Viola Davis slams ‘shame factor’ of ageing in Hollywood

Los Angeles, Jan 28 (IANS) Hollywood star Viola Davis “loves” her age and finds it frustrating that Hollywood shames older women.

The 57-year-old Hollywood actress has hit out at the “societal pressure” placed on women in the “image-conscious” movie business to maintain their youthful looks, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

She told the latest issue of Platinum magazine: “I’m probably not the best person to ask about my age, I love my age. Even when I was younger, I’d look in the face of Helen Mirren and Jane Fonda and Cicely Tyson, and all I’d see was beauty.

“But yes, the industry is very image-conscious, then you have the societal pressure on people, then you have a perfect storm of there being a lot of age discrimination. But this is where I actually think midlife crisis comes into play.

“It’s about liberating yourself from all that. I just find that a lot of times with Hollywood, there is a huge shame factor with getting older and it doesn’t help women, especially because our value is so often really place in how we look, how well we cook, and how we raise our children.”

The ‘Woman King’ star, who has 12-year-old adopted daughter Genesis with her husband Julius Tennon, “honours” her looks when she was younger like she would her daughter’s.

She added: “And now I can look back at six-year-old Viola, and I want to honour her.

“I can’t honour her by going out there saying, ‘Oh, I’m still not pretty enough, I’m too old.’ I can honour her the way I honour my daughter and other young people by looking at six-year-old Viola and reconciling her beauty and going back and literally saying, ‘Viola, you were beautiful.’ When I look in the mirror now, I’m literally reconciling with my lips, my nose, my skin tone.

“I celebrate it. That’s what makes me take risks. That’s what makes me Viola Davis.”

–IANS

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