Celebrity news websites and many social media users have been up in arms recently after finding out that Nikki Rodriguez, lead of the Netflix series My Life with the Walter Boys, supposedly lied about her age. While many websites initially claimed she was in her early 20s, a little bit of sleuthing from online users led to the discovery that she is actually 33.
This situation is very similar to one involving Euphoria actress Alexa Demie, who, along with many other news outlets, claimed she was 24 when Euphoria first became wildly successful. People online found she was actually years older after coming across her high school yearbook.
Both situations in the media in the last few years have led me to ask the question: Why do women in Hollywood have to lie about their age?
The answer is actually quite simple: Hollywood doesn’t really like women, especially women with smile lines and crow’s feet. And more than that, it really doesn’t like successful women. So how do they combat this? By making it so that men’s careers flourish as they grow older.
“He is aging like fine wine,” they say! “He’s even better now than he used to be,” they exclaim! “He has worked hard to get here,” they argue!
But women’s careers in Hollywood are a ticking time bomb. You have a period of ‘good years’ and once those are done, get ready to play the mom or the therapist for the rest of your days. Often, movies showcasing middle-aged women are about depression, disease, or divorce. Starting as young as 14, actresses are playing teenage girls in provocative shows, getting ahead of the curve so they can make their careers last longer. By their early 30s, they are already being pushed out.
Hollywood tires of women easily, especially when they have taken up space for too long and become too successful. I remember watching Taylor Swift’s documentary Miss Americana when it first came out years ago. Taylor says, “We do exist in this society where women in entertainment are discarded in an elephant graveyard by the time they’re 35.”
Although she is talking about the music industry in this context, the same can apply to the film industry. Women are only allotted a few years to ‘prove themselves’ before they are discarded. On the other hand, if they rise to too much fame, or too quickly, their time is cut short. They are berated and torn apart by the media, and then she is discarded anyway.
So, to answer the question: Why do women in Hollywood have to lie about their age? They do it to keep their careers. Because the media will shame women whether they decide to lie or end up turning 30. They do it because the shame allotted to women is institutional and runs deep in every part of Hollywood.
They aren’t allowed to be confident or cocky, witty or sarcastic, they aren’t even allowed to age.
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