Maggie Gyllenhaal Gets Real About Ageism in Hollywood

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A woman might be running for President, but women in general are still climbing up a steep hill of inequality. On Wednesday, Oscar-nominated actress Maggie Gyllenhaal divulged that the age-old aphorism “age is just a number” sadly—but truly, and probably not so surprisingly—doesn’t apply to women in film.

“There are things that are really disappointing about being an actress in Hollywood that surprise me all the time,” she told The Wrap. “I’m 37 and I was told recently I was too old to play the lover of a man who was 55. It was astonishing to me.” She continued: “It made me feel bad, and then it made me feel angry, and then it made me laugh.”

Though Gyllenhaal didn’t reveal who said that or what film the role was for (we will find you!), it sounds like something we’ve heard a million times before. And it’s something currently playing out in a very different—and kind of nasty—way in the public eye right now. Pitch Perfect 2′s Rebel Wilson is being scrutinized for lying about her age.

Wilson took to Twitter on Monday to address the Sydney Morning Herald revelation that she is, in fact, 35 years old, not 29 as was previously publicized:

But given Gyllenhaal’s quote, who can blame her? And while it might sound great to laugh about it, as both Gyllenhaal and Wilson claim to do, it’s actually not very funny. The problem is that women can’t win when they try to talk about this, or about equal pay, or about anything else that separates them from their male counterparts. Fellow actress Patricia Arquette, who used her 87th Academy Awards acceptance speech as a platform to beat the drum—loud and proud—about women’s rights and equal pay in Hollywood, was accused of being angry. People grew tired of her trying to add fuel to the fire, instead of asking how all this anger could be put toward something productive.

Maybe we took The Honorable Woman too seriously, but we vote for Gyllenhaal to lead the charge. If anyone can make a calm, collected, but very serious change, it’s her.

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