At 47, Melissa Joan Hart was cast as a grandmother in a Lifetime movie called Would You Kill for Me? The Mary Bailey Story.
Melissa Joan Hart is a grandma! Well, sort of. In a perhaps telling sign of the industry’s idea of roles women of a certain age should be playing, the actress recently portrayed a grandmother in the Lifetime movie Would You Kill for Me: The Mary Bailey Story. Explain that!
Considering Melissa Joan Hart will forever be a teenage witch to many of us, it is a bit jarring to find her being cast in the role. But it’s not just that our memories can’t mathematically fathom Hart, now 47(!), playing a grandmother, it’s that it feels like further proof that the movie and TV business has no idea what to do with women after they’re “over the hill.” Admittedly, The Mary Bailey Story is based on a true story and the figures are indeed young, but it still feels like it plays into the topic as a whole. This has long been an issue in Hollywood, as if execs take one look at their ID and go, “40? Grandma!”
Naomi Watts addressed ageism in Hollywood last year, saying, “I was told…’You better get a lot done because it’s all over at 40 when you become unf—able.’ And I’m like, ‘What? What does that mean exactly?’” Sadly, she noted that that’s just how it is, adding, “It’s something we just all have to get comfortable with and women are asked to do it more than men. We don’t talk about a man aging hardly ever.”
The plot of the movie, as per Lifetime’s official website: “Told through three different perspectives, Would You Kill for Me? The Mary Bailey Story follows the volatile relationship between three generations of women – Ella (Melissa Joan Hart), her daughter Veronica (Olivia Scriven), and her granddaughter Mary (Presley Allard) whom she raises for Veronica. After Veronica becomes deeply entangled with Willard (Connor McMahon) and later marries him, the lives of all three women take a turn for the worse when Willard becomes increasingly abusive.”
How do you feel about the casting of Melissa Joan Hart as a grandmother by Lifetime? Is this an example of ageism in the industry or does the casting work due to it being based on a true story? Give us your take below.