Image source: Merlina McGovern
I had almost added the word “Gracefully” to my blog title, but, damn it, this post is not about aging gracefully. It’s about aging at all. A few weeks ago, Vogue released its cover image of an upcoming September issue. The cover featured four of the 1990s supermodels (Christy Turlington, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, and Linda Evangelista) that had dominated the fashion and pop culture landscape of my teenage years. Now in their fifties, these gorgeous women graced the cover with style and elegance. And, according to a variety of commenters and TikTokers, a whole lotta Photoshop.
Now, I absolutely despise the game that commentators play as they play Photoshop gotcha on women’s images in the media. They’ll gather untouched photos from Getty Images and then compare them to supposedly Photoshopped photos released on a star’s own site. I hate this scrutiny focused on women, because all celebrities do their best to make sure that they’re shot in the best lighting, with the best makeup, and in the most flattering poses.
Having said that, the Vogue cover image had clearly been retouched. These beautiful women had smooth faces and smooth and featureless necks. Everyone over the age of fifty has wrinkles. Most of us who aren’t yet fifty have wrinkles and gray hair. It is a sign of the years we have put into our lives, the experiences we have gained, the knowledge and wisdom we have gathered, the loves that we have gained and lost. When I think of the beauty of the metaphor of our wrinkles being the record of the lives that we have lived, I think of Lucinda Williams’ scratchy voice thick with experience singing the following lines from “Mama You Sweet”:
Ocean becomes tears
That ebb and flow
Over the lines in my face
And the pain in my soul
—Lucinda Williams
There was a similar debate about photo retouching of images of older women, when Sports Illustrated released its cover image of the 82-year-old Martha Stewart, looking svelte and youthful in a white bathing suit. While Martha credited a healthy lifestyle to her fabulous cover image, us normal folks without access to expensive nutritionists, on-site gyms, and world-famous photographers were made to feel that we weren’t living our best lives if we couldn’t look as flawless—and lineless—as this beaming cover photo of Stewart.
Normally, I’m not one to be affected by this type of imagery. I know that people have wrinkles and gray hair as they age, and it has never bothered me. I have never given a thought to getting Botox to smooth out my well-earned lines, and I am far too lazy to ever think about coloring the gray out of my hair (and to be honest, I love the look of my gray hair; as it weaves its way through my dark brown hair, it makes me feel wild, mysterious, witchy). I thought I was immune to all of these terrible messages about aging women. That is until I started seeing memes about how longer hair made women look younger. On TikTok, users would digitally update the hair on images of the women from the 1980s sitcom, The Golden Girls. By adding these long locks, these users claimed that they no longer looked like the elderly women in their fifties that they played in the show. And vice versa, TikTokers would digitally shorten hair on women like Jennifer Anniston to show how much such a style would age her.
These stupid videos actually had me thinking that maybe I shouldn’t be getting my hair cut shorter now that I’m closer to fifty. Who cares if shorter hair is easier to take care of? Who cares if I like the look of my short hair because the weight of long hair no longer weighs down my natural curls. Who cares if long hair makes me sweat buckets in the summer? Wouldn’t I be happier if I could chop decades off my looks by refusing to chop my hair?
Ugh! I just want to be allowed to age, damn it. And, I will get that haircut, because I want to be able to celebrate my own wonderful form of beauty that is shaped and molded by the years of experience I’ve gained.
Is it too much to ask that the media just let us women age?
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