Age ain't nothing but a number ... until you see how it affects Oscar nods.
Sexism and ageism strike again.
I did the math on the Oscars. And unfortunately, it's a bummer.
This year's Academy Awards don't just have a racial diversity problem (which you've probably heard all about by now), the nominations have a gender age gap problem, too.
The youngest nominated actress is 21-year-old Saoirse Ronan. The oldest nominated actor is 69-year-old Sylvester Stallone. Photo on the left by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images. Photo on the right by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images.
There's a 10-year difference between the average age of the nominated actors and actresses this year.
That is, the average age of those in the best leading actor and supporting actor categories is 47, while that number is 37 in the best leading actress and supporting actress columns.
Hmmm. Houston, do we have a big, sexism-meets-ageism problem on our hands here?
GIF via "Happy Endings."
Maybe I'm just being paranoid. I mean, any statistician would probably tell me that I can't just look at a single year's worth of data and claim there's a problematic pattern (at least, that's what I assume a statistician would tell me, if I asked).
So I looked at the ages of last year's nominees. Surprisingly (or maybe not-so-surprisingly), a nearly identical gap existed in 2015. The average age of the actors at the time of last year's awards was 51, while it was 41 for the actresses.
And actually ... this pattern goes back even further. Between 2002 and 2013, the average age of the nominated actors was 48, while the average age of the nominated actresses was 40.
If one time is a mistake, two times is concerning, and three times is a pattern...yeah, Houston, it seems we have a problem here.
The Oscars' bias against older women is long and well-documented.
The Chicago Tribune, for instance, created a super handy interactive graph that plots all the acting nominees and winners between the very first Academy Awards in 1929 and 2014, when Lupita Nyong'o won for her role in "12 Years a Slave."
As the Tribune's graph shows, not only do Oscar voters gravitate toward relatively younger actresses during the nominating process, but the actors who win tend to be older than the average male nominee, while the actresses who win tend to be younger than the average female nominee.
Lupita Nyong'o won Best Supporting Actress for her role in "12 Years a Slave" in 2014. Photo by Rich Polk/Getty Images for Marie Claire.
So why does this weird gap exist? Is Hollywood filled with awful, sexist, ageist dudes in powerful positions?
While we can't rule that out, the problem is a bit more complicated than that.
As is the case with the Oscars' lack of racial diversity, nominees (and winners) are more a reflection of what types of movies are actually getting produced and gaining attention, as well as what types of roles are available in those movies. For decades, studio heads have assumed American moviegoers won't watch a film with, say, a person of color as the lead. Or with a female-led cast. Or an openly gay main character. Despite these notions being proven wrong time and time again — remember when "Straight Outta Compton" blew away the box office, or when Melissa McCarthy’s “Spy” raked in $236 million last year? — Hollywood bigwigs still seem hesitant to fund projects they deem "risky" for their bottom lines.
The discriminatory nature of the Oscars is the result of a much deeper-rooted, systemic problem in the film industry.
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, after they won Oscars for Best Original Screenplay for "Good Will Hunting." Photo by Hal Garb/AFP/Getty Images.
When women get older, for instance, the number of prominent roles available to them shrinks way more than it does for aging men. Part of the problem is the fact that old(er) dudes being romantically matched with women half their age on screen is a normalcy (no one batted an eye when then-50-year-old Steve Carell was paired with then-29-year-old Olivia Wilde in "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone"), while the reverse is a rarity.
In case you're wondering what Oscar-winner Dame Helen Mirren thinks of this sad double standard, she believes it's "f*cking outrageous." Photo by Ari Perilstein/Getty Images for FIJI Water.
There may be another factor helping drive the gender age gap at the Oscars.
Research out of Rice University suggests the fact women tend to launch their acting careers earlier than their male peers contributes to the fact they get recognized for their work (i.e., snag an Oscar nod) at a younger age.
Anne Lincoln, who was a sociology postdoctoral fellow at the time of the study in 2005, analyzed all the Oscar nominees dating back to the beginning of the awards and found women historically start acting an average of roughly two-four years earlier than men do. So it's natural they'd win awards earlier too.
But that doesn't dismiss the idea that Hollywood is partial to young women — it may support it.
"Is there a Hollywood bias toward younger women? That could be part of it,” Lincoln explained, noting that particular question wasn't part of her study's framework. "Women are more likely to be fashion models than men are, and if they begin modeling while they’re young, that might support a social-network approach to acting careers."
There's no easy way to fix the systemic oppression of certain groups at the Oscars. But, to give the Academy credit, they're trying.
After the whole Internet (or at least a ton of angry people on Twitter and Facebook) collectively rolled their eyes in frustration that all the acting nods went to white actors this year (for the second year in a row), the Academy took significant steps to change the status quo.
Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs. Photo by Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images.
The Academy, which is overwhelmingly old, white, and male, is aiming to double the number of women and diverse folks in its membership (the people who actually cast votes for the Oscars) by 2020. It's also capping voting statuses at 10 years for inactive members, which will lead to a younger voting pool down the line.
No, this won't be an overnight fix for the larger systemic problems facing the film industry. But Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs said the Oscars can't afford to sit back and hope change will come.
“The Academy is going to lead and not wait for the industry to catch up,” she said in a statement. “These new measures regarding governance and voting will have an immediate impact and begin the process of significantly changing our membership composition.”
Diversity, FTW. But will this close the gender age gap for Academy Awards down the road? One can only guess. But I, for one, agree with Mirren: Hollywood double standards are f*cking outrageous. And it's about time the Oscars aim to put an end to them.
Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP/Getty Images.
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Not just coworkers—family, friends, strangers, kids… 
Imagine having to go so badly but being out of euros. 
Anything hobbit-esque can't be wrong. 
But what if you need pain meds AND mascara?!
Imagine how this would affect childcare.
Honestly…where's the lie? 
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Urgent dash to the bathroom! 🚪🏃♂️
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There's a reason why some people can perfectly copy accents, and others can't
Turns out, there's a neurodivergent link.
A woman in black long sleeve shirt stands in front of mirror.
Have you ever had that friend who goes on vacation for four days to London and comes back with a full-on Queen's English posh accent? "Oooh I left my brolly in the loo," they say, and you respond, "But you're from Colorado!" Well, there are reasons they (and many of us) do that, and usually it's on a pretty subconscious level.
It's called "accent mirroring," and it's actually quite common with people who are neurodivergent, particularly those with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). According Neurolaunch, the self-described "Free Mental Health Library," "Accent mirroring, also known as accent adaptation or phonetic convergence, is the tendency to unconsciously adopt the accent or speech patterns of those around us. This linguistic chameleon effect is not unique to individuals with ADHD, but it appears to be more pronounced and frequent in this population."
Essentially, when people have conversations, we're constantly "scanning" for information—not just the words we're absorbing, but the inflection and tone. "When we hear an accent, our brains automatically analyze and categorize the phonetic features, prosody, and intonation patterns," writes Neurolaunch. For most, this does result in copying the accent of the person with whom we're speaking. But those with ADHD might be more sensitive to auditory cues. This, "coupled with a reduced ability to filter out or inhibit the impulse to mimic…could potentially explain the increased tendency for accent mirroring."
While the article explains further research is needed, they distinctly state that, "Accent mirroring in individuals with ADHD often manifests as an unconscious mimicry of accents in social situations. This can range from subtle shifts in pronunciation to more noticeable changes in intonation and speech rhythm. For example, a person with ADHD might find themselves unconsciously adopting a Southern drawl when conversing with someone from Texas, even if they’ve never lived in the South themselves."
People are having their say online. On the subreddit r/ADHDWomen, a thread began: "Taking on accents is an ADHD thing?" The OP shares, "My whole life, I've picked up accents. I, myself, never noticed, but everyone around me would be like, 'Why are you talking like that??' It could be after I watched a show or movie with an accent or after I've traveled somewhere with a different accent than my 'normal.'
They continue, "Apparently, I pick it up fast, but it fades out slowly. Today... I'm scrolling Instagram, I watch a reel from a comedian couple (Darcy and Jeremy. IYKYK) about how Darcy (ADHD) picks up accents everywhere they go. It's called ADHD Mirroring??? And it's another way of masking."
(The OP is referring to Darcy Michaels and his husband Jeremy Baer, who are both touring comedians based in Canada.)
Hundreds of people on the Reddit thread alone seem to relate. One comments, "Omfg I've done this my whole life; I'll even pick up on the pauses/spaces when I'm talking to someone who is ESL—but English is my first language lol."
Sometimes, it can be a real issue for those around the chameleon. "I accidentally mimicked a waitress's weird laugh one time. As soon as she was out of earshot, my family started to reprimand me, but I was already like 'oh my god I don’t know why I did that, I feel so bad.'"
Many commenters on TikTok were shocked to find out this can be a sign of ADHD. One jokes, "Omg, yes, at a store the cashier was talking to me and she was French. She's like 'Oh are you French too? No, I'm not lol. I'm very east coast Canada."
And some people just embrace it and make it work for them. "I mirror their words or phrase! I’m 30. I realized I start calling everyone sweetie cause my manager does & I work at coffee shop."