I’m interrupting this memoir to bring you some thoughts on aging this week. With two presidential candidates well beyond the conventional age for retirement, and my 73rd birthday looming large in April, getting old has been much on my mind. Even more so when I read about Cindy Sherman’s latest show at Hauser & Wirth in New York. For those not in the know, Sherman emerged as a big art star in the late 1970s with a series called “Untitled Film Stills,” photographs of herself as an imaginary film star in imaginary films, gently and effectively mocking the stereotypes imposed on women by the industry. From there, she continued to amass fans and collectors, using herself as the model for humongous C-prints. When I saw her retrospective at MoMA nearly 20 years ago, I was underwhelmed. Her formula seemed fairly simple-minded: “In this series, I think I will dress up as clowns. In this one, I’ll be a Renaissance Madonna. And in these I will pose as aging socialites.” I didn’t see any great contribution to the art of photography, or evidence of her growth as an artist.
In her newest series, she addresses the dilemmas of aging in a particularly disagreeable way. “I’m not going to go into this aging process silently or happily,” she told a writer from the New York Times last month. Indeed, as Nancy Princenthal reports, “The facial features in [her] hyperenergetic new photo-portraits slide around crazily. Eyes spin out in different directions, competing clamorously for attention. Noses and mouths engage in pitched conflict.” Old women don’t get much uglier than this, and I believe the works reveal both a certain self-loathing and a contempt for her sex, which isn’t too far below the surface in her riffs on Madonnas, socialites, fashion models, and other species of womanhood. (Sherman herself is in reality quite a dish, even at 70, with fabulous bones and porcelain skin.)
When I read the piece on the artist in the Times, I remembered a moment decades ago when I was having dinner in the garden of an Italian restaurant called Barbetta in Manhattan. An aging B-movie actress—I think it was Monique van Vooren—swayed past our table, clearly a little tipsy, stuffed into one of those slinky cocktail dresses you might see on a lounge singer in reruns of Columbo. Her makeup was visibly caked, her eyes weighed down by false eyelashes. She was a Sherman caricature avant la lettre, and I recall thinking, “Dear God, don’t let me grow old like that!”
But the question is, How should we grow old? Guys have it easy, with their trousers rolled, their wrinkles earned, their eminence grise. Time is always harder on women because of cultural expectations that youth must be maintained at all costs, and sometimes—if you consider the fees for plastic surgery—that cost can be high indeed. Because I’ve clicked on ads for “wrinkle reducers” on Instagram, I am bombarded constantly with promises from J.Lo and Jennifer Aniston that I can look just like them if only I will check out their miracle creams (I’m glad Cher isn’t hawking these—that would be truly terrifying). Since childhood, certain taglines have burned themselves into my brain: “Hate that gray? Was it away!” “I’m not growing old gracefully, I’m fighting it every step of the way.”
There is also, for many women, the phenomenon of not getting noticed in quite the same way anymore. Yes, as good feminists, we may deplore the wolf whistles on the street, the catcalls from construction workers, but when they stop completely after a certain age, it’s sort of sad. It marks our entry into the territory of the invisible woman, the gray zone where we’re scarcely worth a passing glance.
But I would submit that it doesn’t have to be that way. There are now wonderful examples of women staying stylish and plucky into their 70s and 80s, like the ones below.
At the other extreme are those who have said to hell with it and just let the flesh fall where it may. There is a certain grace and dignity in this option, especially if accompanied by substantial artistic accomplishment.
As for me, I’m not certain how I’m going to transition into my twilight years. I’m too lazy for expensive makeup, too scared of surgical meddling, and too broke for extensive wardrobe changes. My first step, I’ve decided, will probably be to dye my hair silver and finally let it grow out (I have no idea what color it really is after all these years). Because, as the great Black Mountain poet Charles Olson once observed, “What does not change is the will to change.” Even at the end of the road.
No recipes this week. I’m too slammed for time.
Ah, yes it is not pleasurable getting old but at the same time the freedom of caring little now about what other people think of me or say is liberating. I have decided that people I care about, I will be there for them. And for my middle age children, I will support no matter what a pain in the neck they can be and probably I am to them. Most important, keep ones sense of humor, stay positive most of the time and be adventurous and creative.
As a European, and a woman - now living in the US - facing all this, I'd just like to nudge you all to think about the wonderful British Dames (actors such as Dench, Smith, Mirren, Maggie Hambling, Eileen Cooper....I could go on) that grace our screens in their 70s, 80s and beyond. Not a stich of work to be seen and they remain as glamorous, beautiful and respected as hell! America's obsessed with youth, but the reality is no other country is, at least not nearly to the same extent. Grace should be our goal!