Possibly not an example: Hollywood Old

I don't know whether it was picked via the IP, but as I understand it Hollywood Old refers to the trend of making the old less old in their cinematic representation. The current image is Rachel Weisz in Agora, explicitly claiming that she is supposed to be 65. Now, Weisz was playing the Alexandrian philosopher Hypatia, whose biographic details are uncertain: she could be 65 or only 45 (Weisz was 36), and the film makes no reference at all about her age. Furthermore, the film takes a large dose of liberty and should not even be taken as a biopic. There's no reason to believe she was meant by Hollywood to be old in the first place. More like Historical Age Downgrade.

At any rate, perhaps another less problematic can work?

Current image:

Not sure how to picture this.

That's acceptable, although the caption could be briefer.

She's not old in that film. Not An Example.

edited 2nd Feb '11 11:23:58 PM by Catalogue

Adding Historical Age Downgrade as a redirect for the trope.

It is true that the movie lever claimed that Hypatia was 45 or 65. But she is a real historical person who in the movie comes across as much younger then she actually was.

Ah I see. But then the trope has two distinct definitions?

There is only one trope definition, but it hangs on the premise that the character is supposed to be a certain age. And this can be in two separate ways. Added the following line:

A character can be "supposed to be" a certain age in two ways: Either an age is stated outright in the story, or the character is a historical person.

So the current image is fine? Can we lock this thread?

I still think we can do better. It may be an example within the new definition, but not a shining one.

I don't mind the pic, I could stare at Rachel Weisz all day :3 But if you absolutely must change it, how about Angelina Jolie in Alexander? I mean, IRL, she's one year older than Colin Farrell and yet she plays his mother. So the casting director messed up, either making Alexander too old, or Olympias too young.

edited 5th Jun '11 2:14:34 AM by FenrirMX

That borders on Playing Gertrude, is that all right? If it is, I'll work on a juxtaposition of Jolie and the original historical person.

Yeah, that's an example of Playing Gertrude, not this trope.

Also, the trope was clarified, not changed. Hollywood Old was the first trope I started when I joined TV Tropes. I had been reading TV Tropes for quite a while when I saw the movie Agora. The actress being my age in scenes where the historical Hypatia was more like my mother's age, that's what gave my the idea for the trope in the first place.

Also, I had already seen The Aviator, without realizing it was this trope: I actually believed that the real life historical person was as young as he was depicted in the movie. That he was closer to twice that age when he did those things in real life, that's something I learned from the YKTTW development of this trope. :-)

Wouldn't this be a Super-Trope for both Playing Gertrude and Playing Hamlet, though?

Nope, not the same thing.

• Hollywood Old: Actor younger than character.
• Dawson Casting: Actor older than character.
• Playing Hamlet & Playing Gertrude: Mother is not old enough to really be her sons mom. (Also known as "Son is not young enough to really be his mom's son".)

Sure, it's hard to do the third duo of tropes without doing either of the first two tropes. But which one doesn't matter, it can be one just as well as the other.

As for the Alexander example, I think it was Dawson Casting on Alexander. Wasn't the real Alexander really young, and his actor in the film a bit older? If his mother was young when she gave birth, it's not necessary (although possible) for Jolie's character to also be Hollywood Old.

That's funny, the laconic on Playing Gertrude is mistaken then. That and Playing Hamlet is now in TRS because it also means "character's age In-Universe is pushed upwards to better accomodate the actual actor."

I say we fix this mess first, then pick an image.

Hamlet and Gertrude probably needs to be reworked. I posted my suggestion in the TRS thread you mentioned.

In my opinion, those two tropes are the mess, without Dawson Casting and Hollywood Old rally being any part of the mess.

I have to admit I hadn't read either Playing Hamlet or Playing Gertrude when I made my post, but still, reading Gertrude and its laconic(Actress's character is much older than the other characters, but the actress isn't.), there's a pretty big overlap here.

You know, what with the other Hollywood X tropes, the title seems more like it refers to something like "He's 40 years old, what a fossil."

Could we use the Tudors pictures from the examples section?

Bump. It would be reality◊ vs hollywood.

Clock is set. If works well enough, we can make a collage of the two.

The hollywood pic is pretty dark. It's kind of hard to tell how old he is in that image.

Clock's up; locking for inactivity/lack of consensus. No action is to be taken based on this thread.