Hollywood’s hidden sexism: How casting notices keep beauty standards alive - Salon.com: And Louie is one of the more realistic shows on TV these days where female casting is concerned. Across the board, audiences today are subjected daily to female characters who are not, for lack of a better word, ordinary. They are almost always gorgeous, fit, sexy and dating or married to someone not nearly as attractive as they are. Men can be all shapes and sizes on film; women must be hot.
When I talk about this issue with fellow actresses, I’ve gotten a unanimous three-step response: 1) Recognition; 2) a shaking of the head in disgust, immediately followed by 3) a shrugging of the shoulders in defeat. I used to shrug too, and yet I decided to do some research and quickly realized that this discrepancy is lodged deep within the writing and casting processes. And I find myself, as an actress eager to get cast, unable to do anything about the pattern I have spent months charting (except stay fit and spend tons of money on makeup), but wanting to do something about it.