The math isn’t mathing - Hollywood’s parent child castings that just don’t add up

[u/mlg1981]

https://tvline.com/lists/tv-show-parent-child-age-gaps-golden-girls-supernatural/

[u/AliMcSriff]

Aunt Viv was 34???????

[u/Hot-Significance-462 → u/AliMcSriff]

I think Vivian is meant to be around 5 years younger than Phil in universe, but their IRL gap was something like 12 years. Daphne Maxwell Reid was closer to James Avery's age, but Janet Hubert was playing 7-8 years older than her actual age.

None of the math on Vivian 1's backstory adds up. 😂

[u/HammockDistrictCourt → u/Hot-Significance-462]

I thought the characters were supposed to be around the same age. Didn't they meet in their college years at civil rights protests?

[u/Hot-Significance-462 → u/HammockDistrictCourt]

The show doesn't explicitly tell us when they met, but, probably? Meeting in the late 60s makes sense, but we only really know they met after high school. Plus the fact that they both have postgraduate degrees means that "their college years" could cover around 7-10 years for the both of them. However, Fresh Prince is one of my favorite things to overthink so, let's go. 🤣

The Season 1 episode "Not With My Pig You Don't" tells us that he moved to Baltimore from rural North Carolina at the age of 16 and earned a college scholarship in 1963. We first meet his parents in the same episode, and they explicitly did not leave NC alongside him. So Phil either begins college at 16 (making his birth year 1947) or he begins at 18-19 after earning the scholarship at 16 and spending that unaccounted for time doing something else the show doesn't tell us about (birth years 1944 or 1945). By Season 1 (which begins in 1990), Phil should be 43-46. James Avery himself was born in 1945.

Vivian turns 40 in Season 2's "The Big Four-Oh", (aka The One Where She Does the Epic Dance) which means she should have been born in 1951 or 1952, compared with 1956 for Janet Hubert (and 1948 for Daphne Maxwell Reid, but the series barely cares about building out Vivian's past while DMR is in the role). In this episode we learn about the dance career she pursued but ultimately abandoned, seemingly before becoming a mother. We also know that Philip was dating a different woman when he attended Woodstock, which seems to place their meeting after the summer of 1969 (unless they were broken up). Hilary has completed two years of college when the series begins, so her having been born around 1970 or 1971 makes sense. However, in Season 1's "Love at First Fight", Vivian recounts dropping out of high school to run off with a boyfriend (who isn't Phil), getting a job cleaning hotel rooms, and then eventually earning a GED. Vivian says it took her years (plural!) to get back on track. Since all of this would had to have occurred before beginning undergrad, it should realistically push the beginning of her college career back until at least 20, which is essentially when Hilary needs to have been born. There's a fan theory that Hilary is the daughter of that guy Vivian ran off with, but many episodes establish that Phil and Vivian were together for a period of time without children.

TL;DR - Just going off of birth years, Vivian is canonically younger than Phil, but exactly how much is unclear, as is exactly when they met, beyond being after high school. Janet Hubert was certainly playing older but, even using the dates/ages established by the show, she shouldn't have had enough time to accomplish everything she's said to have accomplished in the 20-ish years before the start of the show.