Another day, another exhausting overanalysis of a woman's age.
As if we don't experience enough pressure to hold onto our youth – from the pedalling of anti-ageing skincare to the use of the word “geriatric” to describe a pregnant woman over the age of 35 – the obsession over when a woman is “too old” to play a Hollywood role reigns true, with no real regard to the men on the flip side.
Gossip Girl alum Blake Lively has been announced as the female lead in the adaptation of beloved Coleen Hoover novel It Ends With Us. She will play Lily, a graduate who gets caught up in a love triangle between a complicated, abusive relationship with an older man, Ryle, and her childhood sweetheart Atlas.
Some fans have been overjoyed at Lively's casting, but others have argued that she's not “age appropriate” due to the 12-year age gap between her own age and her character's age.
One fan tweeted: “blake lively being cast as lily bloom in it ends with us is confusing because the character is 23 in the book and blake is 12 years older ???” Another called Lively's casting "quite possible the worst casting that’s ever been cast”.
Let's break this down. Because of the sensitive nature of the book and film's storyline – Lily encounters abuse within her relationship with Ryle, and reflects on the abusive dynamic of her parents' relationship – the casting of her character for the film adaptation definitely needs to be approached with care.
And, it certainly may seem a jump for Lively – who is incidentally 35 years old, the age where the phrase “geriatric pregnancy” begins to be used – to play a college graduate, yes. But the bigger question is this: why is no one commenting on the age of her male co-star (and Jane The Virgin actor) Justin Baldoni, who plays Ryle?
Ryle is supposed to be 30 years old, and yet Baldoni is 39 years old. So is the age of a man that irrelevant when it comes to Hollywood casting? Or has the patriarchy just made us blind to it? Reactions to casting news are much more likely to focus on why a woman's looks, age or relationship history may make her “wrong” or “right” for a role, and not her male counterpart.
A man seems to be automatically accepted, probably partially due to the much smaller focus on the male ageing journey.
The instinct to overanalyse Baldoni's place at the table, whether he can do the story justice, whether he “fits” what fans imagined for his character, is just not as strong as the internalised temptation to discredit a woman's place and hard work.
Reactions to casting news are much more likely to focus on why a woman's looks, age or relationship history may make her “wrong” or “right” for a role, and not her male counterpart.
The fixation on Lively's suitability to her role over Baldoni's is made more dark and frustrating when you consider that Baldoni is not just the male lead – he's the director of It Ends With Us.
This is yet another example of men holding the most power over a much-loved Hollywood project – that was incidentally written by a woman – with no question of their legitimacy. All that scrutiny is saved for Lively.
So while fans may be fair in questioning whether Blake Lively should play a character 12 years her junior, perhaps we should all work harder to make sure our critiques consider all parts of the equation and any other power inequalities and age discrepancies at play.
And, most crucially, we should never overlook the male-dominated power structures that so often dictate decisions made in Hollywood, universal beauty standards and how we live our lives and form opinions.
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