Consider the explosive success of The Idea of You (2024), starring Anne Hathaway as a 40-year-old single mother who falls into a romance with a younger boy band star. Or the raw, uncomfortable intimacy of Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022), where Emma Thompson — in a stunning, brave performance at age 63 — explores female sexual pleasure and body dysmorphia.
: Only one in four films pass the "Ageless Test," which requires at least one female character over 50 who is essential to the plot and not reduced to a stereotype.
To understand the current landscape, one must examine the historical erasure of the mature woman. The foundational years of Hollywood were built on the "male gaze," a concept popularized by film theorist Laura Mulvey, which posits that women in cinema exist primarily to be looked at by a presumed heterosexual male audience.
Specifically, Hacks is a masterclass. Jean Smart’s character, Deborah Vance, is not a "sympathetic old lady." She is ruthless, politically incorrect, sexually active, and emotionally broken. She has power, money, and fear. This complexity is what are finally being allowed to bring to the big screen as well.