Quotes About Ageism

It is important for the film industry to rise above ageism.

There is this thing in America where actresses reach 40 and go mad. The film industry wants all these young people.

People over 45 basically die in terms of new ideas.

It's always precisely the sort of smug old wanker you would never ever want to end up like. We don't live the way you tell us to because we're afraid that if we do we'll grow up to be like you, and the thought of that is unbearable. It's alright for you because you'll be dead soon anyway, but we've still got another fifty or sixty years to live in this stinking country.

America doesn't reward people of my age, either in day-to-day life or for their performances.

Certain roles for older women are aimed at certain older actresses - I'm not one of those. I've been offered any number of Puerto Rican grandmas that I've turned down.

Whenever I hear someone describe something as a 'kids movie' or a 'family movie,' it immediately has a negative connotation in my mind because I think, 'Well, as an adult, I wouldn't go see it by myself, because it's purely for children and it holds nothing for me and it's simplistic and it's kind of easy.'

People say, 'You will be 30 years old; you're too old. You'll get your nose broke,' say dad's a pushy dad. You hear stupid things and put them out of your mind.

Parts that are desexed, matronly - to just put me in a couple of scenes and have me be the older, you know, dead character, is not gonna fly with me.

Our public culture is one in which only the young and the beautiful will succeed. If you're forty, you're finished.

French culture takes ageing very seriously. There's much less ageism than in Anglo-Saxon countries.

All these fifty-year-old guys wearing baseball caps and shorts and acting like children. It winds me up. Men don't have to take responsibility anymore. Most of the guys I know would punch me on the nose for saying this, but maybe we do have to bring back conscription.

I'm in a business where the only thing that matters is weight and appearance. That is so messed up. They might as well say 'Get younger,' because that's how easy it is.

I'm at the age now, when I meet a woman sixty years old, she's too young for me.

I don't get played on radio anymore. Once you're over 40, forget it.

Cougars are all the rage! I'm so glad that Hollywood and America are embracing women when they get in their 40s instead of putting us out to pasture.

There's still this idea that women are over by the time they are 40, so that they can't play the love interest opposite a 50-year-old man. George Clooney is 52, but he's always on the arm of a thirt-something actress. He gets Vera Farmiga. You don't get a 50-year-old woman on the arm of a 30-year-old guy.

A man can be 43, and people will say, 'Oh, he's a cool bachelor, and he just hasn't settled down,' but with a woman, it's, 'Oh, she must have really wanted to get married, but she didn't.' I honestly think that attitude is a little bit sexist.

There's ageism in everything. I don't give a hoot. It isn't what other people think; it's what you think. But it's hard to come to terms with getting older. I admire people like Vivienne Westwood.

I think women should band together to get us more respect in all the businesses that we're in because, you know, if we turn 40, we're nothing and nobody. We all should band together and just say we're not gonna go down like that.

He thought that the world would make more rapid progress without the burden of old people.

For older actresses, the story is still the same. They are either subservient wives taking care of their husbands - like that typical age-old character of a woman, who serves her husband a hot cup of tea as soon as he comes home; or they are mothers dependent on their sons.

I hate to generalize, but in general, both men and women suffer from ageism. Men much less because men gain power as they get older. Women lose power as they get older. Men are seen as gaining experience and being distinguished. Sons look forward to replacing their fathers.

I do resent that when you're in the most cool, powerful time of your life, which is your 40s, you're put out to pasture. I think women are so much cooler when they're older. So it's a drag that we're not allowed to age.