Topic
When older celebrity women take it off, do we really shed worn out norms?
Claudia Schiffer, pushing 40, in Tank magazine.
From soap ads to elections, looking good is way overrated.
Taking it off can be a dangerous job.
A few thoughts on Lindsay Lohan's 'threat' to moral decency.
Several "older" women are taking their kits off this week, to use the British expression. Seems they're bucking the post-Labour-Day trend of settling down, possibly out to prove that their, um, assets haven't settled at all.
Claudia Schiffer, 39, is in Tank magazine (with the line, "I Claudia,"), Mila Jovovich is in Purple magazine, French first lady Carla Bruni Sarkozy has announced a new exhibition of previously unreleased nude photos of her, and Heidi Klum is on Page Six, to name a few.
Women taking their clothes off in magazines and on TV -- whether they bare all or not -- is hardly news. But the number of women taking off over the age of 30 is. And it falls in a year when two legendary film "goddesses," Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren, will turn 75, and are aging publicly in very different ways.
Redefining beauty?
The idea of a glass (or numeric) ceiling couldn't be less absurd when it comes to beauty. But, nonetheless, until recently, women over 30 were considered "on the shelf," or old maids, and few "aging" models or actors got work. (Think of the shameful scene in Mad Men when someone posts the Marilyn Monroe-esque office manager, Joan Holloway's, driver's license on the bulletin board, showing she's, gasp, 31.)
I have to say I'm bothered that these women have decided that the best way to change public perception of women's beauty is to fight to play in the same arena as those in their 20s, rather than fighting to create a new arena altogether. I mean, I don't know many women over the age of 35 who would win a bathing suit contest even against her own 20-year-old self. I don't see many older Olympic athletes either -- it's pretty incontrovertible that the body declines as it ages.
And I don't think physical "perfection" is the only measure of things. I feel more attractive in some ways than when I was 20, but not because I have a better six pack (or one pack, as I heard someone over the age of 40 refer to it recently), and less attractive in others. I don't see these women highlighting the things that become better with age -- and each of them has many such things (power, knowledge, style, success...), and that seems a waste.
George Clooney isn't posing in his Speedo, showing that he hasn't fallen off the radar now that Zac Effron and Co. is here. And we're not asking him to. He's known for his smarts, charm, twinkle, success and so on.
But I'm glad women are at least fighting for different ages to be considered beautiful and attractive. The method chosen by these supermodels isn't mine, but then I'm not in the physical specimen game. They are. They want to be able to earn a living from their bodies and posing, and I guess are trying to show they still can.
'Health is the most beautiful'
Interestingly, other women, this week, are also pushing against the boundaries in the narrow and thin definition of beauty. This week, an Australian lingerie company, called HOTmilk launched this YouTube ad.
And America's most successful plus-sized model, Crystal Renn, launched her memoir: Hungry: A Young Model's Story of Appetite, Ambition, and the Ultimate Embrace of Curves. In a Salon interview, she said she is hoping for a more diverse runway: "I'm going to say it again, there should be a variety. Nobody should look on the runway and see only 14s [or all twos]. That's ridiculous. I think there should be all different sizes on the runway, and I think that should be what's modern. Let's stop making one body type cool for a decade and start to say all shapes and sizes are accepted -- and not only accepted, but absolutely ideal, the most beautiful. Health! Health is the most beautiful."
The lines around beauty are still sharp and thin, but at least more people are trying to make them pliable. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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Fii
3 years ago
Haha, speak for yourself, Vanessa
"I don't know many women over the age of 35 who would win a bathing suit contest even against her own 20-year-old self. I don't see many older Olympic athletes either -- it's pretty incontrovertible that the body declines as it ages".
Yeah, it ages when you hit 55-60, maybe. Although Madonna...? Most women in their 20s aren't necessarily in top physical shape simply by virtue of BEING IN THEIR 20s- I was drinking beer like it was going out of style and am far fitter 19 yrs later. Don't forget there is something called discipline- and simple awareness of health- that only comes with age. Any woman who doesn't look as good at 30-something as she did in her 20s is a whiner, and blaming age, when really she is just plain lazy :(
asp
3 years ago
pale angular skinny women
aren't that hot at any age. Where are the feminine curves?
seth
3 years ago
women in sixties
I've seen with bodies better than most 20 year olds. In fact one of the best bare bums I've ever seen was on a 65 year old women.
I knew a stripper in her mid 40's that was still raking on the tips at various clubs in town. What a babe!!.
A lot of these 20 something fashion models are pretty but their bodies resemble a boy with tits. No bum to speak of.
Only those who frequent Wreck Beach are qualified to judge.
dave49
3 years ago
Mixed messages about age
I'm going off on another topic but here goes. There are government employment-related programs that consider people to be 'youths' up to age 30. You can be a 'young scientist' or a 'young symphonic conductor' in your mid 30s. But then, some of those government employment programs also target people over 40 having difficulty finding work. So, what exactly are our prime years? There are certainly mixed messages.
I think the focus on female celebrities in their 40s is more a function of the media, generational tastes, and the fact that the stigma over posing nude in public is almost gone. I mean, Sharon Stone 'showed pink' on the big screen (Basic Instinct in 1992) and earned France's highest cultural award. For many actresses and celebrities, posing nude seems to be part of re-launching their career or maintaining their profile as they shift to other things their career and life. Another arrow in the publicity quiver.
Look how far attitudes have changed. Actress Patricia Charbonneau did a lesbian scene with Helen Shaver in 'Desert Hearts' in 1985 in it killed her career. Yet, 1998's 'Six Days, Seven Nights' featured out lesbian Anne Heche (pretty rare at that time) as a romantic lead with Harrison Ford. At the time, I remember being amazed that any movie studio would consider her a bankable star for a hetero romantic comedy.
ME2
3 years ago
Beholding beauty
Vanessa forgets that those same guys who ogled 20-year-old women when they were in their twenties themselves, are now old enough and wise enough to recognise beauty in a 40, 50 or 60 year old woman - just as they still do in 20 and 30 year-olds.
So EVERYBODY wins!!! Especially us old guys :-)
Fiat lux
3 years ago
The biological purpose of
The biological purpose of the female body is to attract, which has been denied to them for centuries by screwball religions and ideologies.
As a prpfessional artist not necessarily specializing, but definitely preferring to paint the nude female body, since 1949, including my student years, just about all my models have been first timer amateurs.
Painting from life is a boring exercise for the model that results in boring pictures, so, since about 1970 I've been using photos where the models can assume movements and poses for fractions of seconds, coming up with pictures, and paingtings, even they have hard time to believe they were of them.
The arrangement is that if at any time they may feel uncomfortable, we stop and they can get the film or now the program and we never talk about it again.
It usually takes them about 30 seconds to be totally comfortable and enjoy their natural state of beauty. Nobody has ever quit, but have been and are proud treasuring the memory of the sessions, now some of them in their 70s.
Right now I'm working on a series of dance movements, without any cover ups, showing the incredible beauty of the female body. The oldest model I've had was over 50.
When they're young most women don't really care, but when age begins to creep on them, their whole mental attitude changes to capture the moments that will never come again.
Ed Deak, Big Lake.
nutsnbolts
3 years ago
the biological purpose of.....
Ed,
The biological purpose of the female body is to attract......is primarily only in the human race. There could be other animals but in most cases the male is the pretty one in order for their female counterparts to pick and chose (choose)!!
Jean
HAGD
Fiat lux
3 years ago
I'm not so sure about your
I'm not so sure about your statement, as we're watching male birds and animals doing all kinds of tricks and dances to gain female favours, which means, to me at least, that the male is being attracted by the female. Under normal human conditions it has always been the male who went courting, for obvious reasons.
The fanciest performers are the male ducks every spring on our lake below our window.
Another point we have to consider is that all forms of life, including and especially animal life,is programmed at birth to fulfill certain ecological necessities subconsciously,with the exception of the human.
The attraction part of the human female starts virtually at birth, until they discover junkfoods and become disgusting beerbarrels on two legs.
Luckily, not all of them, so we artists can still pay homage to the remainder.
As far modeling is concerned, I've heard it time after time, many years later : "You know, I should have modeled for you when you asked me!"
Personally, I'll never get bored painting them until I drop.
Ed Deak.
nutsnbolts
3 years ago
I;m not so sure....
I think the male birds do the dance to attract the females and then the females pick the male she finds most attractive. ....programmed at birth to fulfill certain ecological necessities subconsciously with the exception of the human...and dolphin. Humans and dolphins are the only animals who have sex for plesure!
Jean
LOL
Fiat lux
3 years ago
Well Jean, why are all the
Well Jean, why are all the pieces, from the underwear out, of the female wardrobe designed to make the wearer more beautiful and attractive ?
Not being gay, I could never understand what women see in men, including my own dearly beloved friend and wife of 58 years ? (She's our art director who sets up the models to look their best. Everybody loves her)
Ed Deak.
Jerry Munro
3 years ago
Sweet talkers...
A good gig, if you can pull it off, Ed. I fear however that Mrs. Coyote would hand me my nuts, with a dripping butter knife in her other hand, if I even dared try it.
She knows damned well I can't paint worth poop. And I'd wear my camera, the first naked lady that showed up at the house. :-)
You've got to be a real sweet talker, I'll give ya that. :-)
Jerry Munro
3 years ago
Hot "Matures"...
For all that, all our bodies, like Rome, tend to come down over time. Ehhh, I ain't got the perkiest bod at this point in my life either. Do I need a real hot bodied woman, at this point in my life, to have to be worrying about, let alone to be trying to keep up with?
Uh, uh. I'll take and love my old lady, a bunch of kids later, just the way she is... thank you very much.
And eh, this babe is "just about" as hot as I can handle. (I was never warned about older women.)
:-)
Jerry Munro
3 years ago
The Hill...
Hell. It's all downhill from here anyway. :-)
Jerry Munro
3 years ago
Like Rome...
"For all that, all our bodies, like Rome, tend to come down over time."
And just like capitalism too. (Couldn't resist.)
North of Hope
3 years ago
Ladysmith
"You're never over the hill in Ladysmith."
What does, "Claudia Schiffer, pushing 40" mean exactly? It looks as though she is well endowed already.
jrb
3 years ago
not really a fair comparison
most of these older women, and all of the older supermodels, have posed in revealing ways in the past. indeed, many of them have made millions by doing mostly that. they are merely continuing to milk the same cash cow they have always milked for as much longer as they can.
george clooney, however, has never (to my knowledge) ever posed in a speedo and has relied on his talents as an actor in order to earn his living.