Why Happy Valley season 3 is more important than you thought

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From Jennifer Coolidge’s award-winning role in The White Lotus and Emily Blunt’s brilliant role in The English to Sarah Lancashire’s acclaimed performance in Happy Valley, there is something wonderful happening in the world of television.

No longer are actresses, specifically actresses over 40, invisible or confined to traditional roles of battle axe, meddling mother-in-law or jilted wife – they’re front and center as lead performers in some of television’s best dramas and comedies. And we are here for that.

Sarah Lancashire, 58, delivers the powerhouse performance behind the hit of Happy Valley, the BBC’s crime drama currently in its third and final season. As West Yorkshire Police Sergeant Catherine Cawood, she provides many emotional moments in the series. Combined with the series’ impressive ratings (the first two series have over eight million viewers a week in the UK), it’s proof that women of a certain age don’t just want to see women of a certain age on screen – we’re all tuning in.

BBC

The soaps, of course, have always featured strong roles for women over the age of 40, from Elsie Tanner (appearing in the first-ever episode of Coronation Street) to EastEnders’ Kat Slater. But finally, they’re not the only ones who realize that women over 40 can give the best shows on TV.

Not only do producers cast “older” women in memorable supporting roles – like Gillian Anderson in Sex Education or Adwa Andoh in Bridgerton – they also build entire shows around them.

We already have 47-year-old Kate Winslet (Mary from Easttown), 66-year-old Sheryl Lee Ralph (Abbott Elementary), 71-year-old Jean Smart (Hack) and of course 61-year-old Jennifer Coolidge who has won multiple awards. for her performance, often winning in categories where the other nominees are decades younger.

At the Golden Globes earlier this month, Jennifer Coolidge, 61, revealed in her acceptance speech that her role as Tanya in The White Lotus changed her career, after years of supporting roles.

Honoring the award to show creator Mike White, she said, “I just want you guys to know that I had big dreams and big expectations as a younger person. But what happened was, you know, kind of fading away because of life or whatever… I just want to say : Mike White, you’ve given me hope. You’ve given me a fresh start.”

HBO

There are more must-watch series featuring women over 40 in the next few months, too. In addition to the second season of Yellowjackets with Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, and Christina Ricci all returning (and over 40), there’s a TV drama re-imagining of David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers, with 51-year-old Rachel Weisz in the role. Dual lead roles, Lizzy Caplan (40) and Amanda Peet (51) in a new TV version of the classic thriller Fatal Attraction.

Of course, it can be argued that there have been notable roles for women in the past, such as Helen Mirren’s memorable performance as DCI Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect, the TV series that began in 1991 when she was 46 years old.

In an interview with Harpers Bazaar in March 2022, Mirren acknowledged that the role was groundbreaking at the time. “I was very lucky because Prime Suspect was such a defining moment in television. Generally, in bringing women to the screen. Culturally it was a very important moment.”

The success of Prime Suspect should have paved the way for many more strong roles for women over the age of 40 over the next decade or so, but outside of the work of a few pioneers like Kay Mellor (Band of Gold, Fat Friends) and Sally Wainwright (Gentleman) Jack, Scott & Bailey) There’s less to it than you might think, and it took a long time to get to where we are today.

ITV

Indeed, a television critic for the Daily Mail wrote a feature in 2015 praising all the “middle-aged women” in TV dramas at the time, before going on to list “adult women playing mature characters full of flaws and inconsistencies”.

While it included Sarah Lancashire (who was 51 at the time), Nicola Walker from Unforgotten (then 45), and Olivia Colman, who then co-starred in Broadchurch at the age of 41, it He also listed Suranne Jones (37 at the time), Sheridan Smith (33 at the time), and Kelly Hawes (39 at the time) as examples.

Calling a 33-year-old actress as middle-aged or “mature” (one of those words that are never meant to be a compliment unless they’re describing wine or cheese) sounds bizarre, but it reflects the thinking of film and TV casting agents, which has been hesitating for years. When choosing an “older” woman, especially alongside a male protagonist.

Last year on the Allison Interviews podcast, actress Geena Davis — best known for her blockbuster films Beetlejuice and Thelma & Louise as well as her roles in Grey’s Anatomy and GLOW — revealed that she experienced this discrimination firsthand when a potential male co-star. (whose name she did not give) did not agree with the casting because he thought she was too old.

Netflix

“It’s very strange and very pervasive,” she told podcast host Alison Kugle. “A certain male actor who was making a movie said I was too old to be his romantic interest, and that I was 20 years younger than he was.”

“Women peak in their 20s and 30s, and men peak in their 40s and 50s in terms of actors. So male stars in movies want to look younger than they are, or they want to appeal to young men, so they always want a really young starlet involved,” She said. “That’s why it happens, and that’s why women aren’t represented as much after 40 and 50.”

Davis, who has supported research into gender representation in media and advocates for equal representation of women as part of the Geena Davis Institute, is looking for a change in the way women over 40 appear on screen.

“Look, that’s the only way it’s going – towards more inclusion,” she said in an interview with Shondaland. “Let’s just get there a lot faster than we are.”

We haven’t even addressed the racial dimension that makes it difficult for black women over 40 to land leading roles, of course — that’s a whole other article — but thanks to the success of shows like Happy Valley, Yellowjackets, Fatal Attraction, and Mare from Easttown, it may be the change that Geena Davis campaign is finally coming.

Happy Valley season 3 is currently available on BBC One and season 1-3 is available on BBC iPlayer. English is available on BBC iPlayer. Abbott Elementary is available on Disney+ in the UK and ABC.com in the US. The Hacks are available on Netflix. The first season of Yellowjackets is available on Sky and NOW in the UK, and Showtime in the US. Seasons one and two of White Lotus and Mare Of Easttown are available on Sky Atlantic in the UK and HBOMax in the US.

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