Celebrating older (sexy) women
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There's a lot of talk in the media of late about older women, and how 'society' (that's us) is suddenly opening their hearts and minds to the idea of their beauty, sexuality and cultural relevance.
Despite the rather dark period known as 'The Cougar Years' when we briefly believed that just because Courtney Cox was on television providing sexual favours to teenage boys we were suddenly Ghandi, there has certainly been a slight shift. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are able to appear in a major motion picture wearing minimal makeup without bringing the WTO to major collapse, KD Lang records continue to chart well, and everybody still manages to build up a froth of excitement about Oprah Winfrey bringing her patented brand of screaming banshee she-freaks to our home country for a visit.
We love to congratulate ourselves on this new, enlightened period of celebrating the older woman (look! Betty White on the television, saying 'dick'! Har har, she's still got it!). But are we really as down with the older dames as we think we are? Or do we only admire them within our slightly stringent limits?
The recent touring team of Blondie's Debbie Harry and The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde has the newspapers all in a fizz, with journalists lining up to reminisce about days of yore – when the rock n' roll temptresses were lithe and attractive – and celebrating the fact that thankfully in a physical sense at least things have remained on a somewhat even keel ("Donning ultra-slim stovepipe jeans and cowboy boots," one reviewer gushed about Hynde, "you wouldn’t guess that the super-skinny frontwoman is now almost 60 years old." And doesn’t that come as a huge relief?). There are passing hushed mentions of Debbie Harry’s 'ice cream years' when she selfishly put dieting on hold to tend to her sick partner, with several later paragraphs reassuring all who may have considered boycotting her concerts that she's moved through her fat period and can now entertain us in trim and terrific style. It's an interesting counterpoint to recent press featuring guitarist/author Keith Richards, who has a face like a hatful of busted arseholes but was generally admired by all as a grand talent/wit/rogue.
Fashion magazine V even released a special edition 'Who Cares About Age' issue ('Like a fine wine – V Magazine celebrates 50-plus divas'), featuring "a trifecta of sophisticated cover girls – Susan Sarandon (64), Sigourney Weaver (61) and Jane Fonda (72)". And these women are fine as hell, they look unbelievably smoking hot and long may they reign in the minds of prepubescent fantasies if indeed such a thing is legal etc. But what about the ones who haven't aged in such a taut and appealing way? Do we shove them aside for making us inconveniently aware of our own mortality?
Who Weekly's recent '2010 Sexiest People' issue (cover stars: Jessica Marais, Jennifer Hawkins, Natalie Imbruglia – aged 26, 25 and 35 (Imbruglia is the old hag of the trio) respectively) keeps it nice and spritely, with the oldest person heralded as 'sexy' being sex robot Kylie Minogue at a withered and geriatric 42. Boyzone singer Ronan Keating ('Debonair with Edge', according to the taste-makers at Who) tells it like it is, musing philosophically on a later page: "Men are lucky, I suppose – we benefit from age". Thank goodness somebody's finally come out and spoken the truth, celebrating the aging process for what it is – a boon for men and a sad reality for the fairer sex who simply wither away and die, providing society with naught but a sagging bosom and a few tepid bleatings about childbirth as their legacy. Right on, Ronan! This one's for the brothers!
In the same issue confrontational gyrater Madonna is gently chided for daring to indulge in plastic surgery, appearing "plump-faced – some might say swollen". The offending photographic evidence is placed next to an older picture of her looking "drawn … more like her 52 years". No suggestion, of course, that the reason someone like Madonna may dabble in plastic surgery in the first place is solely due to glossy women’s magazines delightedly releasing double-page WRINKLE WATCH 2010 liftouts every time she has the gall to leave the house looking her age.
Society wants to celebrate older women. Sure. So long as they're still sexually attractive in some way. So long as they're still pouring themselves into skinny-leg denim and Herve Leger bandage dresses. So long as we still want to do them. To the ones who dare wrinkle, sag, blow out or simply look as though you've lived a long and entertaining life, put it away for god's sake. We don’t want a bar of you. And the way things are going we probably never will.
Marieke Hardy is a writer and regular panellist on the ABC's First Tuesday Book Club.
Despite the rather dark period known as 'The Cougar Years' when we briefly believed that just because Courtney Cox was on television providing sexual favours to teenage boys we were suddenly Ghandi, there has certainly been a slight shift. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are able to appear in a major motion picture wearing minimal makeup without bringing the WTO to major collapse, KD Lang records continue to chart well, and everybody still manages to build up a froth of excitement about Oprah Winfrey bringing her patented brand of screaming banshee she-freaks to our home country for a visit.
We love to congratulate ourselves on this new, enlightened period of celebrating the older woman (look! Betty White on the television, saying 'dick'! Har har, she's still got it!). But are we really as down with the older dames as we think we are? Or do we only admire them within our slightly stringent limits?
The recent touring team of Blondie's Debbie Harry and The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde has the newspapers all in a fizz, with journalists lining up to reminisce about days of yore – when the rock n' roll temptresses were lithe and attractive – and celebrating the fact that thankfully in a physical sense at least things have remained on a somewhat even keel ("Donning ultra-slim stovepipe jeans and cowboy boots," one reviewer gushed about Hynde, "you wouldn’t guess that the super-skinny frontwoman is now almost 60 years old." And doesn’t that come as a huge relief?). There are passing hushed mentions of Debbie Harry’s 'ice cream years' when she selfishly put dieting on hold to tend to her sick partner, with several later paragraphs reassuring all who may have considered boycotting her concerts that she's moved through her fat period and can now entertain us in trim and terrific style. It's an interesting counterpoint to recent press featuring guitarist/author Keith Richards, who has a face like a hatful of busted arseholes but was generally admired by all as a grand talent/wit/rogue.
Fashion magazine V even released a special edition 'Who Cares About Age' issue ('Like a fine wine – V Magazine celebrates 50-plus divas'), featuring "a trifecta of sophisticated cover girls – Susan Sarandon (64), Sigourney Weaver (61) and Jane Fonda (72)". And these women are fine as hell, they look unbelievably smoking hot and long may they reign in the minds of prepubescent fantasies if indeed such a thing is legal etc. But what about the ones who haven't aged in such a taut and appealing way? Do we shove them aside for making us inconveniently aware of our own mortality?
Who Weekly's recent '2010 Sexiest People' issue (cover stars: Jessica Marais, Jennifer Hawkins, Natalie Imbruglia – aged 26, 25 and 35 (Imbruglia is the old hag of the trio) respectively) keeps it nice and spritely, with the oldest person heralded as 'sexy' being sex robot Kylie Minogue at a withered and geriatric 42. Boyzone singer Ronan Keating ('Debonair with Edge', according to the taste-makers at Who) tells it like it is, musing philosophically on a later page: "Men are lucky, I suppose – we benefit from age". Thank goodness somebody's finally come out and spoken the truth, celebrating the aging process for what it is – a boon for men and a sad reality for the fairer sex who simply wither away and die, providing society with naught but a sagging bosom and a few tepid bleatings about childbirth as their legacy. Right on, Ronan! This one's for the brothers!
In the same issue confrontational gyrater Madonna is gently chided for daring to indulge in plastic surgery, appearing "plump-faced – some might say swollen". The offending photographic evidence is placed next to an older picture of her looking "drawn … more like her 52 years". No suggestion, of course, that the reason someone like Madonna may dabble in plastic surgery in the first place is solely due to glossy women’s magazines delightedly releasing double-page WRINKLE WATCH 2010 liftouts every time she has the gall to leave the house looking her age.
Society wants to celebrate older women. Sure. So long as they're still sexually attractive in some way. So long as they're still pouring themselves into skinny-leg denim and Herve Leger bandage dresses. So long as we still want to do them. To the ones who dare wrinkle, sag, blow out or simply look as though you've lived a long and entertaining life, put it away for god's sake. We don’t want a bar of you. And the way things are going we probably never will.
Marieke Hardy is a writer and regular panellist on the ABC's First Tuesday Book Club.
