It’s A Shame That Older Women Don’t Stand A Chance On ‘Game Of Thrones’

The poisoning of Lady Olenna during this season of Game Of Thrones killed off not only the last of the Tyrell royals, but along with it, any hope of the show ever again giving significant airtime to an actress who qualifies for a senior citizen discount.

Throughout the entire run of Thrones, the series has lacked:
1) Women over 44
2) Women who aren’t commercially attractive.

Beautiful actresses ages 21 to 43 play nearly all the prominent adult female characters. Cersei Lannister Baratheon, Daenerys Targaryen, Sansa Stark, Margaery Tyrell, Ellaria Sand, and Lady Melisandre all look as though they stepped out of a Revlon ad.

Meanwhile, GoT features dozens of male characters who are old or bald or gray or fat or all of those things.
And nothing against them. I love old, bald, gray, fat men. My mother is married to one.

But Westeros is teeming with at least three times the number of men with any or all of those characteristics to every woman with barely one or two.

For the one heavyset Walda Frey Bolton, you have the hefty Samwell Tarly, Lord Varys, and Hodor.

For every AARP-eligible Septa Mordane (played by Susan Brown, born in 1946), you get Brynden ‘Blackfish’ Tully (Clive Russell, born in 1945), the Maester Luwin (Donald Sumpter, 1943), and the High Septon (Paul Bentley, 1942).

For Lady Olenna, the only 75-years-plus female cast member (played by Diana Rigg, born in 1938), you have Grand Maester Pycelle (Julian Glover, 1935), the Three-Eyed Raven (Max von Sydow, 1929), and Maester Aemon (the late Peter Vaughan, 1923). A recent scene at the Citadel featured a a whole tableful of geriatric male maesters.

And, except for Lady Olenna, few of the older female characters stayed around or got a lot of dialogue.

King Joffrey’s associates decapitated Septa Mordane at the end of Season 1. We were just getting know Lady Walda when Ramsay Bolton used her as a midnight snack for his mastiffs in Season 6.

Ramsay also tortured to death Sansa’s unnamed septegenarion Winterfell ally — who told her “The North remembers” — after she appeared in just two episodes.

Old Nan, the octogenarian raconteur of ancient lore who kept Bran company after Jaime Lannister crippled him, disappeared after two episodes in Season 1. (Margaret John, the actress who played her, died in 2011 at age 84, but the producers could have recast the role.)

To be sure, I understand that casting pretty young or youngish actresses for gratuitous nudity and lesbian sex scenes is a fact of life for selling premium-cable subscriptions. (Also, GoT has thrown in some Jon Snow and Robb Stark nakedness for the benefit of female and gay male viewers.)

But the fact is, the show can afford to hire comely maidens for topless brothel footage and other actresses to play characters who don’t necessarily look like Bachelor in Paradise contestants.

The producers have missed opportunities. For example, it would make sense for Missandei, the translator who speaks 19 languages, to be played by an actress in her Sensodyne years instead of Nathalie Emmanuel, born in 1989.

GoT could also write more-prominent roles for the handful of older women the show already has. After burning Craster’s Keep, the men of the Night’s Watch could have kept Morag, the eldest wife, around as an adviser. She knows how to deal with White Walkers.

Sansa’s Winterfell friend (played by Stella McCusker, 1942) would have made a nice motherly presence for Sansa and Jon once they returned to Winterfell.

Of course, the books by George R.R. Martin dictate the story lines and ages of characters to a degree, but people who have read the novels (I haven’t yet — it would ruin the surprises) have mentioned that the producers deviate from them regularly.

The disparity in ages on GoT is especially disappointing because British dramas tend to do a more equitable casting job than their U.S. counterparts. BBC series Happy Valley and Broadchurch feature husbands and wives who are around the same age and look like realistic matches.

Meanwhile, Samwell Tarly’s parents, Randyll and Melessa, are 20 years apart, played by Samantha Spiro (born in 1968) and James Faulkner (1948). (And let’s not even talk about the late Walder Frey and his wives.)

By the way, the high ratio of older male characters to older female ones isn’t simply a matter of there being more men than woman on the show. I went Excel spreadsheet on the cast list and found the average date of birth is 1970 for men and 1980 for women.

I admit that categorizing human beings by year of birth or characteristics like weight or white hair seems a little dehumanizing. It’s not very nice.

But maybe that’s what it takes to get producers, directors, and writers to start thinking about fewer ageist and aesthetics-driven choices when casting roles for women.

And no negative feelings at all toward the beautiful female characters on Game of Thrones. I love the Khaleesi, Sansa, Cersei, Ellaria, and the rest.

It’s just that it would be nice to see the actresses who play them continue to get roles until they’re Old Nan’s age.

Rebecca Reisner is the author of truecrimetruant.com, a blog devoted to Forensic Files and other true-crime entertainment.

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