March 04th, 2024

I'm thinking about aging and beauty. Beauty, as sixty-three-year-old Bets tells seventeen-year-old Hannah in my novel Drownproofing, is quite arbitrary to begin with, although most of us can agree on a general idea of what the word means.
     My thought process started with Sarah Jessica Parker, who is older than me and made a name for herself on Sex and the City, a show that very much showcased her attractiveness, thinness, and ability to pull off various fashions. The recent "newsworthy" event was her photograph in unflattering light, with wrinkles showing and her hair going gray. Apparently, the images sparked some Internet hate about her (what is wrong with people?), to which she responded, "I know what I look like. I have no choice. What am I going to do about it? Stop aging? Disappear?"

A similar bout of Internet shaming occurred after Julie Roberts posted a casual photo of herself with her niece, enduring all kinds of insults. Both of these women are famous for their beauty, yet apparently are not allowed to change over time. Are the insults from deranged men, intent on bringing women down, or from other women, sometimes the worst culprits of all?
     Why are men allowed to age, but women are not? Why is grey hair "distinguished" in a man, but in a woman it signifies that she has "given up" or no longer wants to look after herself? Why is it normal/acceptable/common in places like Hollywood (and elsewhere) to have Botox, facelifts, plastic surgery, breast augmentation, cheek and chin inserts, hair dyes and implants, dental veneers and lip fillers? I don't even know all of the options; I'm sure there are more. What is so abhorrent about just...aging?
     These superstars, of course, are people who are making their living based on appearance, which maybe makes these physical modifications more "normal". But if you think about it, how often do we say of a friend or colleague, after a long time has passed, "she looks great!" or, "she's really showing her age."
     Maybe it's time to just stop referencing appearance altogether. Why not say, "I saw x, and she just went to Spain!" or "I ran into y, and he just won an award!" Rather than, she has gained a lot of weight. Or he's lost all his hair. Or all that suntanning has sure caught up with them!
     I'm not saying it's easy. We all notice changes, especially over fifty. I notice my eye bags, from forty years of inserting and removing contact lenses. I notice sun spots and grey hair. We all tend to be self-critical, and I don't have people photographing me everywhere I go, expecting me to be glamorous or made up or wearing the latest fashion. I don't have hundreds (millions?) of people insulting me on the Internet. How do these women put up with it? And, as Julia Roberts pointed out, what about her fifteen-year-old niece, who has to put up with this kind of scrutiny her entire life, whereas those of us over fifty got through our adolescence with only the odd unflattering yearbook photo that no one will ever see?
     I know so many strong women, and I want to continue to be one. Who cares what people say? Go, SJP. Go, Julia Roberts. Age however the hell you want, keep telling people off, keep living life as you choose. I'm going to try to stop referencing appearance in others, and stop worrying about the age-related changes in mine. Not an easy task, but it's somewhere to start.