“Nomadland”, the portrait of Chloé Zhao’s itinerant life, explores themes that are typically ignored by conventional narrative films. How often does Hollywood examine the scars of the Great Recession, the fragility of the gig economy or the gaps in the social safety net?
But it is almost as unusual to see an American film centered on an ordinary older woman, according to cinema historians and advocates of gender equality – in this case, an independent wanderer named Fern, played by 63 Oscar-winning actress Frances McDormand, 63. (The film premiered on Hulu and in some cinemas on Friday.)
“It is extremely rare to see a 60-year-old woman in the lead role, especially one who can see her age on the screen,” said Alicia Malone, host of Turner Classic Movies and who has written two books about women in cinema.
“Hollywood has historically been a very prejudiced place, certainly since it became a commercial business where men were in charge and women were discarded when they reached a certain age,” said Malone, who recently co-presented a TCM series highlighting 100 films directed by women.
The film industry routinely classifies “men of a certain age” as romantic protagonists or action heroes. But women over 50 tend to be relegated to supporting or one-dimensional pieces, and big stars like Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman may be exceptions that prove the rule, said Malone.
“When we see older women, they are in secondary roles with many stereotypes around them and many jokes being made at their expense,” said Malone. “It is rarely shown that they are at the center of the stories as viable and complex characters.”
In recent years, television shows and limited series have become havens for women over 50 looking for interesting roles, such as Viola Davis (“How to Get Away With Murder”); Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin (“Grace and Frankie”); and Catherine O’Hara (“Schitt’s Creek”).
In a report published in September, the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that only three of the top 100 films of 2019 featured a lead or co-protagonist role played by a woman over 45, and only one of them papers went to a colored woman.
In the previous year, USC researchers found that 11 of the top 100 films featured a woman over 45 – while nearly a quarter (24 films) featured a man over 45 as a protagonist or supporting actor.
“For starters, we don’t have enough films about women, let alone women over 45,” said Melissa Silverstein, founder of Women and Hollywood, an organization that advocates more inclusion in the film industry. “It is something very difficult to find and a problem.”
“Nomadland” drastically breaks the rules with his frank and deeply empathetic gaze at the character of McDormand, who takes to the road in a van after the death of her husband and the collapse of the real Nevada factory town, where she worked and lived decades.
The film chronicles McDormand’s character with a stimulating, documentary-style intimacy. We see her working at an Amazon warehouse; cleaning toilets in a trailer camp; connection with other vagrants (some of them non-professional actors interpreting versions of themselves); savoring the beauty of the natural world as it traverses the American West.
“I don’t think I * ever * saw a film about an older woman who is about her in her relationship with herself, rather than in the capacity of a mother, grandmother, wise aunt, etc.”, culture writer Jenna Scherer tweeted recently. “It is a joy to see Frances McDormand just having time and space to wander and think and, frankly, to play.”
McDormand, who co-produced “Nomadland”, is among a group of prominent actors who advocate greater inclusion and equity, on and off screen. (The film is an independent production acquired by Disney-owned distributor Searchlight Pictures.)
In March 2018, when McDormand received the Oscar for best actress for her performance on “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”, she met for “inclusion riders”, a contractual clause that artists could use to demand more diversity in productions.
The relative scarcity of rewarding career opportunities for women and people of color has been under particular scrutiny since at least the end of 2017, when the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements began to reshape work cultures in entertainment and the media.
Gender imbalances also persist behind the camera. “Nomadland” director Zhao, who was acclaimed by the neo-western drama “The Rider” in 2017 and will make her debut in the Marvel universe with the upcoming film “Eternals”, is one of a handful of high-profile filmmakers in Hollywood contemporary.
Zhao, who is Chinese-American, is also among the few color directors with a growing presence on the studio circuit. In an analysis published in January 2020, the USC inclusion initiative found that only 13 of the 1,300 highest grossing films released between 2007 and 2019 were directed by women from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups.
McDormand, for example, said he feels fortunate to have collaborated with Zhao, who was also committed to building a project around an authentic American woman rarely seen in the mass media.
“What if I had looked in the mirror, unable to recognize myself as the woman being represented in fashion magazines and films? What if it had stopped me? There are a lot of ‘what ifs’, but part of the American dream I realized was working with people like Chloé Zhao, ”said McDormand at a news conference in September.
Nell Minow, a film critic and corporate governance expert, said she believed there was more cultural oxygen available for small-scale projects led by women during the coronavirus pandemic because top studios were forced to postpone the release of many box office hits directed by men .
“It has been a bonanza for more intimate films like ‘Nomadland’ in many ways,” said Minow, pointing to Channing Godfrey Peoples’ “Miss Juneteenth” and Radha Blank’s “The 40-Year-Old Version” as examples of projects aimed at women who received welcome attention last year.
“I realized that a large part of the media I use requires me to translate from a male point of view to something that speaks more directly to me,” said Minow. “When I watch these films, I can relax. I don’t have to translate anything. “
“It’s a cliché right now to say ‘acting matters’, but it makes me feel connected and heard because I have something in common with these characters,” she added.
TCM presenter Malone said viewers should consider how they have been deprived of valuable human stories because of gender imbalances in the film industry.
“When you think about how much older women have been erased from Hollywood, it also makes you consider how much we all lose because we haven’t experienced their stories on the big screen, with all their life experience, their wisdom, humor and vitality,” she said.