Old Broads Rule!
I caught a snippet of the CBS Morning News today that made my Media Crap-o-Meter alert clang wildly. I'd just downed my daily Metamucil and was shambling my way to the treadmill with the assistance of my trusty walker when I heard a vacuous reporter introduce actress Vanessa Williams. She asked Vanessa about her new movie and commented that it must've been interesting to be one of the "elders" on the set, the voice of experience as it were. After I got my feeble hands to work the buttons to start the treadmill and encouraged my arthritic knees to bend, I glanced at the TV to get a gander at this ancient crone of an actress. Imagine my surprise when I saw that Vanessa was a mere sprite of...42. Yes, 42.
The interviewer (whose name I can't remember because I'm so old--47) piled on the ageist indignities by commenting that Vanessa looks pretty good for her age. Especially after having given birth to four children. Here the interviewer's voice became hushed, and she spoke of Vanessa's pregnancies as if she had stormed the beaches at Normandy or survived a rare cancer. No surprise...pregnancy seems to be considered a disease in Hollywood, one to be monitored and scrutinized in detail by the tabloids—"Jennifer's gained 8 pounds! Baby Weight Could Ruin Her Career!"--and to be recovered from quickly—"Thank Jesus you've lost the baby weight, Vanessa!"
The thing that bothered me most about the conversation? The interviewer would NEVER comment about a male actor still looking good at his age. She'd ask about his new movie, in which he plays a super spy trying to stop a bad guy from blowing up the world while romancing Hollywood's 20-something ingenue of the moment (cripes even 101-year old Harrison Ford still gets these roles!). She’d also most likely ask about the man’s supermodel third wife and the new baby they’d just adopted from a surrogate because, you know, his supermodel third wife didn’t want to endure the pregnancy disease.
Maybe Vanessa could write a book about how she survived the disease--four times--and manages to look so trim and taut at the one-foot-in-the-grave age of 42. She could call it, 'It's a Drag Getting Old, but There is Life After 40!' Unless you’re an actress of a certain age who just happens to LOOK it. Then you’re pretty much reduced to playing a stiff on Law & Order.
Janet - No power in the 'verse (not even a few wrinkles) can stop me...
The interviewer (whose name I can't remember because I'm so old--47) piled on the ageist indignities by commenting that Vanessa looks pretty good for her age. Especially after having given birth to four children. Here the interviewer's voice became hushed, and she spoke of Vanessa's pregnancies as if she had stormed the beaches at Normandy or survived a rare cancer. No surprise...pregnancy seems to be considered a disease in Hollywood, one to be monitored and scrutinized in detail by the tabloids—"Jennifer's gained 8 pounds! Baby Weight Could Ruin Her Career!"--and to be recovered from quickly—"Thank Jesus you've lost the baby weight, Vanessa!"
The thing that bothered me most about the conversation? The interviewer would NEVER comment about a male actor still looking good at his age. She'd ask about his new movie, in which he plays a super spy trying to stop a bad guy from blowing up the world while romancing Hollywood's 20-something ingenue of the moment (cripes even 101-year old Harrison Ford still gets these roles!). She’d also most likely ask about the man’s supermodel third wife and the new baby they’d just adopted from a surrogate because, you know, his supermodel third wife didn’t want to endure the pregnancy disease.
Maybe Vanessa could write a book about how she survived the disease--four times--and manages to look so trim and taut at the one-foot-in-the-grave age of 42. She could call it, 'It's a Drag Getting Old, but There is Life After 40!' Unless you’re an actress of a certain age who just happens to LOOK it. Then you’re pretty much reduced to playing a stiff on Law & Order.
Janet - No power in the 'verse (not even a few wrinkles) can stop me...
posted by Janet at 1:29 PM
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