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CAA and the Actress Over 35 Problem
Ageism in Hollywood is, groan, an age old problem. It's gotten a bit of attention in the last couple of days after the co-creator of HBO's Hung, Colette Burson, was quoted in the New York Times Magazine as saying:
“We auditioned a lot of people,” says Colette Burson, the co-creator of “Hung.” “It is incredibly difficult to find beautiful, talented, funny women over 35.”
Whoa! That's no way to treat the ladies. I ripped her. Jezebel ripped her. There was a Twitter storm. Upshot: Burson sought out blogger Melissa Silverstein of WomenandHollywood.com, who had interviewed her before, and gave a long impassioned clarification (you can read it and my original blog post here).
Jezebel, I think unfairly, chose to excerpt only the parts of the post which make Burson look like more of a jerk. And in so doing missed the juiciest part of what Burson had to say, namely how the all-powerful Creative Artists Agency (CAA) views actresses. Which is to say, useless unless young and famous (and in which order, unclear). In addition to repping the famous, agencies like CAA also represent work-a-day character actors. Unless they happen to be women over 40 who don't look like poster children for cosmetic surgery and extreme dieting. According to Burson:
Just to illustrate: Dmitry (Lipkin her husband and co-creator of Hung) and I went into CAA and we were talking about all the different roles and I said what we are really going to be looking for is an actress around age 40 who is talented and funny and yet can really act. They seemed to not want to address my question so I brought it up again and they said what about x? (a well known 45 year old film actress) I said no, we don’t want to cast celebrities. We want to cast real women and this is a rare opportunity. We don’t want you to send us your beautiful starlets. Send us real women with real bodies who can act and who can be comedic. And he looked sort of sheepish and said I’m really ashamed to tell you we don’t have anyone like that on our list.
I said you mean to tell me that you this huge agency can’t send us a woman who is 40 and they said no. [emph. mine] And he said I know it’s horrible but it’s the state of the business that they really aren’t a lot of roles for them.
Surprising that Jezebel didn't make hay of this part of Burson's comments, since unrealistic portrayals of women by the entertainment biz are the bread and butter of that blog (which I happen to love). Maybe another Gawker enterprise, Defamer, will get on it (oops, that's just an aggregator now).
And I still want to think what CAA client Oprah says about this.
Update: Upon further reflection, perhaps the real story is how Burson, having pissed off actresses/women everywhere, clarified by alienating Hollywood's most powerful agency. Guessing HBO will assign flack to shadow her henceforth.
Clara Jeffery is Co-editor of Mother Jones and has fallen under the sway of Twitter's dark powers. You can read her tweets here.
Oscars
Sadly, this trend seems to continue in the Oscars. Although often 3 of the 5 nominees for Best Actress are 35 or older, it's disproportionately the 35 and unders that actually win. However, the most frequently nominated actresses for Best Actress and best supporting actress are older: Cate Blanchett (40), Meryl Streep (60), Kate Winslet (35 next year), and Judi Dench (75) just to name a few... CAA should be so lucky to get their hands on Nicole Kidman (42) or Rachel Weisz (39).
Colette Burson's Tragic Assmilation into The Borg Collective
Thanks once again to Clara Jeffery for shedding more light on Colette Burson's words. I knew nothing of the CAA or what they do until I read this post+started digging a bit on my own. Then I realised. Colette Burson has been assimilated by The Borg (ahem, CAA in their big ole' Death Star office building).
I read Burson's reaction to CAA reps, "I said you mean to tell me that you this huge agency can’t send us a woman who is 40 and they said no. And he said I know it’s horrible but it’s the state of the business that they really aren’t a lot of roles for them. It’s such a bummer."
I read it again. And I wondered. Why would Burson's reaction be so mild? Why, "It's such a bummer." ? Why wouldn't she tell the rep at the CAA that she would take her request to another agency? In my ignorance of the showbiz world, I thought if I'm looking for something and I can't find it at one store, I shop around until I find what I am looking for. One person telling me it can't be found is just going to annoy me and probably guarantee that I won't shop at that store again. But then I thought maybe I was simplifying a really complicated show business issue. Like maybe Burson was told by her HBO people that she must use only CAA and maybe she just had to sit there and suck it up and take it. If that's the scenario, I certainly understand biting your tongue to keep your job or taking the high road to avoid a conflict. But, I was curious about this CAA and googled them. Lots of interesting links popped up. Of course, there was an entry from wikipedia, and another from cnnmoney.com:
http://tinyurl.com/qvrjlh
The article on the cnn site explained it in a way this nerd understood. CAA are The Borg. CAA is housed inside The Death Star (Yes I am fully aware that I have married Star Trek to Star Wars to make a point). So it is logical Burson's reaction would be to step in line. I understand Borg tactics. We must forgive Burson and look at destroying The Borg+The Death Star. Scary stuff. Look what happened to Burson after a meeting with the CAA folks (borg) at their office (death star) She couldn't resist. She stepped in line. She was assimilated into The Borg Collective aka Hollywood.
:-)
I thought Jeffrey was unfair
I thought Jeffrey was unfair to Burson in her first piece. My comments as to why append it, if anyone is interested.
Here I think Burson is counting on her readers' lack of familiarity with the entertainment industry to unfairly redirect that unfair blame.
The part of her request that would have blown CAA out of the water wasn't to do with age or body type, but "we don't want to cast celebrities."
There are lots of agencies that represent lesser-known and character actors, but CAA is a big star/big commission agency. They may take on a young actor or actress whom they believe has star potential, but if you've made it past forty and your name and face aren't familiar, you are just not the business they're in. And if you're Meryl Streep, you can die their client.
I find myself with no one to root for in this dust-up any longer, but just FYI.
thanks
thank u for informations Kral oyun