Is The Age Gap Between Actors Playing Mother-Son Roles In 'The Crowded Room' Sexist?

Upcoming anthology series The Crowded Room has generated quite a significant buzz since it was announced that Emmy Rossum will play the role of mother to Tom Holland's character. The two actors are rather close in age to each other with only a ten-year gap between them, something which seems to have confused fans about the casting. Could an older female actor not have been cast to play Holland's mother?

The choice of cast has irked fans to no end and they are not holding back on making their displeasure known on social media.

A Deadline article confirming the cast of the Apple TV+ series appears to have sparked the debate on Twitter. While some people are just plain excited to see Holland and Rossum, along with Amanda Seyfried, on the series, others have raised questions about the entertainment industry's tendency to speed up the process of ageing on-screen for women.

However, the Holland-Rossum equation is not all it looks like.

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The anthology in question will explore inspiring stories revolving around mental health issues. The first season of The Crowded Room is inspired by The Minds of Billy Milligan, a biography of American writer Daniel Keyes. Holland will take lead as a man acquitted of a crime citing the dissociative identity disorder he suffers from.

However, several reports have missed mentioning that Rossum will play Holland's mother in flashback scenes when his character would be young. Would the small age gap between the actors be of any relevance, if (presumably) they will be starring in different time periods of the same story?

It seems many netizens are not convinced still, despite the plotline justifying the casting.

"Even if it was a flashback situation, and it doesn't sound like that, Emmy Rossum as Tom Holland's mom is absurd," one user wrote. "I was wondering is there a chance @AkivaGoldsman as you’re 59 & still writing it, that the mother isn’t ten years older than the male lead, even if only in “therapy flashback”?" Nicky Clark, who founded the 'Acting Your Age' campaign against ageism in the entertainment industry, wrote.

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While the flashback explanation erases allegations of sexism against The Crowded Room, it becomes an opportune moment to cast an eye on the larger and persistent issue of age-related sexism in film and television. It is a long-observed point that the entertainment industry makes its women age faster than its men.

This is a drawback that plagues film industries the world over.

In Bollywood too, production houses refuse to let male actors age even as they cross the middle-age threshold while the women paired with them keep changing on a rotational basis. So while Raveena Tandon is out of the frame, Akshay Kumar is still around for a recreation of their classic dance number from almost three decades ago, but this time with the younger Katrina Kaif. Read an opinion here.

Fun fact: Would you believe Reema Lagoo, the ultimate Bollywood maa, was merely seven years older than Salman Khan who played her son and son-in-law multiple times?

Male actors are generously handed lead characters well past their 'prime.' For female actors, this prime time is ushered in fast and ends even faster. Can women claim to have screen shelf lives as prolonged as their male counterparts? The answer to this lies in another question. Can the audience stop associating age with attractiveness and see an ageing woman as equally relevant, powerful, beautiful and talented- thus commanding their attention? When the answer to this is yes, only then will the industry stop catalysing the process of women's on-screen ageing.

Views expressed are the author's own.