At The Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment breakfast, Helen Mirren, the recipient of the 2010 Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, criticised Hollywood filmmakers who continue “to worship at the altar of the 18 to 25-year-old male and his penis.’
In her speech she paid tribute to her parents who had taught her that a girl could do anything and believed a women should be economically independent.
She noted that, however, there were very few opportunities for older women in theatre or film. “No work, means no income.’ She lamented the numerous roles for men both on stage and in the theatre which has lead to “the demise of very talented female actors’.
“I resent in my life the survival of some very mediocre male actors and the professional demise of some very brilliant female ones,” Mirren said. “However, with all due respect to you many brilliant and successful women in this room…really not too much has changed in the canon of Hollywood filmmaking that continues to worship at the altar of the 18 to 25-year-old male and his penis – quite small I would think.”
She concluded with statistics on women drawn from The Wall Street Journal. “Women control $20 trillion in consumer spend. Women represent a growth market twice as much as China and India combined. So, how about a bit of God-damn respect.’
