Bare Naked ... Not So Young ... Ladies

By Vanessa Richmond, The Tyee. Posted October 8, 2009.

Several "older" women have been taking their kits off, to use the British expression. Seems they're bucking the 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.

See more stories tagged with: nudity, sexuality, aging, older women

Tyee Contributing Editor Vanessa Richmond writes the Schlock and Awe column about popular culture and the media. She is also the former managing editor of the Tyee.

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