s character in “The First Wives Club”: there are only three ages for women in Hollywood: babe, district attorney and “Driving Miss Daisy.” “I think this is still very much true, almost 30 years later! Women have this expiration date that men don’t, so the juicy, complex, quality roles just aren’t there,” she said. “Ultimately, society devalues older women and Hollywood reflects that.” (For the record, Steinberg is a fan of “Book Club,” “Poms” and “80 for Brady,” but did not care for “The Fabulous Four,” which featured a cliché fighting-over-a-man storyline and Sarandon “playing a mousy cat-lady character, which was a bummer.”)
Steinberg has struggled to find films to screen that centre older women, so instead, whenever possible, they get intros from women filmmakers, many of whom are in their 60s and 70s now, like Lizzie Borden and Susan Seidelman. “So while their films aren’t necessarily about older women, we love getting to celebrate them later in life and proving they are as relevant as ever!” she said.
They’ve also screened “Mamma Mia!” four years in a row. One of the highest-grossing films starring a woman over 50 of all time, it has turned into a full-blown community event. “My co-host Emily Gagne and I have fostered a space that welcomes women of all ages to enjoy films by, about and for women, which is much needed in a world full of film bros,” she said.
I checked in with Lanette Ware-Bushfield — a local actor, writer and producer who remains booked and busy — to get her take. “Hollywood’s gender imbalance? Oh, it’s real. The numbers don’t lie and, frankly, they’re embarrassing,” she said, citing another chilling stat out of the San Diego State University Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film: that women directed just 16 per cent of the 250 top domestic grossing films in 2024.
She’s had to grapple with the challenges of portraying older women onscreen. Ware-Bushfield remembers the first time she was asked to wear a grey wig for a role playing a wise auntie. She was a little unsure, given that she hadn’t gone grey herself and she seldom saw other Black women her age wearing their hair grey. “Then came the wigs: short, unflattering, chosen not because they fit the character, but simply to age me,” Ware-Bushfield said. “That’s when I had to ask myself: was I playing a character or a caricature? Audiences would see me and know I wasn’t 30. I wasn’t even in my 40s anymore. So why the rush to stamp me with grey hair?”
With the support of her female director, Ware ended up sporting her own hair with a few natural grey streaks. “These moments remind me that pushing back against outdated stereotypes — about Black women, aging, femininity — is a lifelong conversation. And I welcome it. Because this perimenopausal phase of life? It’s not something to shrink from; it’s something to embrace,” Ware-Bushfield said. “We are the norm. It’s time the fullness of our experiences be represented onscreen. It’s time for stories to reflect the full spectrum of womanhood, with all its grit, humour and fire. We’re not fading. We’re charging forward with joie de vivre.”
Ware-Bushfield charges forward by producing her own projects; her latest short film “Now What?” is currently making the rounds on the festival circuit. Starring a cast of folks over 50, she describes the story as “‘Falling Down’ meets ‘The Equalizer.’” She also has roles in two upcoming films helmed by female actor-producers over 45, and is developing another two projects herself, “honouring women over 40 who have shaped nations and sparked change.”
“Women behind the camera aren’t new, but we’re finally carving out space that reflects the complexity of our experiences — especially for those over 40,” she said. “Too often, we’re relegated to roles where our only motivation is love, heartbreak or sacrifice for a man. Nah. We’re deeper, sharper and, frankly, way more interesting than that. And if Hollywood won’t change it? We will. Because if there’s one thing women have always done, it’s make space for ourselves where it never existed.”
I ended up getting a last-minute screener of “Nonnas” and found it to be exactly what I expected: a sweet trifle mostly focused on the male hero’s personal journey, with the briefest sojourns into the women’s lives. The best part of the movie? A short sequence where the gals just sit around and talk about their experiences, opening up about everything from their relationships (or lack thereof) to their missteps. Making space. I was riveted. This was the good stuff.
No Vince Vaughn required.
