We really don't know much of the project Maggie lost. The CHARACTER might have been in his mid-50s or the ACTOR might be in his mid-50s. Some men in their fifties are still relatively "boyish": They can pass for a decade younger if they do something as simple as dying their hair. Maggie, however, is an old mid-30s. It feels like she's been making movies as an adult for as long as we've all been alive. Her and Jake's parents were directors and producers; they never pounded the pavement looking for work, having doors slammed in their faces because they didn't have the connections necessary to find work. Maggie never paid her dues and played the ditzy girl or dead hooker or stripper #7. (When Maggie lost a role, she lost it because she sucked, not because someone wondered who she was.) She started at the middle and stayed at the middle, finding success as a substitute for Katie Holmes in The Dark Knight. Cameron Diaz and Amy Adams are about her age, too, and both started out as ditzy girls, before becoming movie stars in their own right. They came from nothing, in the Hollywood sense: They started their careers attractive, yes, and they used their physical gifts with grit, never resting on their laurels. The hottest fires form the strongest steel, and Maggie was never exposed to such flames. Their parents didn't get them jobs.
Hollywood movies are so often made for teenage boys because they watch a lot of movies, especially the bad ones, and the female leads must appeal to this demographic. Maggie could now easily be a teen boy's mom. Maggie could have an adult child--right now. So, yeah, she's old. By which I mean, she's Hollywood-old. Has she met Kristen Stewart? Because Kristen Stewart is her. Kristen Stewart is playing the roles that Maggie played a decade ago. (Pretty but not stunning. Moody brunette. Very pasty lady--never had a tan. Does nudity.) She's at one of those points in her career where she has to question what she's doing. She was never that great an actress--unlike Meryl Streep. She was never a great writer--unlike Tina Fey. She was never a box office star--unlike Julia Roberts. Never a child prodigy--unlike Jodie Foster--we could go on like this....
Let me clarify one point: Communal property laws make perfect sense when they recognize the importance of being a homemaker in the spouse achieving success. Historically women--especially housewives, not career women--have been screwed out of their contributions to the households' successes. A housewife's contributions to the household cannot be easily quantified--so now we just give the broad half.
However, a wife can also be a mean woman who steals half of everything you earned. When you reach a certain degree of material success, a housewife is no longer a woman who cooks and cleans but one who yells at the illegal immigrants whom she'd hired to do the cooking and cleaning. Your wife is no longer an important part of the household, but a middleman between the lord and the servants. She is not an overworked housewife, but just a rich-bitch. Your wife might end up torpedoing your brilliant idea for movies or businesses or inventions, thus preventing a man from achieving his full potential. Countless brilliant ideas have undoubtedly been lost because the wife didn't approve...and that's why we don't have hoverboards.
Hollywood movies are so often shaped by Hollywood insiders'--studio heads, producers, directors--view of reality, and in the entertainment community, having a second or third wife is not so unusual. There being a generational difference is not so unusual. The young woman gives the older man a second chance at love. To start anew with another mate--except now he has the money and experience to do it right. (Of course this second marriage might go south too. The third one will be the right marriage.)
A few months ago, '90s teen crush Rose McGowan revealed that she decided not to audition for an Adam Sandler film after receiving a note from her agent regarding her costuming requirement to augment her cleavage. Getting fired from an Adam Sandler project has to be like getting fired from a fart contest. With the fart contest, you probably won't get the entrance fee back, though. (His movies so frequently make money--but, c'mon, we know they're not good.)
McGowan's exhaustion with being treated as a piece of meat reeks of hypocrisy. "Sexy" has been the only role that she'd ever played throughout her entire career, and it was a role that she continued to play as recently as last year, when she did a nude photo spread. I'm not making this up: McGowan posed naked just last year. But now she's fed up with being objectified by Hollywood. She draws the line at being cast as the sexpot...in 2015, she means. Hollywood is an industry that exploits young women, it turns out. She's growing older, and she's asking herself what her career is going. Because, despite her beauty, the wrinkles are encroaching. So now she's a feminist icon.
