‘We’re Not Disposable’: Salma Hayek Just Dragged Hollywood’s Obsession With Youth
For those of us who grew up in the ’90s, a beauty like Salma Hayek was never fleeting or disposable. Her presence—on screen and off—radiated a power that went beyond looks. She had that immortal aura, the kind María Félix embodied, the kind Latinas who leave a mark tend to carry.
But to the male gaze of Hollywood, even Salma Hayek can be seen as, indeed, disposable. However, she’s just not letting that slide.
In a recent interview with Marie Claire, Salma Hayek sat in her London home—gray streaks in her hair, makeup-free, wrapped in a ribbed turtleneck—and said it plainly: “Women are not disposable after a certain age in any department. We should battle that with all we’ve got.”
She’s not wrong. At 58, Hayek is still one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars, bringing in nearly $3.9 billion at the box office, voicing beloved animated characters, dancing across red carpets, and producing award-winning content through her company Ventanarosa. Yet, she still feels the need to say it out loud.
Why? Because the numbers don’t lie. According to a 2022 “Boxed In” study by the Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film at San Diego State University, the percentage of major female characters in their 40s dropped from 42% to 15% on broadcast TV. That number is just 14% on streaming platforms. Over 60? Only 3% of female characters were that age, compared to 10% of male characters. That’s the disappearing act Hollywood pulls when women age.
Salma Hayek has always been the exception—and the resistance
Hayek’s presence in Hollywood has always been more than glamour. When she became the first Mexican woman to be nominated for Best Actress for Frida in 2002, she had to send out her own press release. “Nobody wrote about it,” she told Marie Claire. “I won’t complain about anything that I haven’t tried to change.”
And she means it. Before DEI became a boardroom buzzword, she was fighting for it. She pre-sold Ugly Betty to advertisers and brought the U.S. adaptation of a Colombian telenovela to primetime. Her work opened doors—not just for herself but for an entire generation of Latino talent. And she hasn’t stopped. “Somebody has to do it,” she said. “And nobody has as much experience inside of so many places, for this amount of time.”
The pressure to stay young is real, but Salma Hayek isn’t playing the game
Even though she’s still widely celebrated for her beauty, Hayek is aware of how that beauty has been policed. “There was a time when I was the sexy girl, but thank God age came and gave me the ability to expand to other territories,” she said. “Although I’m still sexy and I embrace it.”
In a world that tells women to disappear as soon as the first gray hair appears, Hayek is walking into rooms—with said gray hair, by the way—and owning every bit of her age. At the 2025 Golden Globes, she showed up in Gucci, rocked a smoky emerald eye, and embraced her natural hair on the carpet. As HOLA! reported, it was more than a beauty statement—it was a reminder that aging is not a flaw. It’s power.
Aging is trending, and Salma Hayek knows it’s still a fight
Yes, more women over 50 are showing up in major roles—Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett, Sheryl Lee Ralph. But the system hasn’t caught up. As Sally Field recently said on Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Wiser Than Me podcast: “There are so few real stories written about women of any age, but certainly, certainly, as you get older, it gets less and less and less.”
Even Marie Claire notes that while Hayek could easily retire into champagne-and-caviar luxury, she keeps pushing because she still has to. “Like a mad dog,” she said, when asked if she still has to fight to get projects made. She’s built a production company, sold a new film to Sony, and just finished writing her second-ever script, which she will star in.
It took eight years to get Frida made. It took relentless effort to make people see Ugly Betty. And it takes “anger that comes with pleasure” to keep going when people don’t want to see what you see. “So, it’s an anger that comes with a pleasure to prove them wrong,” she said.
Aging, unbothered, and unstoppable
In a culture obsessed with youth, Salma Hayek is modeling something more radical: respect for time, and reverence for experience. As she put it, “I don’t look at somebody else and say, ‘I want that body,’ or ‘I want a new body.’ But I do confess, I want the old body; the one I had at 25 and criticized and hated nonstop.” She laughed and clasped her hands: “Oh, please, Lord Jesus, give it back to me. I apologize.”
It’s that blend of humor, wisdom, and defiance that makes her such a necessary voice. Because if there’s one thing Hayek wants you to remember, it’s this: Women don’t expire. We evolve.
And we’re just getting started.
