Reconstruction 5.2 (Spring 2005)

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Nothing's Gonna Give? Age, Gender, and Cultures of the Screen / Christine Scodari and Becky Mulvaney

Abstract: Christine Scodari’s and Becky Mulvaney’s “Nothing’s Gonna Give? Age, Gender, and Cultures of the Screen” investigates the 2003 romantic comedy Something’s Gotta Give, written and directed by Nancy Meyers as exceptional in its featuring a fifty-something woman as leading actress. Beginning with an analysis of the filmic text itself, the authors do not confine themselves to it, but go on to critically engage with its reception in both the press and academia. While the focus is thus shifted from the film to the “meta-“ and “para-texts” produced in the course of its reception and promotion, the underlying questions asked by Scodari and Mulvaney persist: What are the relationships between age, gender, and contemporary screen cultures? How are these relationships necessarily determined and by what agency? Acknowledging the many dimensions in which these questions have to be posed, the article continues by reporting the results of a series of focus groups taking the form of “casting” a hypothetical Hollywood Blockbuster. Again, the relationship between age, gender, and the hegemonic type of film narrative are approached from a number of angles, taking into account the demographic composition of the groups involved. The authors’ multi-faceted inquiry is rounded off with a survey of online discussion groups’ reception of Something’s Gotta Give and a conclusion bringing together the various perspectives taken in the course of the overall argument.

<1> Something’s Gotta Give (2003), written and directed by Nancy Meyers, is exceptional as a mass market, romantic comedy film featuring a fifty-something woman, Diane Keaton, as leading lady. Torn between a handsome, devoted, thirty-something doctor (Keanu Reeves), and a sixty-something, Viagra-popping Lothario who shuns women over 30 (Jack Nicholson), Keaton’s character, an acclaimed writer, is smitten with, pines over, and finds “true love” with the latter.

<2> A culturally hegemonic reading of the gender/age issues underscored by the film is reflected in Charles Taylor’s review in the online magazine Salon (salon.com), which automatically adopts, presumably on behalf of readers, the subjectivity of Nicholson’s character. Taylor laments that it is now “politically correct to deride the combination of older men and younger women.” Despite that scores of Hollywood films present this very combination without comment, question, or derision, Taylor claims that what he alleges to be “oodles of magazine articles” make this film party to “blanket disapproval” of dating outside one’s age. Overlooked in his criticism, however, is the fact that Keaton’s character, the film’s focus if not Taylor’s, ultimately abandons her younger lover for Nicholson.

<3> Studies of textual representation reveal industry intransigence with regard to age and gender. In >From Reverence to Rape, Haskell claims that film configures age to privilege the maturing male while denigrating his female counterparts. Male action heroes are often in their forties or older, while 40 usually marks a female actor’s transition from leading lady and romantic interest to mother, sidekick, or villain. Wade-Gayle and Stoddard concur that movies bathe middle-aged (and older) males in an aura of potency, sexual and otherwise, while rendering older women as marginal or, as demonstrated in a content analysis by Bazzini (et. al.), “unattractive, unfriendly, and unintelligent” (531).

<4> Equally persistent in film is the practice of pairing older men with significantly younger women. Entrapment (1999), for example, couples Sean Connery with Catherine Zeta-Jones, some 39 years his junior. The reverse situation is not only rare, but when it occurs it typically frames older women as “barracudas who feed on young flesh or misfits who can't attract a ‘real’ man” (Lovenheim 48), or as devices for the sexual edification of young males. Something’s Gotta Give hardly assuages these stereotypes, placing the younger man in fallback position as the woman is transiently rebuffed by her preferred, “age-appropriate” suitor.

<5> Such tendencies extend to small screen portrayals. Robinson and Skill bear out the verdicts of the cultural indicators project, which concludes that television roles, especially female, are trending younger, spawning more older man/younger woman romances, and that as female characters age “they become more evil” (Gerbner 2).

<6> Investigations of audiences reveal that they can take up the demographic biases of producers as manifested in their texts. Scodari discerns that young soap opera fans often disparage the preferences of their older counterparts, including aging characters (Serial Monogamy). Healey and Ross note their senior respondents’ perception that older males are more likely than older females to get good screen roles because “women need to be young and beautiful to be on television; older women are assumed to be off-putting to a young audience because they are unattractive; and older women have nothing to offer” (113).

<7> Like gender, age (or aging) is acknowledged as a “socially constructed concept” (Cohen 600). In particular, older women are constructed to be “doubly different, doubly degraded, and doubly injured by exterior identity” (Frueh 202). The media, as vehicles for shaping cultural perceptions of age, gender, and articulations between them, warrant additional scrutiny. The question emerges: What frames of reference and modes of identification give rise to preferences and expectations in regard to age, gender, and romance in screen cultures? This question is answered by exploring the role and significance of various modes and instances of reception, including critical notices for Something’s Gotta Give, readers’ replies to Taylor’s review, and other online audience reactions. An orienting experiment involving young adults, Hollywood’s most coveted audience, verifies the operant predispositions.

<8> Walters embraces an anti-essentialist approach to the study of gender representation that both transcends and accommodates complementary aspects of psychoanalytical, signification, post-structuralist, and culturalist paradigms and has “the analytic power to act as a significant decoder of the cultural products of late capitalist patriarchy” (155) . Operating from an explicitly feminist standpoint, this perspective regards “woman” as a discursive construction and real women as active arbiters of meaning (47; 145-153). Accordingly, cultural products do not simply reflect womanhood but fashion and re-fashion it, and actual audiences are vital to this dynamic. As Cohen attests, age (or aging), as social construction, articulates to gender in this process, reproducing a hegemonic double standard. Following Betterton, who encourages feminist scholars to “look at the ways the feminine image is constructed across a range of cultural practices” (1-2), Walters urges such analysts to interrogate not only texts and/or their receivers through ethnography or interview, but to stretch methodological boundaries and be “refreshingly eclectic” in their selection of relevant data, contexts, and processes to inspect (159).

<9>Cultural/media theorists such as Kellner and Meehan also advocate reaching beyond a singular focus on production, text, context, or consumption. Meta-textual elements, including screen reviews, trailers, posters, production-related press articles, and extra DVD features, roughly correspond to literary “paratexts” such as book covers, cover notes, typesets, and front matter, and deserve analogous consideration as liminal “thresholds” between the text proper and its reception (Genette, 1-2). Dyer also recognizes that extra-textual material such as critical notices and promotions ascribe meaning to Hollywood stars and the vehicles in which they appear. Scodari asserts that television critics have helped to disseminate the myth among romantic comedy writers and audiences that character monogamy is inherently uninteresting and cannot be creatively sustained (“Possession, Attraction”). Brookey and Westerfelhaus contend that extra DVD features and the reviews they influenced serve to constrain homoerotic readings of the movie Fight Club. In similar vein, Read’s and Walters’ analyses of reviews of films such as The Accused (1988) and Thelma and Louise (1991) suggest that such critiques help govern the extent to which such films are considered feminist discourses. Moreover, audience identification with or in terms of texts and meta-texts may be assessed by ascertaining examples of projection, by which viewers automatically interpret screen culture subjects to possess the same attitudes, values, and/or behaviors as they, and/or introjection, by which viewers unconsciously adopt the attitudes, values, and/or behaviors they associate with screen culture subjects (Stacey 227-32).

<10> This cultural, feminist inquiry adopts the perspective articulated by Walters, Betterton, and Cohen, and proceeds from the broad to the particular in three segments: (1) observation and analysis of the discourses and outcomes of task-oriented discussion groups in terms of their screen preferences; (2) further examination of gender/age commentary in reviews of Something’s Gotta Give; and (3) investigation of online, audience negotiations of a critique of the film as well as the film itself.

Casting a Movie

<11> Before identifying a paradigmatic text on which to focus, a basic understanding of the referential patterns in audience attitudes toward age, gender, and romance in screen cultures was sought. Upwardly mobile young adults constitute the most “demogenic” audience for today’s mass market screen products (McAllister 46). Accordingly, discussion groups comprised of college students, the vast majority of whom reflect these desirable demographics, were deemed fitting laboratories in which to explore how perceptions about the age and/or gender of screen characters, particularly in the romantic context, might be cultivated.

<12> Qualitative studies have recommended and demonstrated ingenuity and/or hybridization of traditional methods in order to investigate audience negotiation of media texts. Delli Carpini and Williams exposed focus groups to screen texts dealing with environmental issues in order to stimulate and assess political conversation, but nodded in the direction of naturalistic observation by preserving “enough open-endedness for unanticipated views to emerge” (789). MacGregor and Morrison screened news coverage of Middle East incidents for groups of subjects and then assigned them the task of re-editing the footage. The implications of the re-edited texts and the relatively naturalistic decision-making processes and discourses of these “editing groups” were then evaluated.

<13> A similar innovation was employed for this segment of the larger inquiry. In lieu of the news editing groups formed and studied by MacGregor and Morton, movie “casting groups” were devised for our purposes. An undergraduate class at a mid-size, state university with an eclectic student body was divided into four groups, each of which contained seven to nine randomly dispersed subjects. A total of 32 students, eight of them men, took part. Thirty-one subjects were between the ages of 18 and 34, the majority of whom were in their early twenties. Group B’s ages ranged somewhat older than those in other groups. Only one subject, who was over 50, did not reflect Hollywood’s priorities in this regard.

<14> Each task-oriented group was assigned to cast a hypothetical Hollywood movie by selecting from a list of 16 male and 16 female actors of various ages, races, and ethnicities who had achieved at least some critical and/or box office notoriety. No screenings were used to stimulate this activity, as it was crucial to discover the offhand references subjects would make to justify their choices. For the same reason, facilitators maintained a relatively unobtrusive posture during task completion, primarily reminding subjects of which elements of the task and how much time remained, and general “probes” rather than a regimen of pointed questions were interjected by researchers during the post-task discussions.

<15> Subjects were given a handout providing the names and brief descriptions of the movie and its characters, as well as the list of “interested” talent from which to choose in light of the studio’s goal that their big-budget production thrive in assorted markets. Names and profiles of many of the characters, including all of the primary characters, were gender ambiguous, race was not stipulated, and age was only implied in relative terms with regard to the lead character and her/his parents (see Appendix A). Each group was furnished a notebook containing the actors’ names, recent head shots, places of birth, and key screen credits. For two groups the actors’ dates of birth, indicating ages ranging from the early twenties to the seventies and comparably distributed along gender lines, were also provided.

<16> Subjects were assigned alphanumeric identifiers specific to their groups. Investigators observed and audiotaped the task-oriented, 25-minute discussions, taking notes in order to link identifiers with individual input. Next, participants completed a brief survey asking their identifier, age, gender, whether or not they agreed with the group decisions and, if not, the modifications they would make and why. Finally, researchers guided, observed, and audiotaped a 15-minute exchange with each group, probing participants to discuss the reasons behind their groups’ casting outcomes.

<17> After audiotapes were transcribed, the initial step was to consider casting decisions in terms of: (1) the genders, ages, and races/ethnicities of the actors chosen, and for which roles; and (2) whether specific (as opposed to perceived) knowledge of the actors’ ages appeared to make a difference. Next, adjustments desired by individual subjects were considered in relation to their demographics and group choices. Finally, rationales for casting were analyzed qualitatively using the constant comparative method (grounded theory) developed by Glaser and Strauss and then interpreted via pertinent theory.

<18> Fig. 1 depicts the casts chosen by the four groups. Each group cast nine roles for a total of 36 selections. Men were cast 23 times and women 13 times, even though an equal number of gender specific roles, two male and two female per cast, was indicated in the character profiles. Eleven actors were cast more than once, often for the same role, while 13 actors, many of them big names and 8 of them women, were not picked at all.

Fig. 1 - Group Casting Choices
* Indicates access to actor birth dates.

<19> The average age of males cast was 53, whereas the average age of women cast was 42. The ages of actors chosen to be the lead’s mother (mean = 60) raised the female average sharply, while the ages ofactors cast as the lead’s father (mean = 63) were more in line with those of mencast in three other parts (mean = 55). Only one group cast a woman as the lead, Jess, and a male as Jess’s ally and love interest, Lee. Otherwise, one woman was chosen for anatypical, gender non-specific role, that of Jess’s “computer whiz pal.” Only one group seriously entertained the idea of a woman president and none considered a woman as the President’s villainous aide. Actual (as opposed to perceived) knowledge of actors’ ages, whether through notebooks (in Groups A and C) or other means, rarely grounded respondents’ input. Age-based deliberation was most conspicuous in terms of: (1) having to cast Jess’s parents in relation to Jess; (2) not wanting Jess to be “a kid”; and (3) assuming that the second wife of Jess’s father must be appreciably younger than the first. The impulse in several cases was to cast Jess with a veteran male actor such as Sean Connery or Harrison Ford, but this was soon undermined by the need to also cast Jess’s parents. In two groups a student submitted that, age-wise, Susan Sarandon might work as Ford’s mother, apparently unaware or unfazed that she is four years his junior. Ultimately, four different, thirty-something actors were cast as Jess.

<20> Same sex coupling was summarily vetoed, but the relative age of actors playing romantically linked roles is noteworthy. Two groups cast Jess and Lee with actors close in age while the other two tagged Charlize Theron, 9 and 11 years younger than her male co-stars, as Lee. In the case of Jess’s father and his second wife, the male was older by at least 18 and at most 30 years. In terms of Jess’s mother and her beau, the woman was 4, 8, and 22 years senior in three cases and 14 years junior in the fourth. The casting of this last couple defied stereotypes but, in terms of the idealized (primary) romance and the initial inclination to cast veteran males as the main protagonist, a double standard of aging was evident.

<21> Group A, a bit more multiracial than the others, stood out for its unconventional casting, selecting a woman (Halle Berry) as Jess, an interracial ex-couple as her parents, three Blacks (including the romantic leads), two Latinos, and a younger man/older woman pair (Jess’s mother and her boyfriend). Although race/ethnicity is not the main focus of this inquiry, it is noted that a total of 10 racial and/or ethnic minorities were cast, half of them by this one group.

<22> John Malkovich’s history of portraying villains led every group to typecast him accordingly, and three groups designated someone as President who had played a president before, including two nods for the African-American actor, Morgan Freeman. Charlize Theron (a willowy blonde) was twice chosen as the romantic heroine, while Salma Hayek (a curvaceous brunette) was selected three times as the home wrecking second wife of Jess’s father. Three groups pegged Susan Sarandon as Jess’s mother.

<23> In three of four groups a majority agreed with the deliberative outcomes of their group. Of those who dissented, half offered justifications, most of which reflected personal choices rather than changes explicitly meant to ensure financial success. Three based preferences on familiarity with the actors’ other works. One student would have tagged Matt Damon rather than Lucy Liu as the computer whiz because Damon did well “playing a genius” in Good Will Hunting. Several alluded to gender, race, or ethnicity. In the group that selected Halle Berry (who is Black) to play the hero, one subject preferred John Cusack (who is White) to Will Smith (who is Black) as Berry’s love interest in order to be “more diverse.” Similarly, in Group B, a respondent explained: “I am White and I would much rather see someone (a minority) in a leading role rather than a Caucasian.” A male favored Ray Liotta as Jess’s “computer whiz pal” over Lucy Liu because “the word ‘pal’ calls for a male friend.” However, a female in another group “wanted a woman,” Liv Tyler, in this part. Ambiguity imbued other proposals. One person disliked the choice of Salma Hayek as the second wife of Jess’s father, perhaps on account of age or race: “I would have rather had Angela Bassett [who is Black]; she just ‘fits better’ with Morgan Freeman.” A White male preferred Elijah Wood to Lucy Liu (who is Asian-American) as the computer whiz because Wood “did a good job as an intelligent young man in The Faculty,” and Ray Liotta to Morgan Freeman as the President because “Liotta would have been a good figure as an authoritative leader for this film.” It is unclear what criteria for authority were weighed, as Freeman is two decades senior to Liotta, but this subject’s revisions would have nullified all of his group’s unconventional choices in one fell swoop.

<24> Gender issues were central in group exchanges. Rationales for rejecting a female lead, all but the first uttered by men, included the belief that with a female action hero “it’s all about the T and the A,” that CIA agents in movies are typically male, that in order to appeal to all, “you want to see a male in that position,” and that the profile stated that Jess was “physically fit.” Interestingly, this last justification was offered by someone who had suggested Sean Connery, a septuagenarian, for the role, and who was otherwise supportive of a diverse cast. Two reasons for declining a female president, both voiced by women, were that it hasn’t occurred in reality and that a man is more likely to possess the “demeanor” for the role. To the prospect of a female commander-in-chief, one man exclaimed: “This is not Star Trek!” That there has never been a woman president is a suspect argument given that many participants considered Morgan Freeman a valid choice. As one observed: “Five years ago it was a big move when they made Morgan Freeman president. Now it’s accepted.” This and the idea that an elderly man but not a young woman could be physically fit enough to be a CIA agent reflect screen rather than real world probabilities. The “T and A” remark alluded to highly sexualized female roles in recent Tomb Raider and Charlie’s Angels movies. The possibility that film texts could theoretically bestow resistive, less objectified representations of female action heroes was not discussed.

<25> While actor age was not a pivotal factor on individual surveys, age perception was key in group discussions both during and after task completion. Variations of the following Group B statement about Jess’s father and his second wife were articulated in three of four cases: “He left Susan Sarandon for Salma Hayek.” Relative youth and beauty were uniformly seen as credible reasons for a man to leave one woman for another, whereas to the suggestion of a young and handsome suitor for Sarandon (as the mother), a student protested: “That’s who Brad Pitt is messing around with?” Resistance to casting a youthful (male) lead was often palpable. “People tend to think that young people aren’t as smart as older, wiser people,” a young woman explained, while a somewhat older male did not mince words: “Matt Damon? Hell no. That young punk is no CIA operative!” Proposing young females to portray Lee, also an intelligence agent, was less controversial. Even the middle-aged subject (a woman) was fervent in this regard, declaring Michelle Pfeiffer, age 45, “too old” to play this role opposite Russell Crowe, age 39.

<26> Despite three older woman/younger man duos in the casting of Jess’s mother and her boyfriend (a gynecologist), two married, like-minded males in the fourth group held that “men are more comfortable” when gynecologists are too old to become aroused, citing news reports of impropriety. Although others objected that they were selecting a character’s lover and not her doctor, the men’s penchant, bound up in remarkable personalization, prevailed. It was not a matter of identifying with a male character protective of the mother’s honor, but of not wanting to be reminded by a fictional text of fears they held in reality. Beyond mechanisms of projection and introjection exhibited by other participants, these men took up an entirely uninvited subjectivity, that of hypothetical husband to one of the gynecologist’s hypothetical patients.

<27> Also, unless guided to do so in the post-task exchange, relatively few students couched their group input in terms of what might be commercially lucrative as opposed to personally appealing. Most appeared to assume that their preferences reflected those of the audience at large. Profitability issues did arise along with references to diversity and actors’ prior roles. Beyond a recognition that they “needed minorities in the movie to get minorities to come to the movie,” one student endorsed Halle Berry as Jess because “she’ll attract audiences coming off the James Bond movie.” Another asked if it was “too ethnic” to couple her with Will Smith, and if a bi-racial pair wouldn’t “carry as much economic clout.” Profit potential was also deliberated in regard to whether this was a “guy movie.” A young female protested this stereotype; another asserted that as long as there is romance involved, action films attract women. The dearth of roles for older female actors appeared to cultivate perceptions of their marketability. Diane Keaton, the same age as Susan Sarandon and similarly adorned with awards, was nonetheless dismissed for not having done much recently. “She’s all washed up,”one respondent decreed. Of course, this portion of the study was performed prior to Keaton’s starring role in Something’s Gotta Give.

<28> Talent, looks, and popularity were also factors, and often linked to box office potential. Over-exposure and/or presumed inability to do “serious” roles were reasons for rejecting some available talent. Citing Jennifer Lopez and Will Smith, whose dramatic turns were apparently unfamiliar to many, a student asserted that they were not sufficiently “intellectual for these types of movies.” Some discourses weighed appearance in tandem with gender. A male advanced that “guys will watch if it’s a cute chick” in the computer whiz role. To this, a young woman countered: “What’s the point of a chick if she’s going to be sitting in front of a computer?” In other words, if a male gaze was not to be activated, women need not apply.

<29> These findings buttress the notion that pervasive screen portrayals can, via sustained exposure, modulate tastes and values through a cumulative process of cultivation (Gerbner). Separating representation from “reality” is futile since the former serves to filter and form people’s sense of the latter. When asked to fashion their own representations, people justify their preferences by alluding to screen depictions as if they necessarily condition what is appropriate and viable. The circular operations of influence, the mechanics of cultivation and, indeed, the reproduction of hegemony, remain camouflaged and therefore unchallenged.

<30> Accordingly, except for the concerns of the two married men about casting a virile male as the gynecologist, expressions of identification with or in terms of particular characters or storylines tended to conceal their geneses in subjective experience even while employing personal, psychoanalytical apparatuses of projection and introjection. Projection operated via the hypothetical movie, but the projected attributes were, in part, cultivated via introjection–long term absorption of the expectations, preferences, and desires produced and reproduced by screen cultures generally. Most respondents assumed they represented the industry’s target audience, with no regard to whether conceiving the audience purely in economic terms manifests a cultural bias. Nods toward racial diversity were associated with broadening the audience for maximum profitability. But age and gender were less of a consideration in this regard. If a subject could not accept Brad Pitt in a romance with Susan Sarandon, then it was supposed that others, regardless of gender or age, wouldn’t either. The age/gender double standard appeared to be more ingrained and naturalized than analogous hegemonies of race.

<31> As Scodari unearthed in her soap opera study, the term realistic, as employed by fans, actually connotes what is prevalent (Serial Monogamy). Hegemonic “rape redemption stories,” in which rapists subsequently emerge or re-emerge as romantic heroes, are accepted as soap opera convention, while counter-hegemonic tales of older women with younger men, for example, are maligned as unrealistic (136-37). In this experiment, members of one of the screen industry’s most coveted audiences banish fantasies of a female president from a “realistic” narrative to the speculative genre of science fiction. However, the fantasy of an aging male hero physically conquering youthful romantic heroines and adversaries alike is deemed realistic by virtue of its status as a screen cliché. One fantasy is sanctioned; the other is not. The one middle-aged woman in the study expressed satisfaction that she could identify with Jess’s mother. In fact, movie heroes seldom appear with their mothers in tow. The prospect of identifying with a lead or co-lead, however, seemed beyond her ability to even imagine. This inequity arises from “the gendered politics of fantasy,” as the title of Scodari’s project labels it.

<32> Moreover, one might speculate as to what led Group A to make its comparatively unorthodox casting choices. Theorists have explored the mechanisms by which some audiences, particularly marginalized groups, possess “cultural competencies” (Bobo 102-03), “counter-rhetorics” (Condit 119), or “oppositional codes” (119) with which to negotiate and resist hegemonic messages. The segment to follow, which considers professional critiques of Something’s Gotta Give, sheds light on the degree to which gender, training, and practice in viewing and reviewing screen texts might cultivate such facilities and influence the frames of reference through which the gender/age nexus in romantic representation is filtered.

Read This Way: Reviews as Thresholds of Reception

<33> Professional critics may differ from typical moviegoers in the degree of authority and cultural competency they are assumed to exhibit and obviousness with which they identify with a text in terms of projection or introjection. Indeed, conspicuously personal identification would seem less likely and appropriate in a professional review than an amateur one. Especially in this case, disparities owing to critic age and/or gender might also surface. Still, reviews erect frames that might mitigate the competencies and identifications of audiences.

<34> Reviews of Something’s Gotta Give were randomly sampled from the “Rotten Tomatoes” website (rottentomatoes.com), which provides links to professional film notices from a variety of online sites, some original to the Web and others with print media versions. Three weeks after the film’s release on the 16th of December, 2003, the site calculated that 93 of the reviews of Something’s Gotta Give for which links were provided were mainly positive or “fresh,” as indicated by a red tomato icon, while 42 were predominantly negative or “rotten,” as indicated by a green splatter icon. Of those for which the sex of the author could be readily discerned, 97 were by men and 25 were by women. Interestingly, a higher percentage of male-authored reviews (60%) than female-authored reviews (46%) were designated as “fresh.”

<35> The excerpts constituting the links reveal that pinpointing older women as the film’s target audience was a common tack. Yet there is no similar propensity to indicate when films are designed to lure younger adult moviegoers. Also present is a tendency to report that the film serves as a fantasy exercise for its target audience. For example, Eric Harrison of the Houston Chronicle writes that the “wish-fulfillment factor” is the movie’s primary appeal, while Robert Butler of the Kansas City Star lauds the film despite that it “may be viewed as a fantasy for older, single women.” Surely, scores of action films featuring aging male heroes act as fantasy fulfillment for older men, but reviewers seldom declare this at all, much less as a liability. As with the responses of casting group subjects, prevalence determines what is viewed as unremarkable and “realistic,” while deviations are pointed out and, in these instances, framed as compensatory for the inadequacies of the target audience.

<36> Chris Hewitt of the St. Paul Pioneer Press departs only slightly from this proclivity, acknowledging that the film attempts to argue that older women and men “need reassurance about their desirability.” However, Hewitt claims without elaboration that “the male half of that equation doesn't play,” and that the film consequently reproduces a stereotype. But if the reason the male aspect “doesn’t play” is that it is harder to convince readers/audiences of something that challenges hegemonic power relations, it illustrates that reading occurs, even for “expert” readers such as Hewitt, in the context of broader cultural understandings.

<37> The film’s treatment of the affair between Keaton and Reeves also sparks intriguing commentary. Erik Childress of eFilmCritic (efilmcritic.com) initially seems gratified that a taboo has been violated, but then laments that this is not framed as somehow dysfunctional:

Meyers doesn’t give him [Reeves] much of a character other than “nice young doctor who likes aged wine.” Why does he so blindly prefer Erica [Keaton] to say, her daughter? C’mon, Nancy, you have to do more than just make him a counterpoint to Harry [Nicholson]. Explore the less-discussed younger man/older woman dynamic.

In contrast, Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly doesn’t assume that Reeves’ interest in Keaton must be justified by anything other than Keaton’s attractiveness:

But really, seriously, what woman wouldn't want to be Keaton, all sexy, funny, tender, quick, and never more charismatic in her animated access to her own feelings? And what man, of any age, wouldn't want to be with her? . . . And I swear she arouses cool Reeves. Who knew that romancing an older woman would turn out to be his hot career move?

Similarly, Victoria Alexander of Films In Review (filmsinreview.com) notes that Reeves’ character is captivated by Erica because of her professional accomplishments, adding:

He looks at her with sincere sexual interest. He shows genuine fondness for her as a strikingly handsome woman. He is not afraid of her “old lady” body. He wants her. He appreciates her. He admires her. In a wonderful performance, Reeves shows us all this.

A divergence of subjective identification is apparent here, with the male critic requiring the invocation of certain hegemonic precepts in order project himself into Reeves’ position, while the female critics relate to this subplot primarily through introjection, jumping at a rare opportunity to partake in the appeal, centrality, and pleasure of an older heroine.

<38> Jeffrey Bruner of the Des Moines Register offers an insight ambiguous enough to be interpreted in multiple ways:

A number of critics have tried to paint “Something's Gotta Give” as a victory for feminists, a blow against the epidemic of older leading actor/younger leading actress combinations. Uh-huh. If that was the case, Diane Keaton wouldn't have to look like she spent three months with her personal trainer and Jack Nicholson three months with Cristal and prime rib.

This could be read to acknowledge a double standard of gender and physical attractiveness in the Keaton/Nicholson pairing. Yet, Hollywood affords male actors both a longer shelf-life and a broader definition of pulchritude, rendering the appearance of a svelte, fifty-something Keaton as romantic leading lady still a novelty. Bruner could be implicating class rather than or in addition to physical fitness in his reference to “Cristal and prime rib,” thereby implying that the film fails to challenge a stereotype in which younger (and/or better looking) women are paired with older (and/or physically unattractive) men only when these men are upscale. However, the fact that Keaton’s character is also wealthy confounds such a reading. Also, the shift in focus from Keaton’s age to Nicholson’s class reveals Bruner’s enhanced capacity to identify with Nicholson.

<39> The notice posted by Victoria Alexander of Films In Review is minimally positive but otherwise scathing in its reprehension of the film’s ideological messages. For example, Alexander objects that the wealth of Nicholson’s character is not sufficiently foregrounded as the reason for younger women’s interest in him:

What young, sexy woman would not want to make love to a 67 year old man who is short, balding, has a visible paunch, is witless, graceless, disrespectful, and a bore? Oh, yeah: also a braggart. This kind of man will only succeed with young girls if he is a rich, famous movie star.

Of this character, she gibes further: “He takes Viagra. He needs it? I’m shocked!” Her final verdict is: “I enjoyed the movie purely for its stark manipulative excess, but never for once believed that Sanborn [Nicholson] would change. I saw unhappiness in Erica’s future.”

<40> Alexander’s writing style in this review seems untrained and personal. For instance, the review’s opening sentence observes: “The trailer insulted me and the premise [that older women are assumed to be unappealing] is cruel.” Although the site does not supply a profile of Alexander, her other reviews appear more polished and adoptive of a grammar of learned “objectivity” than this one. This perhaps indicates the extent to which Alexander shares subjectivity–in this instance, through projection–with Keaton.

<41> That brings us back to Taylor’s piece in Salon, which appears as personalized as Alexander’s while espousing an antithetical point of view. Taylor likens intergenerational dating to “dating outside your race or your religion,” and condemns Meyers’ film and others like it for dealing with “issues” rather than offering “anything so trivial as to laugh or be charmed.” Here, he insinuates that issues are not indirectly referenced and resolved by, let’s say, naturalizing the older man/younger woman union in myriad, “trivial” texts while spurning the opposite combination. Taylor not only denies that a troubling double standard of aging persists in film, but the nuance of hegemony as “taken-for-granted” bias reproduced through otherwise innocuous cultural texts and practices. Issues, according to Taylor, are only present if explicit.

<42> Taylor compliments Keaton’s performance, and admits that she looks “good,” if like a “woman approaching 60.” But, how should a person of a certain age look? What produces such a construction, especially when older members of the group in question are seldom expressly and/or positively showcased? While “A-list,” female actors such as Michelle Pfeiffer “graduate” to playing mothers of adult children when they are barely past 40, their male counterparts do not generally make that transition until they are 50 or older. Young audiences may assume (or detect from textual indicators) that such an older screen couple is close in age, as actual parents frequently are, and consequently set their appearance expectations accordingly. Apparently, casting group subjects addressed earlier inflated the ages of over-40 female actors such as Pfeiffer and Susan Sarandon. When Galician studied perceptions of media pairings, she discovered that her young respondents tended to believe female news anchors such as Barbara Walters to be older than their male counterparts when the reverse was actually the case (169-70). In the case of the reviewers, Bruner evidently thinks Keaton’s slim physique makes her look younger than her female contemporaries, while Taylor focuses instead on her wrinkled visage. Each fetishizes what he deems most important or telling, considering neither the entire physical package nor the entire person in the judgment. In contrast, in the reviews observed for this analysis, female critics did not separate physicality from personality in appraising the sexual appeal of the characters.

<43> Moreover, Taylor interprets Keaton’s fling with Reeves as the mechanism by which Keaton faces “all her unexamined convictions that a younger person cannot be attracted to an older one.” He thereby insinuates that Keaton’s hangups prevent her from accepting Nicholson, while the film’s text more than permits a reading that the obstacle is actually Nicholson’s fear of commitment. The irony that Keaton’s realization causes her to reject Reeves, her younger lover, in favor of Nicholson, who merely has a history with younger lovers, seems lost on Taylor. Interestingly, he laments that Keaton’s daughter, the early object of Nicholson’s fascination, also “settles down” by the end of the film. Taylor’s presences and absences convey that older men and young women are the ones for whom devotion to someone their own age constitutes “settling.”

<44> Taylor also alleges that Meyers “doesn’t overtly give in to the cattiness that has of late made younger women a target for older feminists,” characterizing Keaton’s initial disapproval of Nicholson as “rude” and Nicholson’s response as “gracious,” and assuming that such a reading is inviolate. Thereby, he projects his own self-image, as someone who apparently prefers younger women, onto Nicholson. The Keaton/Reeves pairing–what some consider the most unorthodox, resistive element in the film–prompts the following utterance from Taylor: “It’s fine for women, Meyers tells us, but a sign of immaturity in men.” Taylor again disregards the message bound up in Keaton’s preference for Nicholson. These last remarks will be addressed further as the essay proceeds to interrogate audience readings of the gender/age quandaries sparked by the film’s subject matter, beginning with rejoinders to Taylor’s review.

The Audience Strikes Back: Gauging Reception

<45> When everyday audience members are able to recognize personal, cultural, and/or ideological penchants in a film text or the liminal intervention of a review, enhanced cultural competency with regard to the issues at hand is implied. Letters to the editor in response to Taylor’s critique of Something’s Gotta Give were swift to materialize, and it is here that we begin the analysis of reader/audience response. The majority repudiate, in enlightened terms, Taylor’s assumptions and personalization if not his “thumbs down” verdict.

<46> Salon is known as a relatively “progressive” Internet outlet. Access to most of its content is by subscription only, making it reasonable to conclude that many responses to Taylor’s notice emanated from those willing and able to pay for the magazine’s content. Yet, as Taylor’s piece evinces, the progressive umbrella provides insufficient shelter from conservative gender bias, although Taylor would likely contend that the only pertinent conservatism arises from the film’s condemnation of older man/younger woman romances.

<47> A woman reader labels Taylor’s critique “a personal diatribe,” scoffing: “Issues, anyone? I’m sorry that Mr. Taylor gets dirty looks from women when he goes out to dinner with his niece” (White). An anonymous letter writer bemoans Hollywood’s “male fantasy” films in which men are often considerably older than their love interests, but simultaneously invalidates the counterpoint: “Hello! Are there any men out there who want to romance women 20 to 30 years older than themselves? Didn’t think so. So what makes them think old men are any more appealing to younger women?” (Name Withheld).

<48> Another female-authored epistle challenges the conjecture of both Taylor and Meyers that the film is an empowering fantasy for aging women, recognizing that the film simply reiterates the old stereotype of a nice girl taming a knave, and that when Taylor protests that Nicholson exchanges sexual bliss for commitment, he ignores that this is “even truer” of Keaton (Marshall). She mentions that “middle-aged women in the audience audibly gasped in incomprehension at the ending,” in which Keaton dismisses a “sexy, charming man who adores her” for a “fat, balding heart patient with a roving eye, an obnoxious smirk, and a prescription for Viagra.” Similarly, Dunst observes that the “revolutionary” aspect of the film is the Keaton/Reeves coupling, leading her to question: “What woman of any age would trade Keanu Reeves for Jack Nicholson?”

<49> A reader identifying herself as a “25-year-old black woman who frequently dates outside her race” resents Taylor’s analogy between intergenerational and interracial romance:

Age is not just a number, it’s experience, it’s a level of confidence in who you are and what’s made you that way, it can be the enviable understanding of the things that boggle the mind at 22 or even 30. . . . Please don’t insult your readers who have had to experience the embarrassment of having insults thrown at them from strangers. . . simply because they are with someone of another race. (Fairclough)

Yet another respondent pinpoints Taylor’s offhand indictment of “older feminists” as the basis for her ire:

Are you seriously saying that feminists as a whole express cattiness toward younger women? It’s such a ridiculous statement I can’t believe your editor allowed it to be published. . . . I think it’s time for older men in the media to educate themselves about feminism instead of repeating clichéd arguments against it. And the word “cattiness” can only be described as condescending. (Santiago)

Only one of the printed letters, from a source of ambiguous gender, is to any degree consistent with Taylor’s perspective, dismissing the influence of sanctions and instructions reproduced by a culture dominated by older men of means and instead placing the onus on young women who are “constantly seeking to date” such men (Chris W.).

<50> Interestingly, a single female critic (Alexander) explicitly prefers Reeves as a match for Keaton to nearly the same degree as Taylor champions Nicholson’s initial devotion to young women. Yet, the female letter writers, as amateur reviewers, adopt such a counterpoint to Taylor, and otherwise exhibit the cultural competency needed to deconstruct the sexism in his critique. Taylor belies his claim that “political correctness” operates to castigate older men who favor younger women by completely rejecting Keaton’s subjectivity as an older woman who “settles” for a man her own age, apparently oblivious to the possibility that such an interpellation through projection might hold sway with many of his readers.

<51> The moviegoers posting relatively anonymous “user comments” in response to Something’s Gotta Give on the politically nebulous Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) are, arguably, not as committed to recognizing and challenging sexism as those responding to Taylor’s critique, and more susceptible to patterns generated by reviewers and other cultural “authorities.” While basic information on the database is accessible to everyone, one must register to the site in order to submit user comments, suggesting that those who regularly engage this feature are somewhat more invested in screen cultures. Fifty comments, originally posted between December 25, 2003 and February 10, 2004, were examined. These discuss the age, gender, and appearance dimensions of the film’s romance(s), with certain hegemonic elements endorsed by some and protested by others. Largely absent, however, is the explicitly political standpoint demonstrated by the Salon readers.

<52> The one opinion virtually all these users share, and which mirrors the propensities of professional reviewers, is that the film is best suited to a mature audience, described as “over-40,” “over-50,” or “baby boomer.” Others state that the film is targeted to middled aged women, “menopausal women,” or “past their prime women.” A few, typically younger writers suggest that audience members have to be over 50 to enjoy the film, while several believe that the film would appeal to adults of all ages.

<53> Except for the consensus about its target audience, the film generates contentious responses. The first comment retrieved sums up this ambivalence: “The problem is that having a mid-50's woman be the object of desire (of younger and older men) doesn’t happen very often on film.” Here, as in the casting groups, typical representations condition what is acceptable. Most commentators acknowledge that the film intentionally deviates from generally accepted notions about romance, age, and gender, although there is disagreement as to whether films should stray from conventional romantic depictions. While this distinguishes these posters from the relatively enlightened Salon readers, challenges to hegemonic power relations do emerge. Some applaud director Meyers for offering an atypical cinematic portrayal of mature love or, alternately, of a mature woman being courted by a handsome, adoring younger man, in contrast to others who maintain that age-disparate couplings–especially the older woman/younger man combo–should not be featured on screen. One writer, who identifies the film as “a women’s picture,” argues: “Reeves does his best to show Diane his love, but she is 20 years older than him, while Jack is about as old as she is. This is neither comedy nor romance.” Here we see another case of a person inflating a women’s age in relation to a male counterpart, as Jack is nearly a decade older than Diane. Another, admittedly young poster (at age 20) reacts more stridently: “But it was practically revolting the way the characters were ‘going out’ with people 20 years older or younger than themselves.” This moviegoer claims to disapprove of all May/December romances, but betrays gender bias in suggesting that mature women should not even have romantic relationships: “Movies like this are tasteless, where mature aged women are finding personal love or whatever it is.”

<54> Yet the majority of writers welcome the premise of the movie, perhaps exhibiting sensibilities typical of those who might choose to see such a film in its initial release. However, they differ as to how well the concept is executed. Those who generally like the film advocate two slight variations on the age theme. For some, the movie proclaims that “romance at any age is beautiful.” They rejoice that it depicts two middle aged people falling in love. Others insist that the movie illustrates that with love, age differences don’t matter (presumably referencing the Keaton/Reeves combination). Here, gender/age emancipation fuses with conformity to a traditional, “love conquers all” myth. One writer from Australia comments: “Meyers has created a successful movie that proves the old adage that when it comes to love, age doesn’t matter.”

<55> A significant number of users, many of whom present (via their screen names) as female, fault the believability of the movie on similar terms as Taylor’s respondents because, as one states bluntly: “Can I make it quite clear that No Sane Woman, regardless of her age--would ever, ever, ever--Not Ever--choose Jack Nicholson over Keanu Reeves. At least not in the real, versus Hollywood World.” Unlike the tendency of subjects in the casting groups, the “real” world is evoked in this instance to support the unorthodox. Some are adamant that Meyers misses a chance to truly subvert Hollywood’s protocols. One asserts: “The director/writer lost an excellent opportunity to break the mold and change the ending. The girl ended up with the wrong guy.” Another poster imagines a more desirable resolution: “Wouldn’t it be nice to see a movie where the woman ends up with a young handsome man who treats her well and adores her?” The same user also observes: “When the movie ended I turned to my friend and said ‘Only a man could have written that ending.’ I was horrified to find out I was wrong.”

<56> Many women verbalize disappointment that the outcome of the film limits, rather than expands, notions about the acceptable range of romantic couplings, and do so on the basis of character age and/or appearance. Virtually all these comments concur that Nicholson looks old, ugly, gross, unkempt, and in “physical decline.” One writer claims that his sole appeal is that he is Jack Nicholson. In comparison, Nicholson’s romantic competitor in the film, Reeves, is described as “eye candy.”

<57> While most users share similar perceptions of Nicholson, they are divided in their opinions of Keaton as romantic lead, suggesting that her appeal depends on physical attractiveness whether or not such attractiveness is conditioned by age. Impressions of Keaton vary from “absolutely stunningly beautiful” to “old enough to be his [Reeves] mother and to me a very unattractive woman.” One commentator exults: “Keaton looks fantastic, to the extent that when Keanu Reeves’ charming doctor persistently pursues her we’re not in the least surprised.” Another demurs, proclaiming: “Watching Keanu Reeves fall for Keaton makes no sense.” This writer explains that the only possible attraction could be wealth: “Being rich and famous does make it a bit easier to attract the opposite sex!” Alexander asks a similar question about Nicholson’s appeal to younger women in her review, but personality deficits, as much as age or looks, provoke it. Several rebuttals to Taylor’s review also measure the characters’ romantic desirability, or lack thereof, in terms of interior as well as exterior attributes. However, the moviegoers on the Internet Movie Database predominantly assume a physical test for appeal, with some accepting and others rejecting the possibility that older women are eligible to pass it.

<58> In general, then, while many users accept the film as a light romantic comedy, others are put off by the age differences, particularly the older woman/younger man combination. Still others reflect a counter-hegemonic posture in critiquing the film’s missed opportunity to foil the gender/age double standard. A user identifying as under 40 argues that the film is “not a comment on what women think or feel, but what men believe they should think and feel.” This person goes on to interrogate the film’s replication of conventional notions about age and intimacy: “And why is Diane so uncomfortable kissing a man who is 20 years younger than she, but Jack has no problems having sex with a woman 40 years his junior in her mother’s home?” Likewise, another writer says of Amanda Peet’s role as Keaton’s daughter, who is stopped short of ever having sex with Nicholson’s character: “In a movie like this, which suggests that Jack dates young women because he sees them as merely pretty faces, it’s almost criminal to not prove to the audience that Peet is anything but.” Interestingly, this poster is anxious to stress that looks aren’t everything, but with particular regard to the younger female character.

<59> Even the most resistive of these locutions, however, do not explicitly embrace feminism or seek any larger political context. Nor are these comments as trenchant as those of Taylor’s antagonists. However, as with members of the casting groups, these users project their personal sensibilities onto the text they are discussing. Such sensibilities are formed, in part, by introjection via previous encounters with screen cultures.

Conclusion

<60> This investigation unpacks the frames of reference and modes of identification that cultivate preferences and expectations in regard to age, gender, and romance in screen cultures by way of a paradigmatic case. Based on an orienting experiment asking subjects to deliberate in the casting of a hypothetical movie, it is suggested that a key segment of Hollywood’s most desired audience, young adult college students, reference other screen representations in order to articulate their preferences, even while confusing them with “reality.” Following this portion of the study, as well as the analyses of film reviews and online audience negotiations of the film Something’s Gotta Give, it is apparent that many audience members derive their perspectives on gender, age, and romance in screen cultures from texts they have otherwise experienced.

<61> Among these are screen meta-texts such as critical notices, whose authors generally demonstrate more formality and cultural competency to recognize a text’s socio-political dimensions. With respect to this film, reviewers uniformly designate age, gender, and romantic representation as integral issues. Taylor and Alexander, however, exhibit unusually glaring personalization through projection while politicizing the film from opposite perspectives. The novelty of the message the film purports to send, albeit with debatable success, is perhaps responsible for conspicuous lapses in decorum and distance in these reviews. So rare is the appearance of a woman Keaton’s age as a romantic leading lady that masking one’s personal sensibilities about the issue beneath a rubric of professionalism becomes more challenging. In this case, as Taylor was remiss not to recognize, the exception, and reactions to it, prove the rule.

<62> This very chord is struck by Salon letter writers who detect the hegemonic biases in Taylor’s review. As a film critic for a left wing media outlet, Taylor has yet to absorb that for feminists of whatever sex or generation, the personal can be political even when the issue does not lend itself to public policy debate. While Taylor might well lay claim to a gender progressive mantle by advocating equal pay for equal work and reproductive rights, with respect to something as “private” as romance, about which there is no public policy question, his outlook is that inequality either doesn’t exist, has no effect or, presumably, is just too bad. Taylor’s challengers negotiate the film’s intended meaning via his review, regarding his manner of denouncing its effort to address the gender/age issue, as well as his knee jerk refusal of Keaton’s subjectivity in favor of Nicholson’s, as evidence of his complicity with the double standard, even as they note the film’s ultimate failure to fully repudiate it. Like Alexander and Schwarzbaum, these mostly female receivers appraise personality as much as looks in calculating the romantic appeal of the characters. However, as women (predominantly), patrons of a “progressive” media site, and self-selected respondents to Taylor’s provocative review, the Salon letter writers collectively display keener cultural competency with regard to the subject matter undertaken by this film than the professional critics.

<63> Buffs on the politically unaffiliated Internet Movie Database are not likely to be as culturally competent or single-minded with respect to the film’s themes. Like the casting group subjects and a few reviewers, they project sensibilities formed through introjected identification with prevailing screen cultures onto the text at hand. Like most critics, they acknowledge the film’s intent. However, they differ more than the other categories of receivers about the appropriateness and/or fulfillment of that intent. Some embrace gender/age hegemony and disavow the film’s efforts, while others echo the Salon readers in wishing it had conceived of something truly resistive, such as having Keaton’s character ultimately prefer the younger guy to the older one. However, these users do not adopt an overtly political stance or contradict the precept that physical attractiveness equals romantic appeal. Those who find Keaton’s character believable as a romantic heroine consider her physical appearance to be a key factor, while those who deem her physically unattractive (often by virtue of her age) do not find the premise plausible. Similarly, those who favor Reeves over Nicholson do so primarily on the basis of looks. The double standard may be disputed by a few of these individuals, but not the preeminence of physical appeal.

<64> Meta-textual screen reviews, similar to literary paratexts, can intervene in the process of reception (Genette 1-2). However, this can occur before or after the reader has encountered the primary text in question. In fact, critical notices can influence receivers not to encounter this text at all, or to delay its reception by, for example, waiting for the video release. Whether or not the reader ever sees the reviewed product, once having been read, the review becomes part of the larger screen culture to which the individual refers in forming preferences and expectations about gender, age, and romance in fictional texts. Actual relationships are, by extension, implicated. Moreover, the cycle continues when these audiences, having developed certain perspectives through introjection, project them into their ongoing interpretations. Audience members who discuss film and television texts (and/or their reviews) on the Internet also serve to filter meanings associated with screen cultures for others who do not participate in these deliberations but, nonetheless, observe them.

<65> This multi-faceted inquiry fills Walters (1995) prescription for “refreshingly eclectic” analyses from a feminist standpoint that redefine “what we mean by ‘audience’ and what we mean by ‘empirical research’” (159). Each stage in the study, in its own way, points up the key role actual audience members play in negotiating cultural meanings associated with gender and age, whether these are general predispositions formed over time (the movie casting exercise) or pointed reactions to salient texts (the online audience analysis). The meta-textual influence of reviews and various online discourses and practices is also illustrated, suggesting that media literacy can be fostered not only by interrogating primary screen texts but the secondary texts that filter them. Moreover, cultural competencies developed by virtue of professional training and/or marginal status (or lack thereof) are shown to impact the ability and inclination to recognize, negotiate, and resist hegemonic messages.

<66> The findings of the study can be supplemented by pinpointing specific influences of meta-texts such as reviews, extra DVD features, or trailers, or even tertiary texts such as the press kits sent to critics. Further investigation might also employ variations of the group method applied here, such as exposing subjects of both sexes and diverse ages and races to relevant screen texts and/or meta-texts and then performing individual or group interviews. Institutional critiques uncovering the commercial imperatives that contribute to these gender/age inequalities are also essential. In addition, myriad cultural products articulating gender, age, and romance can be identified, interrelated and subjected to penetrating textual analysis.

<66> The gender/age double standard, particularly in the romantic context, has been shown to be a naturalized phenomenon that merits greater attention in both research and pedagogy. As Cohen argues, “critical thinking skills are needed to understand how and why the media portray people in certain ways and to develop strategies to interrupt and deconstruct these limited portrayals of older women” (601). Certainly, as the Salon readers illustrate, the cultural literacy required to unearth, decipher, and critique hegemonic representation, from outright declarations to nuanced subjectivities, is pivotal. This research furnishes dimensions and insights crucial to the formation and evolution of approaches designed to instill such competency in media consumers.

Appendix A: Casting a Movie (Task Description)

You have been asked by a large movie studio to help them cast the major roles in a major motion picture. The title of the film is Between Two Blades. James Cameron (Terminator, Titanic) is directing.

The film deals with a former CIA agent turned U.N. translator, Jess Traynor, whose skills in espionage are put back in action when a message appears on a computer screen at the office hinting that Jess’s mother has been kidnaped. In trying to save her, Jess becomes embroiled in international intrigue and discovers a secret plot by the newly elected U.S. administration to assassinate enemies and suspend the constitution.

Between Two Blades commands a large budget and the studio is expecting a big payoff. It wants to interest not only the domestic movie-going audience, including those inclined toward multiple viewings, but also international and extended home video audiences.

The studio is looking for recognizable names and/or faces to play all the primary and secondary characters–actors who have starred in mainstream successes, have a long list of screen credits, and/or have acted in critically acclaimed or award-winning roles.

The primary characters are as follows:

Jess Traynor: Former CIA operative, left the agency due to frustration with its questionable ethical practices. Now a U.N. translator, but still physically fit, with a knowledge of several languages, covert operations, marksmanship, and the marshal arts.

Lee D’Amana: A skilled European agent. Lee provides information and becomes Jess’s partner in trying to find Delia and in uncovering the government conspiracy. Develops a romance with Jess.

Joren Lang: Power hungry and sinister aide to the President. Key culprit in the conspiracy. Becomes Jess’s primary antagonist.

Sydney Nathanson: New U.S. President, elected on a “law and order” platform. Is this President a mastermind or pawn in the conspiracy?

The secondary characters are as follows:

Delia Traynor: Jess Traynor’s mother, an architect. Divorced from Jess’s father for five years.

“Treaky” Reyes: Computer whiz and pal of Jess. Helps Jess and Lee on their missions.

Keith Traynor: Delia’s ex-husband and Jess’s father. CEO of an insurance company. Big campaign contributor to the President. May or may not have Delia’s best interests at heart.

Eric O’Connor: Gynecologist and beau of Delia Traynor. Suspected of foul play by Delia’s ex-husband.

Tia Linh Traynor: Keith Traynor’s second wife. He left Delia for her. Her motives are also suspicious.

The following actors are interested in the project and if offered, have agreed to take either a primary or secondary role. To achieve the success the studio desires, which of the following actors should be cast in which roles?

Angela Bassett	Harrison Ford	Diane Keaton	Michelle Pfeiffer
Halle Berry	Morgan Freeman	Ray Liotta	Brad Pitt
Thora Birch	Andy Garcia	Lucy Liu	Susan Sarandon
Jackie Chan	Richard Gere	Jennifer Lopez	Will Smith
Sean Connery	Jake Gyllenhaal	Sophia Loren	Charlize Theron
Russell Crowe	Josh Hartnett	John Malkovich	Liv Tyler
John Cusack	Salma Hayek	Julianne Moore	Elijah Wood
Matt Damon	Kate Hudson	Anna Paquin	Renee Zellweger

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