Are Hollywood midlife women really that inspiring?

Or do they actually pile the pressure on?

I can’t have been the only one to get bombarded by images of Demi Moore at the Golden Globes yesterday. I loved her speech. The fact that she won an award for a film that was saying something important about ageing (The Substance). I loved hearing about the fact that she had been dismissed earlier in her career, and never thought she’d be taken seriously. I loved the fact that she is 62! WOW! I also didn’t quite believe she was 62 and had to Google to check this was true. She looked about 35.

I also loved seeing Nicole Kidman. And Jodie Foster. And then the articles about how this year was all about celebrating GEN X women and how great this was. MIDLIFE WOMEN ARE FINALLY BEING RECOGNISED! WOMEN WHO LOOK NOTHING LIKE MIDLIFE WOMEN ARE DOING GREAT!

And the fact that we are seeing older women in films, major films is of course brilliant. It’s great that we are also seeing narratives where women attain success (though Moore was always successful right?) later in life. However the ideal that is presented, the ideal that we see on the red carpet is still pretty far from the everyday.

But Hollywood isn’t real life? We don’t want to see REAL LIFE women on the red carpet. I remember years ago doing a market research project all about beauty. It was actually about cosmetic surgery and how women define their ideal face. We had hundreds of faces cut out of magazines and consumers had to make a collage that represented their ideal in terms of beauty. There was usually pretty similar results-Hollywood actresses and models made up the heart of each collage. The more ‘everyday’ women were cast to the side. The client watched the groups and said - ‘Well it’s clear that women don’t actually want to see REAL women in advertising. They want to see an ideal. A fantasy. Or maybe they like the idea of it but when they see it it’s not aspirational.’

I was thinking about this because I had mixed emotions reading and seeing all the coverage yesterday. I felt hyped because I could see women who were older than me in the public eye and thriving and stepping into their power (all that jazz) but THESE WERE OLDER WOMEN WHO LOOKED LIKE GODDESSES FROM ANOTHER WORLD.

I’m not going to go on and on about having work done (I also get Botox and believe it should be a personal choice what you do with your face), but Demi Moore is definitely not your average 60 something. Nicole Kidman neither. These women are going backwards in terms of the way they look. Is that celebrating age? Or is it something else? They are fantasy women. They live in another sphere where it is normal to pay thousands of dollars to retain a high degree of youthfulness (they wouldn’t call it that, they would call it ‘looking my best’ perhaps). Also they are already pretty damn successful. They are becoming more successful. They are not starting from scratch. They have had brilliant careers and we are celebrating that they still have those careers and haven’t been relegated to playing Grandmothers in Channel 5 TV dramas. So whilst I celebrated certain aspects of their success, I also felt like it didn’t relate to my life. Not really. It felt like the equivalent of being taken on a guided tour of some celebrities home - you can admire it, feel envious, marvel at the money spent on the furniture and finishings, but it doesn’t provide any concrete or meaningful tips you can bring into your own life. Because you live in different world. And are never going to gain access to that kind of world.

It’s an exclusive world of ageing that only the super rich can be a part of.

It still feels like we are setting very lofty ideals for midlife women to aspire to be. It still feels like the bar is incredibly high. Or is it just me?