| Michelle Yeoh’s shout out to women at the Oscars to “never give up” has resonance at home and in Hollywood where 60+ women are smashing ageist stereotypes. Read on... The Big Story Past their prime? Women actors of a certain age are having the time of their life “And ladies,” she said accepting the Oscar for best actress “Don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime. Never give up.”  Michelle Yeoh (Source: Getty images) Michelle Yeoh, who will be 61 in August, had reason to celebrate many firsts. The first Asian to win an Oscar. Only the second woman of colour after Halle Berry in 2002, to take home the prize. Dressed in white, which also happens to be the colour of the suffragettes, Yeoh did reference “all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight” before she delivered her knockout punch. Yeoh has been bothered, and candid, in the past about the ageism that plagues her industry where the average age of best actress winners in the past century has been 37, reports The Insider. At the Golden Globes (where she also picked up best actress) she spoke about how discouraging it was to grow older in the industry: “As the days, years, numbers get bigger, the opportunities get smaller.” Female characters anyway tend to be younger than their male counterparts, with their age diminishing in “alarming numbers” around the age of 40, found the report, It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World. In 2022, women aged 40 and above found place in only 14% of movie roles. That’s not about to change any time soon, but a quick look at recent Oscar winners is instructive: Frances McDormand won in 2018 and 2021 at 60 and 63. Olivia Colman was 45 at her 2019 win, Renee Zellweger 50 in 2020 and Jessica Chastain 44 last year. [Read in NPR Michelle Yeoh called out sexism in Hollywood. Will it help close the gender gap?] Their moment in the sun In Everything Everywhere all at Once, Yeoh plays a middle-aged Chinese-American immigrant, trying to make her laundromat business, her marriage and her family work. To make matters worse, she must also face the world’s worst tax auditor, played brilliantly by Jamie Lee Curtis, 64 who picked up best supporting actress. Obviously. Two women nominees who lost out include Angela Bassett and Cate Blanchett who are 64 and 53. Jennifer Coolidge who won outstanding performance by a female actor for her role in White Lotus earlier at the Screen Actors Guild award in February is 61. What happens in Hollywood rarely stays in Hollywood. Accepting the Oscar for best documentary short, producer Guneet Monga pointed out that she and director Kartiki Gonsalves “were the only two women representing India…this is historic and a message for my fellow women”. Sharmila Tagore’s return to cinema on March 3 with Gulmohar where she plays the role of the family matriarch who must deal with a bullying and out-of-date brother-in-law is tailor-made for her. A new generation of script writers, says film scholar Shohini Ghosh is using “women of all ages in all possible ways”. In Pathaan, Dimple Kapadia plays a pivotal role as Shah Rukh Khan’s boss (though it must be said that at just eight years older, the casting does raise questions about ageism). [Read the Bollywood Gender Age Gap here] But it’s not just the playing of mom roles. “It’s the way women of a certain age are finding a range of creative expression that is most exciting,” says critic Pragya Tiwari. For instance, she points out, Neena Gupta’s spectacular second coming includes film roles, a TV series, an autobiography and becoming a fashion icon for her daughter Masaba’s brand. “She’s a full-on fashion icon with her daughter naming a blouse style, the Neenaji blouse, after her. All the young girls are wearing it,” says Tiwari. New mediums The growth of OTT platforms that provide the space for new content, new scripts and new avenues of creativity has certainly helped. A Nekkei Asia data analysis of 1,200 Bollywood films over the past decades shows an upward trend in movies driven by women in the lead cast from one in 10 in the early 2000s to one in four today. The share of these movies on streaming platforms including Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney Hotstar has shown a similar trend from just a trickle in 2018 to accounting for over half in 2022. The expanded share is reflected in newer roles for such actors as Madhuri Dixit who made her acting debut in 1984 with Abodh and now continues to find meaty roles with the 2022 Netflix series The Fame Game. “It’s not just the OTT platforms that are providing new avenues of creativity but also social media where women can express themselves,” says film-maker Vinta Nanda whose new film Shout deals with gender-based violence.  Zeenat Aman at Lakme Fashion Week in Mumbai. (Source: PTI) At 71, Zeenat Aman has made a smashing comeback on Instagram decades after retiring from films. Since her Insta debut on February 11, she has amassed 138,000 followers with her latest post, walking the ramp for designer Shahin Mannan at the Lakme Fashion Week. Another post of Aman reading Derek Walcott’s Love after Love at her son Zahaan Khan’s recording studio received over 18,100 likes. In a break from the political correctness that characterizes much of the film industry, Aman has spoken about gender pay parity (“so vast it was laughable”), the male gaze and the difference of being photographed by a woman and ageing. “As women we are told that our social worth lies in youth and physical beauty…as we age, men are bequeathed gravitas but women are at best offered sympathy.” Ageism in general is not a movie problem as much as it is a social problem, points out Shohini Ghosh. “We live in a society that valourises youth and this is what is reflected in our cinema,” she says. So whether it is inequities of payment or the gender age gap, cinema won’t change until society changes. | 
