So Dame Judi Dench is a "tired old bat", and that is why she has received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. So says Lisa Schwarzbaum, film reviewer for Entertainment Weekly and CNN.Schwarzbaum is quoted by Lawrie Zion in The Age last Saturday as follows: "The supporting actress category is always particularly difficult to predict ... since academy voters enjoy giving the prize to children (young Anna Paquin), first-timers (Marissa Tomei), and tired old bats (Judi Dench)."
That the person thus describing one of the finest living exponents of her craft is a film critic who really should know better only adds to the grossly insulting nature of this description.
Anyone who has followed Dench's career, from her first dazzling performance on stage in Franco Zefferelli's landmark production of Romeo and Juliet through to her moving performance as Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown, would be outraged by Shwarzbaum's tasteless comment.
Dench's body of work is remarkable. She is equally impressive on stage as a leading Shakespearean actress and in modern pieces; in varied television productions; or in such film roles as her cameo as "M" in the latest James Bond movies. Her versatility, range and emotional impact are enormous.
Yet now, because she is in her mid-60s, she is reduced to the status of "tired old bat". How dare Lisa Schwarzbaum!
No doubt Dench herself would laugh off this tasteless remark - when Peter Hall asked her to play Cleopatra she is reported to have said: "You realise that you will be dealing with a menopausal dwarf!" She is a sensible woman well aware of her own humanity, and it is this humanity that shines through in all her work.
The despicable attitude demonstrated by a (supposedly) serious film reviewer shows only too clearly how much ageing women are held in contempt, especially in the entertainment industry. One cannot imagine a reviewer categorising Dench's contemporaries Sean Connery, Robert Redford, Anthony Hopkins, Woody Allen etc as boring old farts, for example, but it's perfectly permissible to dismiss the remarkable life-long achievements of one of our greatest actresses in those three hurtful little words.
Dench's appearance at the Oscars ceremony when accepting her award for Shakespeare in Love was memorable. Here was an elegant woman of enormous dignity, warmth and humor, her voice utterly compelling (unlike the dreary monotone of most presenters), unashamedly eschewing any attempt at plastic surgery, wearing her age and depth of experience with ease - a real woman as opposed to the plasticised, Barbie-like production line we see every year.
The fact that so many fine actresses disappear when they are obviously no longer young - or when the "maintenance" is no longer effective - reflects our society's obsession with youthfulness, with image, with superficiality.
Actresses are no longer "bankable" if middle-aged, pot-bellied movie producers no longer consider them "bonkable". Women are still limited to their sexual attractiveness, and only their sexual attractiveness. As Judy Davis once said: "We are there to prove that the male lead is heterosexual."
It's sad that women such as Lisa Schwarzbaum contribute to the attempted diminution of a woman of Dench's stature with such insulting epithets, but it says far more about her small-mindedness - and ignorance - than it does about Dench's extraordinary achievements.
Thanks to Mike Kennedy for sending this commentary which appeared at The Age website on March 21, 2001. Maggie Millar is an occasional actress (and a sensible woman to boot).