The Aging Woman in Popular Film: Underrepresented, Unattractive, Unfriendly, and Unintelligent

The present study examined 100 top-grossing motion pictures spanning from the 1940s through the 1980s (20 movies from each decade). Eight hundred and twenty-nine characters were rated on attractiveness, character goodness, intelligence, friendliness, socioeconomic status, romantic activity, and movie outcome. It was hypothesized that ageist and sexist stereotypes would interact such that (a) older female characters would be more unde"epresented, and (b) more negatively portrayed, than their male contemporaries. Both hypotheses were supported. Implications regarding double standards for age, and the media's propagation of beauty-related standards for females were discussed. Popular media images are reflections of a culture's attitudes, beliefs, and standards, as well as projections of desired realities. Whether accurate descriptions of daily living, or wishful-thinking on the part of film-makers, media tells a story that is eagerly received by consumers. To the extent that consumers digest such material as truth, rather than fiction, the depictions laid forth by the media can be influential in the propagation and maintenance of stereotypes. Two classes of stereotypes that are commonly depicted by the media are ageist and sexist stereotypes. For example, prime time television has often shown the elderly to be more stubborn, eccentric, and foolish than younger characters (Davis & Davis as cited in Bell, 1992). Given such depictions, it is not surprising that, though gerontologists have demonstrated consistent findings to the contrary, elderly Americans are still judged to be of lower competence, activity, intelligence, attractiveness, and health than their younger counterparts (Levin, 1988). Ageist stereotypes are also evident in older individuals' conspicuous absence from popular television. Indeed, only 2% of the characters depicted on television have been found to be over the age of 65, whereas people over 65 comprise 15% of the population at large (Charren & Sandler, 1983). Similar biases are found when examining depictions of women in the media. For example, a particularly common bias that exists across a wide array of media forums is the disproportionate number of male to female character portrayals. For example, Signorielli (1989) found that women comprised only 29% of all television characters and 31% of all major characters. In the arena of comic strips, males appear more frequently as both central and minor characters (Unger & Crawford, 1991). Even in news media (which is a medium arguably less subject to manipulation of storyline, etc.), women are pictured less often than are men (Archer, Iritani, Kimes, & Barrios, 1983). When women are depicted in the media, they are typically subjected to a greater degree of physical scrutiny than men (e.g., their appearance is more likely the topic of commentary, Archer et al., 1983) and are subjected to a more rigid standard of beauty which they are expected to embody. For example, Silverstein, Perdue, Peterson, and Kelly (1986) found that for 40 of the most popular prime-time television shows, women characters were portrayed as thinner and younger than their male counterparts. Such portrayals may imply that women's primary value lies in the possession of physical beauty, while men's does not. Because one of the central media messages concerning women is that women's primary value lies in their appearance, it seems plausible that sexist and ageist stereotypes may interact. That is, the tendency for the media to exhibit more negative depictions of people as they age may be more pronounced for aging women than for aging men. There is little research that directly compares ageist depictions of men and women in the media. Palmore (1971) studied jokes about the elderly and found that, relative to old men, there were three times as many negative jokes about old women. Further, depictions of women over 40 were found to be almost totally absent from advertising, where physically attractive people are routinely utilized to add appeal to a product (Unger & Crawford, 1991). Davis and Davis found that television not only portrays fewer older female characters, but depicts them as much less useful than their male counterparts (Bell, 1992). Finally, a study examining the content of television commercials found that the distribution of people over 60 in such commercials was gender disproportionate (Harris & Feinberg, 1977). Specifically, Harris and Feinberg (1977) found that for the age group 50-60, there was a 50% increase in the number of male television characters (as compared to the 20-30 age group), whereas the number of females decreased by 78%. Markson and Taylor (1993) found a particularly striking bias in the ages of Academy Award nominees and winners for actors and actresses from 1927 through 1990. The sample was comprised of 1,169 actresses and actors who had been nominated in four acting categories: Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Supporting Actor). In the 63 years of awards for Best Actress/Actor, only 27% of female award winners were over the age of 39, as compared to 67% of male winners. Across decades, the age difference between male and female winners was typically around 10 years. For example, in the 1930s, the average age of award winning actresses was 32 and for winning actors it was 40. Among Oscar winners for supporting roles, women were, on the average, seven years younger than men. The authors concluded that in the "reel" world a woman is considered "older" by the time she is 35, and subsequently her career opportunities may start to become limited. However, a man may experience continued demand on the silver screen past the age of 35, and even into his 40s. It has been argued that movies are one of the clearest and most accessible representations of the past, present and future of our society (Haskell, 1974). In the present research, we sought to gain a clearer understanding of how women have been represented in film. Markson and Taylor (1983) have demonstrated that in Hollywood women are honored primarily when they are young and beautiful; we sought to clarify and extend these findings in a number of ways. First, are younger women simply more likely than their older counterparts to be recognized with high honors for their acting, or is it the case that older women are also less likely to be depicted in film? We predicted that there would be a greater discrepancy between the number of older (i.e., over 35) male and female characters in popular film than among younger male and female characters. Segments of the population that are underrepresented in the media tend to be those that are considered less valued or desirable (e.g., Weigel, Loomis, & Soja, 1980), thus it is likely that older women are underrepresented in film. In addition to being underrepresented in film, it is possible that, when older women are represented, they are depicted as possessing negative characteristics. If, indeed, one message conveyed by popular film is that women are valued primarily for youth and beauty, another way to communicate this message is to link age with negative traits for female characters. If men are valued for characteristics other than youth, there should be little relationship between a male character's age and the positivity with which he is depicted. Specifically, we expected to find the following in observing the characters in popular film from the past 5 decades: 1) Age would be more negatively related to personality characteristics for women than for men. Specifically, older women would be associated with: (a) more unfriendliness, (b) lower intelligence, (c) less "goodness" and (d) less physical attractiveness than older men. 2) As both men and women age, they would be depicted as engaging in less romantic and sexual activity, but this decline would be more pronounced for women. 3) In general, wealth increases with age. We expected to find a positive relationship between wealth and age, but more so for men than for women, because wealth is a positive quality often associated with intelligence and competence. 4) The "just world phenomenon" (Lerner, 1980) suggests that people tend to believe that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. If women are indeed depicted more negatively with age than are men, we expected that greater age would be related to more negative outcomes at a film's end for women than for men. The study involved viewing a total of 100 movies, 20 from each decade spanning the 1940s through the 1980s. The movies were randomly selected from a list of the top 20 grossing movies of each year from each decade. Independent raters judged all of the significant characters in each film in terms of how they were depicted across the following dimensions: attractiveness, friendliness, goodness, intelligence, socioeconomic status, romantic activity, attractiveness, and outcome at film's end. The raters also estimated the age of each character. The relationship between age, personality characteristics, and various outcome measures was examined.