Featured Image Credit: Buena Vista Pictures
Topics: Health, Mental Health, Twitter, Social Media, Viral
Callum Jones
Topics: Health, Mental Health, Twitter, Social Media, Viral
A viral tweet about what 45-year-olds looked like in film and TV in the 90s is sending people's heads spinning.
The 1990s weren't that long ago right? Well, just to make you feel really old, the 90s first began a whopping 33 years ago.
And while 33 years still might not seem that long a time to some, a post to X is really highlighting the difference between the pre-2000s time period and now, particularly in how 45-year-olds used to look when compared to middle-aged people today.
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The tweet focuses in on the film and TV industry, looking at how it used to portray actors playing characters in their mid-forties opposed to how actors look in similar roles now.
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Today's stars such as Jennifer Lopez are praised for their youthful looks, despite being over the age of 50, but actors in the 90s weren't portrayed in quite as positive a light.
Writer and director Jessica Ellis took to X to share a photo of Steve Martin and Diane Keaton in the 1995 comedy Father of the Bride Part II.
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She wrote: "An unbelievable thing that has changed in 30 years is that in 1995, this was supposed to be what 45-year-olds looked like.
"This photograph also explains why Millennials live with a sneaking suspicion we have never gotten our s**t together."
After receiving many comments saying that Martin's hair had been grey for decades, Ellis insisted it was all to do with styling in the film.
She added: "People are being wilfully annoying so to clarify:
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"One. The CHARACTERS are in their mid-40s, this is repeatedly established across both films.
"Two. It’s not Steve’s hair, it is the STYLING. The 'ideal' was to be a person in old lady twinsets and pearls *by your 40s*."
Ellis' original tweet has received 88,000 likes on the social media platform, with over 6,000 retweets, too.
Over 500 people have also commented on the tweet, sparking a strong reaction from many film fans.
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One person said: "I knew many women, in their 20s & 30s, who dressed like that in the 80s & 90s. It was a thing."
A second added: "People do look lots younger these days due to sunscreen, retinol etc but also just the way people dress.
"Watching old BBC clips is fun because there'll be some elderly-looking woman in floral doily style but look closer and she's about 50. If it were now, she'd be in active[wear]."
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Meanwhile, Sirena Bergman, digital culture editor at Insider, said: "There's definitely something super weird about how TV and movies portrayed anyone older than 25 in the 90s which has absolutely f**ked with my ability to gauge what certain ages typically look/feel/behave like."
Another X user also replied to the thread disagreeing with what Ellis had said, they said: "Sorry, but I was 38 in 1995 and this is simply not true. People in their 40s dressed perfectly normally, in jeans and t-shirts unless they were at work."
Others also pointed out how 45-year-olds look in films nowadays, with one X user naming Jessica Chastain - who is 45.
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The user suggested that the The Good Nurse actor looked youthful for her age, a stark contrast to how the actors in the 1990s were portrayed.
Another example given was Venom actor Tom Hardy - who is also 45 years old.