, chair of the Seasoned Performers Committee at the L.A. Local of SAG-AFTRA, during a panel discussion on ageism earlier this month. “People scream about the need to be represented in film and television – what is referred to as the American scene. Yet people over 60 are both underrepresented and misrepresented, even though we are over 20% of the U.S. population and rapidly growing. In ten years, seniors will outnumber 18-and-unders.
The Annenberg School, she noted, “has done two eye-popping recent studies, appropriately titled ‘Still Rare, Still Ridiculed,’ on the dire lack of inclusion of seasoned performers in film and television, which tell us clearly that seasoned performers are almost invisible in film and television. And when we do appear, we’re often misrepresented and ridiculed.”
The report found that in the top 100-grossing films of 2016, out of the 4,288 speaking or named characters with a discernible age, only 10.7% were 60 years of age or older. “This means as seasoned performers we don’t have work opportunities,” Purcell said. “And combining ageism with sexism, only 26.4% of all over 60-characters were female, while 73.6% were male, even though women comprise a larger percentage of the U.S. population than men.
A separate USC study found that the same was true in television; that of the 1,609 speaking characters surveyed on shows that aired between June 1, 2016, and May 31, 2017, only 9.4% were aged 60 and above., co-chair of SAG-AFTRA’s national Seniors Committee, said that “what is clear to our committee and myself is that we really need a major campaign, a big loud campaign to put the spotlight of senior issues. We know the issues. We’ve talked about them for years.
Said Purcell: “I agree with Jackie. We need to wake up people with a major campaign; a commitment to storm the barricades to make real and lasting change to the last accepted bias – ageism.”
Which makes even less sense for Oscars to be held now as BAFTAs two weeks earlier as older audiences won't return to movie theatres for many more months and Frances McDormand well meaning comments about seeing Nomadland in the cinema will be damp squib as most will see it on Hulu
Great for these actors & actresses but we need to be more inclusive to diversity!
How about just actors - and drop older.
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