"There are only three ages
for women in Hollywood: babe, district attorney
and "Driving Miss Daisy." There are a lot of movies and shows
about, well, movies and shows. And many stories specifically
highlight the figure of the actress. "Alright Mr. DeMille,
I'm ready for my close-up." But this frequently isn't
that flattering of a portrait. Onscreen, the typical
actress character is: vain and self-absorbed, sometimes even incapable
of caring about anything other than her career and herself "Audition!? Though I'm sure
you mean no offense, in the actual world
of entertainment, I'm what's known as 'offer only.'" She's also obsessed with celebrity
and will step on anyone to get to the fame she wants. "Do you think Meryl Streep
or Kaley Cuoco became stars just because they're the best? No. It's because they
wanted it the most." She's fragile and insecure. "You're very good at auditions." "Not as good as
the girls who get parts." Fame makes the actress vulnerable-
to others, and her own vanities. And she's fixated on youth, which is understandable
in her industry, where middle age is often
seen as a professional death. "What's too old?" "That's a very good question.
How old are you?" "I'm 29." "What year were you born?" "1977." "When did you
graduate high school?" "'94." As she ages, she might end up
losing touch with reality. "I didn't know you were
planning a comeback." "It is a return. A return to
the millions of people who have never forgiven
me for deserting the screen." Too often, the actress character
is an outlet for misogyny- written as a caricature
of female stereotypes or reflecting society's
desires of her to exist solely as a beautiful
thing to project onto. "I'm nothing but a body
with a voice, no mind." Until the mid-1600's,
only men were allowed onstage. Academics Raquel
Serrano González and Laura Martínez-
García write that, when the first actresses
appeared on stage, they were cause for
"deep social anxiety." "That woman, is a woman!" Quote: "theatre gave women
a voice to air grievances and to contest, through their own bodies,
traditional gender roles." So the actress's very
existence has historically been a point of tension. She's a reflection of what it
means to be a woman in her time and articulates conflicting
ideals of womanhood. "I get up there and
whatever I say, it's like, 'what are we saying about women?'" Here's our Take on
the Actress Trope- a reflection of how
society views women, and our deep-rooted
anxieties around them. "You hate me.
Then you sleep with me. Then you want nothing
to do with me. Now you want me again?" "What, so you never went out
with an actress before?" If you're new here,
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online evaluation quiz. "She's not a whore."
"Well... She's an actress."
Ever since her seventeenth-
century premiere, the actress has been
inherently connected to sex. "Marilyn, is it true you wear
nothing in bed except perfume?" Professor of Women's
Performance Studies Gillian Bush-Bailey says that, "anxieties arising from women
working in an openly commercial and wholly public sphere quickly
led to parallels with prostitution, a link that has endured
for generations in a patriarchal society
employing the binaries of private/public, virgin/whore
as its constructs of femininity." "Did you know in over
50% of languages, the word for 'actress' is the same
as the word for 'prostitute?'" Feminist film theorist
Laura Mulvey wrote in 1975 that the actress's
role is titillation; she is required for
what Mulvey called her be-looked-at-ness. "Hey. I just want to
take another look at you." Somewhat contentiously, Mulvey states that the actress is
merely an object of male desire. "Why not simply rely
on your natural talents?" "So then are you saying
you don't want me to act?" "Will you just try to be sexy.
Isn't that what you do?" The ideal of the young,
beautiful starlet is really to be a blank screen, "I was the actress, I was
the star, and he didn't see me as something
separate from himself." onto which the typically
male director can project his "genius vision." "My crazy ideas are
her favorite things to figure out how to execute." "Let's try it crawling
but also stand." In many ways, the beautiful
actress-playing-an-actress is a symbol of female obedience. Movies train us to idolize
the submissive, direction-taking actress character over the
unpredictable, loud personality. "Can't a girl get
a word in edge-wise? After all, they're my public too!" "Now Lena, the publicity
department, Rod here, thought it would be
much better if Don made all the speeches for the team." In Mank, Amanda Seyfried's
nuanced portrayal of Marion Davies teases apart the dichotomy
present in the actress: a smart woman who's
treated like a puppet. "Marion would've been perfection." "Marion Antoinette." "Marionette." Though Marion is revealed
to be subtly powerful and aware of the power
dynamics around her, she's dismissed as though
she doesn't have any agency and is just her wealthy
husband's doll. "She's taking her playpen
to Warner Brothers... Besides, her pictures haven't
made a dime in a decade." But she's savvy enough
to know it benefits her to lean into this perception. "I hate shop talk, I never
know what's going on." Aside from sexuality, youthful innocence and
even ignorance are also adored attributes
in the actress. Enter the ingenue. "Wouldn't you rather have
your precious little ingenue?" This stock character, from the French for
innocent or ingenuous, can be seen in Restoration plays
as a pretty but not too intelligent or savvy potential love interest
for the central 'gallant' character. The ingenue character evolved
into our modern understanding of the naive young
actress or starlet. "Of course, I'd rather be
known as a great actress than a movie star, but sometimes people
end up being both... I'm sorry, I'm just so
excited to be here." In other words, she's
vulnerable and malleable. "Could you possibly use me
in a picture, Mr. McGuire? 'Course, I haven't had
much experience, but I don't think that really matters if you're willing."
. Yet her natural beauty
and sweet, innocent nature aren't enough to grant her
immediate Hollywood success. "You either follow my rules,
or you follow my rules. Capisce?" "Thank you." "I can do it a different way!" "No that's fine.
Thank you very much." She must endure both a mental
and physical transformation. Her makeover chisels her
into the object of our desire. She also often has to
change her name to accept her call to adventure. "Esther Victoria Blodgett!" "Well you'll have to do
something about that right away... Vicky Lester!" This forfeiting of her identity
is a nod to the ways in which many real-life actresses
and women in general have had to sacrifice aspects
of their authentic selves to conform to cultural expectations. "I would never change
my appearance for vanity. But, I mean, the doctor said it
could possibly improve my talent." It's also a reminder to
female audiences that the onscreen icons we're
expected to live up to weren't born as these
polished, glamorous beings, but go through gruelling
and painful processes to achieve this extreme
level of desirability "And the documents that prove
Monroe had plastic surgery-" "-and then it gets to 1950,
she had a cartilage implant to her chin." She might also undergo
a moral makeover as the ingenue gains the worldly
wisdom or less-than-pretty savvy needed to get ahead in the
cutthroat world of show business. In some iterations, we meet the Shadow Ingenue
or Dark Ingenue, exemplified by Eve in All About Eve, who's revealed to have never
been innocent but a cutthroat fame-seeker all along. "If I play Kora, Adison will never tell what
happened in or out of print. A simple exchange of favors." Bowfinger parodies how
this ruthless Ingenue is often perceived to take
advantage of the "casting couch" in Heather Graham's Daisy, a seemingly fresh-faced
ingenue who's revealed to be a shrewd opportunist
ready to sleep her way to the top. "I worry about the scenes." "The scenes?" "If we're gonna shoot
the new scenes. It's so hard to make love,
to give yourself to a man," "and that he would not prevent
the added scenes of yours from being shot." "We're doing the scenes." "Single, lonely, and doing
this ridiculous role, because you can't live
without being in the spotlight. Nobody wants you anymore.
Nobody's watching you anymore." As a culture, we're taught to fixate on youth,
and fear female aging. And as the actress's body changes
and her culturally accepted beauty fades, she's punished
with dwindling roles. "I'm 42 years old. I don't wanna
be dressed like a dead woman. Can you understand that?" In this way, she's
representative of all women, who lose cultural cachet when they lose their
looks or figures. "Her sell-by date was finished." The beautiful, young
actress seems to us an image of invincibility. "You just stand there
with your 22-year-old skin and tits like rocks
and... laugh at me." but as we watch even
this woman prove vulnerable to the march of time, we're forced to acknowledge
that no amount of money or fame can stop this fall. "You may change the star
anytime you want for a new and fresh and exciting one." A number of films about
the actress focus on the passage of youth and beauty, the accompanying loss
of the actress's success, and her inability to let go
of her former glory. "You're Norma Desmond, used to be in silent pictures,
used to be big." "I am big. It's the pictures
that got small." As actress and director
Ida Lupino put it, "Hollywood careers are
perishable commodities." Yet the actresses we see
onscreen rarely accept this. "You see, this is my life.
It always will be. There's nothing else.
Just us. and the cameras." It's true that a number
of famous actresses in cinema history have
ended up becoming recluses, while tales like Whatever Happened
to Baby Jane and Sunset Boulevard portray the faded actress
as a grotesque monster driven to insanity over
the loss of her career. "Miss Big Fat Movie Star!
Miss Rotten Stinking Actress!" The actress character can
be written to be hyper-aware of this ageist, sexist cycle in
Hollywood and in our world at large. "Someone told me
we look ridiculous together. Now how do you think
that makes me feel? Go find someone your
own age, Madeline!" Both Opening Night and the
Clouds of Sils Maria explore how, as the actress gains life experience,
she may get better at her craft, but she also becomes
encumbered, less free. "You can't be as accomplished
as you are and as well-rounded of an actress as you are
and still expect to hold onto the privileges of youth. It just doesn't work like that." As The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw
observed, in Opening Night, "Myrtle is scared that if
she does too well playing the older woman, then that is what she must
resign herself to being- in art as in life.." "I'm not ready to
play grandmothers yet." "Once you're convincing in a part,
the audience accepts you as that." "As what?" "As old, that's what." In stories of the Aging Diva,
there's often a Shadow Ingenue whose goal is to steal
the established actress's career out from under her. "Don't you know that part
was written for Margo?" "It might have been,
fifteen years ago. It's my part now." Or the tension might be between
two ageing actresses at war. "Are you threatening me?" "Worse, I'm gonna steal this picture
right out from under your nose and you know I can do it." Either way, the assumption is
there isn't space for two successful women. We also see the idea that
women become outdated when they step out of an industry
to have kids or get married. We're often shown how the actress
struggles with motherhood, expressing broader anxiety over
whether the working woman is living up to her
"natural" female duties. "I'm sorry that I wasn't
there for you all those years. I thought my Emmy win
was the highlight of my life, but reconnecting with you
is the real climax." The most famous example of this
narrative is Mommie Dearest, based on the autobiography of Joan Crawford's adopted
daughter Christina. "What have you done
to this damn hair?" "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Crawford's inability to be maternal
is explored further in Feud, "We'll see how her reviews are
and then think about sending flowers." and her cruelty has become
such an iconic horror story that it works its way into
other movies about actresses. "How'd you like to have
Joan Crawford for a mother, or Lana Turner?" "Don't make me into Mommie Dearest." This recurring theme of actresses
being bad mothers sends the message that a woman can't 'have it all,' "I prefer to have been a bad mother,
a bad friend, and good actress." or that a successful woman
must make the cold decision to put her career over her children. "Someone tried to love you
the only way she knew how." "I know that speech!" "You do?" "Yeah, it was
the thanksgiving show!" Stories about the actress
consistently imply that she has to give up all other aspects of life
to have a show business career. "The things you drop
on your way up the ladder so you can move faster; you forget you'll need them again
when you get back to being a woman." On the surface, the Actress
Trope is a cautionary tale. She's often isolated and unhappy
because it's implied that she has to give up too much of herself
to be successful in her career. "Why don't I have
any self-respect?!" "You're an actress, honey." But on a deeper level, the actress is like a literal
representation of the way we ask women to be an
impossible Venn diagram of all of our expectations at once. She goes from role to role, in which she's valued for being
directed by someone else, and she's faced with misogyny
and ageism in every aspect of her career. "No one was buying you
living with these kids. So now it's two young girls
and two young guys, and you're the aunt
who lives upstairs." "I know it's my turn
to do the dishes, but I'm in character. And if you make me do the
dishes I WILL KILL MYSELF!" There is no acting without drama, but the actress is often painted
as overdramatic, hysterical, or, as Daniel Radcliffe
put it in 2007 when he said he would never date one,
"just insane." "I bet you only
date hot actresses." "God, no. I'd never date
an actress. They're all crazy." Even when she's pushing
back for moral, ethical, or legitimate personal reasons, "But DeAnna, having a child
without a father would create a public relations problem
for the studio. The aquatic pictures
do very nicely for us." "So you go and strap on a
fish ass and marry Arnie Sezlum." she's written off as
"difficult to work with," her career often suffering
in ways that men are less likely to experience. "If I'm being honest,
I can't recommend her." "She can be a little difficult." Yet in some classic examples,
and increasingly today, we see more down-to-earth
or well-rounded portrayals of actresses who (wait for it)
really care about acting. "What do you want?" "To be an actress... It's all I
ever wanted in the whole world." "We're actors. When we say yes,
we do the bloody job." This more realistic actress
character can be a hardworking, creative woman who treats
acting as a serious craft "There is no excuse for
unprofessionalism." and career. "The skill that you're gonna need
if you wanna really work, and get steady work," "is to make shitty writing
mean something." She may position herself
on equal footing with directors and producers, and eventually prove she can
thrive in these roles, too. "She got an Emmy nomination." "She's a great actress." "No, for directing." In Barry, actress Sally is a comic
send-up of all the actress clichés: she's seeking fame,
overemotional, and obsessed with herself. "So many other women
have the same story. What, am I a spokesperson
for them now? Could I be the face
of the movement..." but she's also motivated by
a deep love of her profession. In Sally's storyline, we see
the pull that actresses can face between the art and
business of acting. She wants badly to be a good actor
and tell the truth in her work, "It's my fault, I shouldn't
have called you that. I hold him and I can feel
his shame, burning." but also sense that to succeed in
the acting game it's more important to give the audience the
comforting lies they want. "I'll talk to who I please,
when I please. You don't own me,
you fucking prick." In Better Things, Pamela Adlon's
Sam is a skilled, versatile actor who's managed to carve out
a steady career in a frequently unglamorous and
disheartening industry. The mother of three also
disproves the cliché that the actress isn't maternal,
even if her life can be chaotic. "Amanda, will you
give me a break? I have three of them
and you know I work." And as a human being,
Sam is aspirational- open, hilarious, and searching
as she offers us countless windows into beautiful moments,
experiences and people. "Oh my god. Wooo!!
Fuck yeah, Mom." When we peek behind the curtain
at the actress, we feel a sense of closeness to her as
a real person, just like us. We can see that celebrity
is a transient state. "The fame thing isn't
really real, you know. I'm also just a girl." For a brief time, it seems
attainable, accessible, and we can almost feel it
bestowing on us its beauty, power, and Keanu Reeves-like
eternal youth. "I've listened backstage
to people applaud... It's like waves of love
coming over the footlights..." So in this video, we look at
various tropes and stereotypes of how actresses are portrayed
onscreen and how that reflects our society's views of women. Why do you think that we enjoy
movies and shows about movies and shows? Well there's something
kind of meta, something- we're sort of getting this insider
look into the making of the world. We narrativize our own lives, so if you draw attention to
the construct of the story, it makes you more aware of
'which story am I framing my life as?' Do I wanna be an assassin
action-thriller, or a tragedy, or do I wanna be in a romcom
or a more experimental film? You know, we do cast roles. We cast roles for people in our lives,
and that places a high expectation on them too, that they
may not live up to. We think about WandaVision
a little bit right, and she sort of casts her family in order to
shield herself from the trauma and also to find the
happiness she envisions. There's something really
specific about the depictions of actresses, right. Has it changed? Are we sort of reinterpreting
the stereotypical character of the actress? "Can no one find nude
photos of me on the internet?" And I think looking in a
kind of positive way, the sort of self-referential
or self-aware moments, "We're closing with Emma Watson
for the young mom, so. That should be fun!" It is casting a spotlight
on aging and women, and I see a lot of opportunity
and growth that's happening partly because more women
are hopefully continuing to have the conversation,
be behind the camera. A lot of our favorite ones,
and recent ones, are more about the craft of acting
and what is the value of acting or drama. I really like the episode of
Better Things where Sam Fox is teaching her students about
[how] an actor's greatest asset is their weakness. "You gotta toughen up in life,
and get weaker in the scenes." "People are weak. Whatever your fears are,
whatever you suck at, that's what people want to see
when you're playing people." We think that strength or
confidence is what draws people to us but actually we
relate to seeing people's flaws and what they lack, and their pain. Vulnerability takes a lot of strength. And [it takes] a lot of courage,
to reveal our insecurities. Barry does an amazing job
of questioning whether we really want truth from
acting most of the time. There's a sense of, its value is
to give us truth and tap into this vulnerability and weakness
like we're talking about, but the business of acting
is so much not about that. "How tall are you?" "6'2." "Oh, great." The plot of Sally really digs into
this, about what we want to see about women onscreen. The truth that women can
be weak and vulnerable, and many-sided. That's the truth, but what people want
in the acting business is this narrative that women are one-
dimensional and strong. "It's just another shit male idea
about what strong women are. 'Oh, oh, oh, grab a gun,
and some stilettos, and get a goddamn blowout!
Look how strong you are now!" And she has to choose between,
do I tell the truth as an actor, and add value to the world, or do I succeed in the business
of acting by playing into these familiar narratives. It shows how real acting
is so therapeutic. I always come back to
that Kiarostami quote, 'we are not able to look at
what's in front of us unless its inside a frame,' and I feel that so much
in my own life. If I capture a moment, it somehow takes on this extra life
or this extra meaning for me. That's certainly the role
of all of these shows, and its what we do at
The Take, right? It's to really connect in a way- we're enjoying it, and entertained
by what we're watching, but we're also feeling something." Thanks again to Noom
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