September 24, 2021 • 51 mins
Anti-aging. Anti-wrinkles. Aging in women has long been demonized. Anney and Samantha brush up on the history of our preoccupation with youth in women and the lengths we have gone to stay forever young.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't welcome to
stuff I've never told you production of I Heart Radio.
So I feel like I have asked you this before,
and if so, you'll have to forgive me listeners. And Samantha, Um,
but what are your thoughts on immortality? I don't think
(00:28):
you've asked me this before because that is a very
broad in general question. Who knows a lot of conversations, Yes,
we have off and on my when it comes to immortality.
Mm hmmm. I have no thoughts other than it's not real,
So why are we talking about it. My own set,
(00:53):
my own sad take on death and immortality is that
I assumed I would have been dead of flour. I
would be dead before fifty five. And I think it's
just because of all the things that I've gone through
as a kid that it didn't make sense. But I
would extend past a certain time. I do have a
small fear of growing old. Actually have a lot of
(01:14):
fears in growing older, and as my body feels like
it's slowly giving out is getting worse, those little fears
and trying to figure out what to do just because
I don't want to go to like revert back to
being dependent on someone. And then, of course you and
I talked about the fact that if we don't have children,
who's gonna look after us, who's gonna care for us?
(01:35):
And what's gonna happen we can't care for ourselves. So
those are my thoughts on life and death and immortality.
I don't live forever because that sounds miserable, especially with
some of the things that have happened. Being a depressive,
it makes me sad to think that I would have
to be depressed with the rest of my life seeing
(01:55):
some of the bad things that have happened. I am
a pessimist, so it doesn't help. True, true, Yeah, I
mean it's interesting because I've always felt that way too.
Of like, immortality doesn't appeal to me unless people around
me that I cared about were and also that I
was in good like mental and physical condition. Um, even then,
(02:20):
it just sounds like eventually you'd get pretty bored. But
I don't know. I mean, I was telling you the
other day, it's like this Star Wars is gonna be
coming out when I die, And I never stopped true
that A care for you. Also as of late, like
the more we talked about the apocalypse and thinking if
it happens sooner the later, Oh lord, I don't know
if I want to be alive through that. That's yeah. Yeah,
(02:45):
we're starting out really griham with this one. Yeah, sure,
are sure are We're certainly not the only people who
have been talking about this and thinking about this and
as our technology shifts, because has been a part of
our cultural narrative forever, like when we talk about any
(03:05):
type of creature like vampires, and that's always like one
of the reasons I love what we do in the
shadows as you get to see how um wonky they are,
out of touch they are with their immortality. But as
as technology has advanced, people are legitimately talking about ways
to slow down or stop aging and or achieve immortality.
(03:26):
And I know Jeff Bezos was just in the news
for investing in something looking into this um and there
there's been a lot of movies about it, for sure.
If for anybody who's already like preemptively angry, that of
the language I used around that abaultics stopping aging. We'll
get to that. We'll get to that a second. But um,
as we are are moving into you listeners, know, we
(03:50):
love some Halloween, we love the season of fall and
the scary movies and spooky things. And as we're moving
into that, this is sort of a lower key tie
in because it's just this concept we've been talking about
for a couple of months now about dying to be
young and our cultural just real fascination and occupation with
(04:13):
being young and where did that come from and some
of the extremes that it has gone to. So to
start out with, we're gonna be talking about media because,
as we've talked about before, in in our popular media
and movies and TV, as a woman, it's a joke,
it's a running joke that you're dead after thirty, like
(04:35):
that's your career is over. Um. And the average age
of a Hollywood Stars female UM is thirty four, whereas
for a man it is forty six. So you can
already see that's ten your gap. Yes, yes, absolutely, oh
yeah so as in fact, an i AMDB study reported
(04:55):
on by Washington Post found that among twenty year old actors,
women get eight percent of the leading roles. By age thirty,
women only get of the leading roles, and past age forty,
men claim eight of the leading roles while women only
get twenty percent and have all these roles for women
to go to those thirty three any younger and men
(05:18):
overall just have way more roles available to them, and
we've seen that constantly. Yeah, I think I've told this
story before, but I remember so clearly watching I think
I was too young to be watching it, but I
was watching Entrapment and I turned to my friend and
I was like, why does she want to be with
Sean Connery? Question? But that being said, I know that
(05:44):
people can have age gaps and relationships it would be great,
but as a child, it just did not. I was like,
I don't understand this, And I think what we're talking
about here is not just that fact, but that it
is more acceptable to see you very young women with
older men to be more like yeah, absolutely normal, um
to the point that it reflects real life Leonardo DiCaprio
(06:06):
and everybody kind of just accepts it. Yeah, there's a
factor of like, uh what after a while, But in
the actuality was like, yeah, okay, obviously when it is
more acceptable than a woman doing that, because she is right,
And we've talked about that a lot before, about that
double standard of for men it's seen as like, oh,
(06:28):
props to you, You've got a young lady interested in you,
young lady, whereas for women, it's like she's praying upon
this young man and it must be for nefarious reasons, right, Yeah,
those are generalizations and stereotypes, but it's definitely more acceptable
for an older man to be with a younger woman
then vice versa. And so this whole, like all these
(06:50):
ideas around women in age in Hollywood, has been a
topic of conversation, especially among female celebrities who has spoken
out about this. Maggie Smith, Charlie's They're On, Sara, Jessica Parker,
Helen Mire, and Mel Street, Kate Lynchet, so many mostly
white women in this context. But a lot of it
is happening like now and within recent years. It's pretty
(07:10):
new in terms of how many women have spoken up
about it. And I did want to give some brief
like examples that were just top of mind for me,
because this is an idea that we see so often.
And one is um from Black Swan, which I watched recently,
where Winona Writer is this ballet dancer who's been like
(07:35):
head of the ballet. She's made a lot of money
for this troop, this huge New York troop, but then
all the other ballet danswers are kind of talking about
her behind her back and saying like, oh, she's dead,
like she's a dancing corpse, like she's so old. And
then Wanona Writer's character obviously being upset about this and
(07:55):
furious that she's given so much of herself to this company,
and then he just kind of unceremoniously to her away
when she gets older and replace her with Natalie Portman.
And even in terms of like the romance kind of
dynamic between the male leader of the ballet and an
own writer and then Natalie Portman. But that always stuck
(08:16):
with me. And Natalie Portman's character has that see where
she's like, oh, poor death um, like obviously feeling sympathy
and like seeing that happened with her mom when she
got pregnant, and feeling like I one day I will
be thrown away too. But yeah, that is always stuck
with me because it's like, like I said, it is
a running joke. We all know this joke and this idea,
(08:37):
and there are certain aspects that I get, like it's
weird because I understand that, you know, younger people in
general can do more athletic things. I don't know, but
still like that's really terrible to just be like, well,
you're done and you'll never work again. So another example,
I've never actually seen Black Swant, I need to go
(08:58):
back to it. But another exam a bowl would be
of course, our one of our episodes, First Wives Club.
I mean that is the ultimate story of being replaced
by younger women, as each one of the characters show,
whether it's Sarah Jessica Parker's character who is in competition
with Bette Midler, or even the therapist with Diane Keaton's
(09:22):
character you know who gets gets ran over her. And
then you've got the Goldie Hawn character, which she's replaced
by the sixteen year old actress because she I think
she's in her thirties. In this I'm pretty sure she
comments directly on what we're talking about and talking about
being replaced, and to the point that she plays the
hagmother who dies essentially an upcoming movie and heard thinking
(09:45):
she's coming in for the younger character and being like, whoops,
just kidding um, And so she retires out of film
to go onto Broadway because it's more acceptable for mature
women to be a part of. Essentially, Yeah, there are
so many things in that storyline on it altogether, just
talking about how women are said to pasture at a
(10:06):
certain age as if they are no longer of any purpose.
And we think about that with like menopause again, like
whether or not we're able to breed essentially, to put
it very bluntly, and or what our value is. And
when it comes to Hollywood, I'm sure and we have
seen it being even harsher narratives. But you know, in
everyday life people talk about that too, whether it's the
(10:26):
cliche of being left for a younger woman and or
having to compete with younger women for career or any
of those status is. You know, it's interesting to see.
But this movie was definitely one of those like, hey,
in your face, this is what's happening, right, commented, Right, yeah,
and we're gonna we're gonna break in break down some
(10:48):
of that. Um a bit more later about kind of
this pressure to be invisible as you get older as
a woman. And then I was thinking about this Amazon
movie called Neon Demon, which I don't know if you've
seen that, I have not. Okay, well it was a
very strange film, but it kind of That's why every
time I think of it, I feel like it's some
(11:09):
fever dream that I had. But it's about like models
in Hollywood, And is it L Fanning or Ellie Fanning?
L Fanning, I don't know, you know who I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah,
she comes into the young model into this world and
there's a lot of this movie is very up and
(11:29):
down and bumpy, but there was an interesting commentary on
the power of beauty and youth for women, and she
says something about, like, you know what the power she
feels when she walks into her room and everyone is
looking at her and feeling jealous of her. Of course,
these other models that have been in the game longer
than her don't like that, so they end up spoilers,
I guess how old is this movie is pretty old? Um,
they end up killing her and eating pieces of her
(11:50):
body to try to get her youth, including an eyeball.
Was really gruesome. Well okay then, but yeah, that was
just I did not expect that turn for one, But yeah,
it was another kind of example of this this pressure
to feel young and kind of that diminishing value of
(12:13):
like they were willing to murder this person to feel
like they were young and had in their minds more power.
And then on top of that, songs. We've been seeing
these songs, and I will say so for the first
song you picked out, because as you were and I
were talking about this episode, I told you in my head,
(12:34):
I can't stop seeing forever young. Also, that makes me
go back to a thirty Rock episode in which is
Jenna is being she has that same insidence of going
to a show because she's about to be cast as
a teenager where probably she's cast as a dying mother
once again, and she actually says in the line I
have to die now I'm thirty six, essentially saying that,
(12:58):
but because she you so in such shock and so
sad about it that she's taping up her face singing
forever young and rather trying to make herself look younger
because he was in that crisis. But that is where
both of those things come into mind. Yes, forever young.
It's been sick in my head too. What did you know? Good?
I always thought of that as being like in your heart,
(13:19):
forever young? But what do I know? And then for me,
are you old enough? Which is a very creepy song
which is about this guy basically saying like are you
old enough to have sex with? But that was recently
featured in Wellington Paranormal and it has been stuck in
my head. But there's I mean, there's so many songs
about that, and right, yes, yes, and kind of like
(13:42):
a lot of times it is dudes like trying to
get young girls. And then there are plenty of songs
about you know that romanticized youth, and we're gonna look
into that as well. But yeah, that it's very present
and a lot of our media. I was also thinking
about book because like the Portrait of Dorian Gray, which
isn't women but kind of again shows this like real
(14:05):
historical preoccupation we've had with youth, or the old hag
feeding on the young maiden shop which is in snow white,
and pretty much every fairy tale features an older woman
and a younger woman. I don't take that youth, yes,
which is another way women have been pitted against each
other in our media. Um, but also if you move
(14:26):
out of that, like it's a compliment to say you
look so much younger, and it's one of those kind
of problematic compliments where what are you really saying and
what are we holding up with a compliment like that? Um,
there's this whole idea of like trying to get away
with it or looking you know, younger. And I was
(14:55):
thinking about this too in terms of I haven't been
shopping in am all in a very long time, but
I mean certainly within the past couple of years. I
always I still go to the junior section, and it's
because I feel like that closed their acuter and if
you go into like the women's section, it's all like
business clothes. Right, I'm not gonna lie. I've now jumped
(15:18):
away from the junior's clothing because their size no longer
makes sense to me, so I'm gonna go over here.
I think that's why I stay away from things like
the mall, where you have departments who are very like
ages in that they separated like that. In places like
Target where they do have the junior sections, I've seen it,
(15:39):
but the women's section and the junior section are similar
enough that it's like, Okay, there's not really the different
variations to this. I'm good with it. Um. And typically
it's just all like, hey, here's this one sweater. It
was like Ponchos season of the Ponchos. So I'm definitely
leaning into quote unquote my age clothed in that I'm
(16:00):
just rather but I've always dressed like this. There's nothing
in my wardrobes, I even being younger, that really said
this is a junior self of it. Like I never
really wore like jeans, I had holes in it. I
don't have one accidentally tripped and fell, and I you know,
like that's why, sure, But like it was never my
(16:22):
thing because I was always so self conscious that I
wanted to mute it down as much as possible. So
just as plain as playing can be is my my
go to and I still am that way to this day.
And again, I love cardigans and ponchos, and I feel
like that's definitely like older leaning, and I'm like, I'm
cool with that. I will forever wear that. This is
my this is who I am. Yeah, yeah, I mean
(16:44):
I do think there's I don't want to make it
sound like there aren't cute clothes for women who are
not juniors like older there are, but I feel like
in a traditional mall department store setting, it's like, oh
these are It's again like the breakdown of the badana
and the whore almost where it's like, oh, junior section, cuter,
cuter things, maybe some cleavage going on, and then like
(17:05):
business suits. Yeah, you have the dresses that has no
body shape and it's somehow doubles up to something else
and you're like what is this because yeah, even in shoes,
I do that, like this is obviously a younger kid
to stick with this, you know, not this, and it's
kind of like these are shoes I don't, right, Yeah,
(17:28):
And that's something I know a lot of my friends
and I have joked about because I'm really young at heart,
as they say, and I feel like I get judged
for liking childish things and a lot of times I'll
end up in like the boys section because they have
like Superhero shirts or Star Wars shirts and that's what
I like. Um. But then there's this whole idea of
(17:48):
like age appropriate clothing, which we could break down in
more seriously, but in terms of what we're talking about now,
it's like you reach an age and that's just you
have to wear, yeah, a formal, right, blanket, you know
what they give me? My mum, I've got my Star
Wars poncho. You know all of a good poncho. I
(18:11):
do too. I have not there's nothing wrong with it,
but I think we need our options and we need
to investigate why this is. You know, when it comes
to also, it's kind of the expense and who gets
what what is seen as stylish. And we also know
that we see that as in sizes too, like when
we talk about celebrities trying to find really nice, fancy
things and being told we're not going to give you this,
(18:33):
we're not gonna sponsor to you this, we don't want
you to wear this type a thing, um, And we
see that agism is a complete thing where we saw
Millie Bobby Brown got like ripped apart because they were like,
you wearing clothes as too old for you. And it's
kind of like, I don't understand she's wearing a cute
suit outfit. Yeah she's sixteen, but she's pulling it off
(18:54):
and she's coming to a fancy event. M what's what's
the problem and her right ripped for that. It's not
only it was sexy, and even them like, we need
to talk about that standard dress co standard outside of
this anyway, But all that say is why can't she
And then having older women who were wearing a little
bit tighter clothes and a few more things would be like,
that's that's too sexy. You're a mom, You're like does
(19:17):
that mean? Yeah, it's just another instance of policing women's
bodies and what they wear. And like we'll take we
being society at large, not me but personally, but any
opportunity to tear a woman down right um and make
her feel bad about her body. But yeah, like going
(19:38):
back to the you know that whole quote of like
looking good for your age, which is I think also
problematic in terms of behind your back. They might be
saying she's too old for that or whatever. You know,
never ask a woman her age, which really implies that
it's shameful and embarrassing to get older. And then yeah,
I was just kind of as you were talking, I
(19:59):
was kind of thinking about how clothing cycles, so like
what people might have been wearing in the eighties is
now popular nineties among younger people, and so it's kind
of like silly that will police people for this, but
when when the cycle comes back now, it's cool when
young people are right. I really kept some of my
(20:21):
clothes because it has. I'm like, I had that outfit,
like I picked out specifically, I wore that in junior
high school, in middle school. Cool cool cool. Yeah. And
I think one of the big things too, as you
were talking about, you know, being complimented, I I tell
my age. Obviously I'm very fed everyone knows my age.
I'm turning forty one soon, and it's kind of like,
oh god, I'm turning these a huge number. And then
(20:43):
comparing myself and this is really bad on me and
my own perspective as well as my own biases, was like,
do I look like that forty one year old? Because
I don't. I don't want to look like that like that.
There's levels of like I need to look younger, and
I want to tell people my age so they better
have a right reaction, like myad it's gonna be shocked
(21:03):
or disbelief because as a way that has to that
they're like okay, like son of and I just kind
of walk away. But there is that level as I'm
getting older, like but I don't look like that forty
one year older because I still have the image of
my mother being forty something when I was so young,
and now I'm like yeah, I look like my mother.
Obviously I don't because she's very white and I'm not. Uh,
(21:27):
there's very big differences, but the aging level of like wow,
it's weird. Yeah, And I think that kind it is.
I think, I think that line of thinking is really
it is encouraged by our media because I feel like
I see magazine headlines like that all the time, like
how did she accomplish this? Look? She looks so young
(21:48):
and right, I know, like you know, list thirty under thirty.
When I was researching this, this came up a lot
of like that's also kind of a troublesome line thinking,
But we do see it. We see it, and it
usually is trying to sell something where it's like how
does she do it with this retina cream? Of course,
(22:12):
it's the whole thing, you know, going back to it
is a whole conversation about how we look at youth
and how we treasure that and long for it. Sometimes
I don't want I wish there's a part of me
we're like, man, I do wish that I was able
to enjoy my youth in that I have so much
more confidence now than I did a more ten, fifteen,
(22:36):
even five years ago. Honestly not really like to ten
fifteen years ago and really wishing that I could have
gone back to be like, hey, it's okay, enjoy being
you instead of constantly being so self conscious that you
can't you feel awkward in any situation. And that's not
a way to enjoy life. That's the only part in that. Um.
(22:56):
But Yeah, in the West, the aging is often seen
as something shameful and to be hidden away and fought
against instead of being respected, which I'm like, let's get
back to that. Also, to be fair, some of the
boomers have not shown that level of I think, which
we could talk about that later, but like in general,
respecting age versus yeah, experience being invisible because we're no
(23:24):
longer relevant. We are elderly are often invisible to us.
And yeah, in the US, specifically in this culture, it's
kind of gross. Yeah, we don't respect. Of course, respect
is earned, but there's just that level of like, huh,
where's that sort of like we want to age that
(23:45):
means we've come through life okay, ish, we've survived it. Uh.
And we've long discussed the link between traditional beauty for
women and power, and that's a whole big conversation. Looking young,
(24:12):
especially when it comes to women, is a big business.
So many products promising to do away with any signs
of age. You can get rid of your wrinkles or
race gray hairs, get thinner and look younger, get dimples
that will make you look young to like almost everything.
When we did our episode of Ridiculous History where we
were talking about beauty trends, um kind of ridiculous beauty
(24:33):
trends or dangerous beauty trends of history, almost all of
them were about looking younger. Right, Oh yeah, absolutely, we're
looking wider both of those things. And some numbers for you,
because you know we love some numbers up in here.
As of two thousand eleven, Americans spent about ten point
four billion dollars on cosmetic surgery. The anti aging industry
(24:54):
is believed to be worth a hundred and forty billion dollars.
And then a two thousand eighteen study found that over
fifty percent of women aged eighteen to twenty four survey
agreed that an anti wrinkle treatment was essential to their
beauty regiment. I'm like, I don't think I have any
(25:15):
of those. I'm trying to think about it. Mine was
all about acting because I still get them. I got
one between with people right here. I'm like, I'm supposed
to be forty. This is not supposed to be an
issue anymore. It's okay. And this was a from twenty
percent who said the same thing in two thousand twelve
and searches for retinal I believed anti Asian ingredient doubled
(25:38):
in twenty twenty. Not gonna lie kind of us that
from my under eyes because I was like, WHOA, I
was like tired. Yeah, I've definitely tried products for my
under eyes. It's a minor very dark and baggy, and
that is because I don't sleep very well, among things.
But and yes, it's just disclaimer. We're not really coming
(26:00):
out against any of these things per se, but more
against the societal pressure that makes people, and in this
context mostly women feel like they have to do these
things that it has to do with their worth, and
I think there's a lot of fear around it, like
every day your skin is getting worse. I saw this.
I think it must have been in two thousand one
or two thousand two interview with oh, what's her name?
(26:23):
Naomi Watts, and she was saying, you know, my skin
The way I keep it this way is I put
on sound screen every day and ever since then, I
put on sun scary owns every day on my face. Um.
But that was like the power of it, because I
was like, what if if I if I mess it
up now, it'll be too late later. And yeah, this
does start at a young age, because I must have
(26:45):
been like, I don't know, fourteen, thirteen or fourteen. And
I saw that interview, and I remember when I was
in high school, this really traditionally pretty girl who was
like a year older than me. She was talking about
her anti wrinkle regimen that she was doing, and I
was I looked at her, like, oh my gosh, am
I supposed to be doing that already. And a lot
of anti wrinkle commercials do use young women that definitely
(27:08):
don't have wrinkles anywhere. If they do, they're airbushed out
or like not that many, right, And I find this interesting.
I think the other big problem is not we're not
saying that these things are awful or that you know,
the devil or anything. What we're saying is we see
this as a marketing racket that is completely aimed at women.
And if this is truly for their benefit, women's benefit.
(27:30):
Why the hell is this so damn expensive? That's the
other part. I'm like, what is happening? And then the
links and the way we're ruining the environment to get
to some of those things also really really problematic. Um
and it's all about that capitalism. Yeah, and we know this,
and I think that's part of the problem. Is it's
not so bad to want to try things that are
(27:51):
good for your skin or what you don't want to
do things preventatively whatever. I'm being self conscious and making
you feel good about yourself, that's one thing. But doing
it at what cost is the conversation as well as
who is benefiting it and why aren't we looking closer?
That's and of course we make fun of older women
(28:12):
who do it too, that they're pathetic and not fooling anyone,
despite the fact that we live in a society that
penalizes age and our further penalizing women for trying to
fit into that society that was created to go against
right essentially, so trying to fit into that narrative, trying
to make it a situation or having you know, uh,
(28:34):
the audacity to change something that they don't really find
uplifting for themselves. That's whole other conversation too. Why can't
we let it be? Yeah? And I think this has
been a big It's been something people have been discussing
a lot around um women and cosmetic surgery and all
of this stuff we're talking about. We could unpack further
in other episodes. But how like we're saying the joke
(28:56):
is your debt at thirty like the media ages thirty
three or whatever. And then and yet we make fun
of actresses who get cosmetic surgery to look younger when
that's their career and their job, and that is a problem.
It's a problem that that's true. But I think it's
very telling that we are making fun of people who
(29:16):
are trying to not lose their job essentially in a
really sexist, patriarchal, agist system, right, and also just knowing
that for a lot, And we can talk about the
Korean beauty standards, which is just which is a whole
different conversation in itself. That happens starts at a very
young age and being molded essentially into what is thought
(29:40):
of as the perfect body, the perfect face, the perfect
skin tone, like all of these things. It's such an
oh yeah, overwhelming sense of like what what are we
supposed to be doing? And for those who aren't within
that narrative, within that frame of thinking and or seeing looking,
(30:02):
what happens to those people completely dismissed and I'm not
seeing Yeah, Yeah, it's yeah, like we said, it starts
at such a young age and you really get inundated
with it and internalized it. I know there's been studies
that found by like the age of four, for young girls,
they're like wrinkles are bad, age is bad um and
a lot of other troubling beauty standards as well, just
(30:23):
so young we pick up on it. And like, going
back to your point when it comes to this whole
conversation of yeah, we want women to do what they
want to look to feel good about themselves or something
they might just enjoy. It's like when we talked about
in UM taking self care and you know, spa days.
That might really be your thing, but there is a
(30:44):
financial and time cost. And also this whole what we're
really talking about is the demonizing of age and particularly
for women. And also yeah, it's just that pressure, the
pressure to do it, like if you want to do it,
you know good for you, but it's I think a
lot of us feel like we have to do it,
(31:05):
and there is this kind of like a fear based
decision of oh no, my my value is going down.
I need to save up money and go get this
and go do this, and just feeling bad about yourself,
which I hate. Yeah. Um. And then when we look
at sexual assault and grooming, there so many instances like
we were talking about earlier, of older famous men grooming
(31:26):
younger often underage young women. Um. And there are even
pieces of media, in all kinds of media, directly about
that whole thing. Several recent studies have looked into why
growing numbers of young women are seeking cosmetic surgeries, with
one of the dominant theories being asked to do with
social media filters. So basically, you want to look as
(31:46):
airbrushed as your social media filter looks. You want to
match that. Um. But also obviously the constant bombardment of
messaging in our media. Again, we can unpack all of
the right and yeah, it's definitely grown. Maybe also accessibility
has grown. That needs to be part of that conversation too. Uh,
(32:09):
But it's always been there where if you think about
the women who literally went through plastic surgery to look
like Barbie, and that was before social media. She was
already famous because that was her whole stint. And then
there's been several more that follows suit and they're big influencers.
And that's kind of that other conversations the level of
what we look at as who are influencers, and it's
(32:31):
typically everything about looks. So it seems to me, especially
when it comes to women or non binary and it's
one thing to love makeup and do makeup that's gorgeous.
I really wish people could teach me how to do
do it well because I'm not one of those people think, well,
my niece is really good at it. She's actually a
makeup artist, and like, go ahead, do your things. I
don't know what this means, right, and like maybe I
(32:53):
need your help, But that's something different than that. That's
the influence and trying to get that perfect standard. And yes,
some of these what's we need to come back to
Annie is decide that a lot of these filters are
not made for women of color. Many times that I've
put it on my face and it did nothing, I
was like, what is this? And the fact of the
matter is because it's not for women of color, and
(33:16):
it doesn't do which is probably a good thing. Honestly,
I don't. I don't know. It looks yeah, I don't know.
There's many times when I did the filters like why why,
So it's probably a good thing. But many times when
there was nothing, I was like, oh, I'm too brown
for this. Interesting, will come back to that. Uh So.
(33:36):
Data from Okay cupids suggests, not surprisingly, that men seek
out slightly younger women when they may be the first
time women slightly older, but if men be married, they
seek out women have their age. The rating theory for
why is this is how men and women have been
socialized historically, with women more concerned about social status, men
(33:59):
more concerned with indicators of fertility. I wonder, though, I
have to go back, because We've talked about this a
little bit. Every time I've ever been on a site.
Most of the men, if they had an age preference,
if I would always do their own age as the
cap and younger m So if the man was thirty five,
(34:21):
it would be four like I've seen that, And there
will be several men who would do not even to that.
As they were getting older, the age would stay the same.
So they might be thirty eight, but their capped for
thirty five. And I'm kind of like, you're a thirty
y year old man, you want to have twenty four
year old what is what is happening? So I did
(34:43):
find that a lot like if it was specific, it
was much younger typically, and I found that very interesting.
So I find this like, I feel like that's underwhelming
of a report. Well, you know, it was only a
couple of thousands of people and all. So yeah, I
mean it's hard to I would imagine the data pool.
(35:06):
It's probably pretty significant, but not too significant when it
comes to remarrying and um and things like that. But
it was just interesting because he the founder, wanted to
look more into this and that's sort of the general
pattern that he saw, but yeah, be interested to find
out more. In the US Food and Drug Administration had
(35:41):
to release a statement advising against older people injecting themselves
with the plasma of younger people, the so called vampire treatment.
Soon after the FDA statement, California started up. Ambrosia Health
began offering one leader of quote youth blood for eight
thousand dollars and two leaders for twelve thousand dollars, and
several companies have popped up around blood and use in
(36:04):
this idea of like it's not always framed as it
will make you younger, but it's supposed to like revitalize
your body inside. And yeah, we talked about the vampire
facial as well. I feel like if you got like
just blood, that's going to start a lot of flowing
in your system, and typically not necessarily because you're healthier,
(36:24):
but because of like the flow, the blood flow, which
we know doesn't have a little to do with like
whether or not you are pale, you know all of that.
I feel like that whole narrative is misleading. But any
you want to go in, we'll buy two two for
one to pull the cheaper price. No, that's some weird
like blood bond is. Look at two bags. It's cheaper
(36:47):
to get too, obviously, look at it. There we go,
There we go. I have actually written a horror story
about this very thing. When it happened, I remember this
new story and I was like, it's happened. Speaking of
horror stories. UM. Q and on has gotten in on
this too. Um. Some followers of Q and on believe
that members of the Hollywood elite take a psychedelic drug
manufactured from the fear of children called adreno chrome, and
(37:11):
they also think that Monsters eight, the Pixar film is
essentially a forty and slip that that's what kind of
happens and Hollywood accidentally told on themselves. Um so the
story goes that this chemical is extracted from the pituitary
gland of tortured children. From what I can tell, the
actual adrena chrome is fairly easily obtained chemical. I don't
know that it's like legal, but it's not too hard
(37:34):
to get. Not that it's like it doesn't matter, they're
not going to listen to me. But obviously I know
they went as far as the saying that, yeah, pedophiles,
that eight children and that has something to do with
that as well, like keeping you as well, because as
a satanic ritual, right right you are you are something
(37:59):
else anyway. So there has been some pushback against these
narratives recently. In seventeen, Helen Maron appeared on the cover
of a Lord magazine where she was called the hero
we need and when it comes to ending the anti
aging industry. That same article got a lot of flak
(38:19):
for its promise to use different terms of things like
anti aging, anti wrinkle drawing criticism that it was just
repackaging the same stereotypes. Yeah, it was this whole thing.
It's kind of hard where you're like, I think this
is where we have a hard time with feminism as
well women, not because we don't think it exists and
we know it's necessary, but the fact that we have
(38:41):
to highlight it in such a way that it becomes
a typical and it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be like
they should just let it be. The opposite should be happening,
where we don't have to worry about aging. Instead of
highlighting it looks she looks so young and forever young
because she's successful. Now it's like we should change that
and make that a norm instead of trying to highlight
(39:02):
it being unusual. Can we do that same thing with
feminist stuff, Like we shouldn't be highlighting someone because they're
doing well as a woman, but we have to in
order for any recognition or any equity to be had.
And it's irritating. Yeah, oh yeah, but whatever the case.
People are finally getting tired of all of this. Yea
(39:22):
US included two thousand twelve worldwide study found a sixty
of respondents belief that our cultural preoccupation with youth have
gone too far. And yeah, I think we just started
to understand that as all of the regimens and the
turturies and the money that we could spend, and the
(39:43):
lies that are happening, and the influencers like keep spouting
miracle drug. Yeah. Yeah. And there are a lot of
reasons behind our cultural preoccupation with you, some of which
we've already talked about, and particularly in this context in
the West, one is yep, money, capitalism. People are believed
to be, not always accurately, actually the people who spend
(40:04):
more time on screens and thus are exposed to more ads.
Because of that, ads often are more geared towards younger
people and feature younger people, which intern leads to this
idea that youth is the norm and what we should
all strive for. We should all want to be these
beautiful young people were seeing in ads because they're cool
and there's something to aspire to. Again, generalizations, because most
(40:27):
ads I see these days are just cringe e. But
you know that's the idea. Um They represent people who
are connected and living life to the fullest people aged
eighteen to thirty have long been believed to have the
most disposable income, but again study found that people over
fifty accounted for over forty seven percent of household spending.
(40:47):
And that's been an interesting conversation to play out as
well of just like how these kids are just coming
out of college, how do they have disposable And I
think it's just a really false It kind of goes
back to this conversation where we're there's all this handwringing
over likens aren't buying houses and known cars anymore, and
we're like, yeah, because we are not the same generation
(41:08):
and we don't have we can't get jobs, we can't
get well paid jobs, Like it's different. But I think
they're basing it off of how it was and it's
a mistake and it's not the same anymore. Interesting I'm
baffle because I'm like, I didn't get a living wage,
truly living wage until I had three jobs and that
was just four years ago. Yeah. No, I think it's
(41:30):
really misinformed. I think it's based off of how it
was with like boomers who who had this postible right,
but it's not. So another reason our narratives around age,
especially for women, as something humiliating, in shapable, something to
fight against lest yeah, we need to we need to fight. Yeah,
(41:50):
for that, we need to fight to change it. Well,
let's just how when you think of because companies and
capitalism is so good at doing this and adapting, right,
So we're like, oh, we don't like anti agent. Quit
saying that in your ads, and they're like okay, And
so now they're using all these words like combat or
defy or implying that you're fighting against this thing, which
thereby implies that it is bad. Yeah. Yep. Another factor
(42:19):
is this long held belief that youth is linked to
fertility and health and women, and that's a young person,
particularly a woman, is a more desirable partner. And we've
talked about that a lot. This very unfortunate, unfortunate pressure
for young women like our sexual desirability, particularly when comes
of the male gaze, is also the value and youth
(42:40):
is usually almost always tied into that. A study of
dating sites conducted by sociologists at the University of Michigan
found that a woman's desirability to other website users began
to decline after age eighteen, whereas a man's desirability as
a potential date could peak as late as forty five,
which is just upsetting. That's eight. Yeah, yeah, this makes
(43:03):
me want of like flip the table over what eighteen
the hill. So in two thousand and eleven, study found
that men reported feeling old at fifty eight. For women,
oh yeah, twenty nine. Yeah. I always talk about I
make a joke about feeling older. It's typically because my
(43:24):
friend groups, I'm the older one of the friends groups,
so I always tease about the fact that I'm old.
I don't know if I started feeling really old until
recently when my hips started hurting, which I was running in.
My hips started hurting around thirty five, and I was like,
oh God, what's happening? And my back went out, and
I was like, yep, there it is. Yeah. I think
(43:47):
it's an interesting juxtaposition with conversations that you and I
have had. Whereas I don't necessarily feel old, but man,
am I already preparing for what if I slip in
the shower? Like I'm already imagining these scenarios and what
am I gonna do? Um? Which is I mean that
is also a big part of what we're talking about.
Too right that we've talked about that a lot of
(44:08):
this fear of ending up as the heaven forbid the
spinster who has no one who's gonna care for her,
and she's going to die alone, die alone. Un yep
it is, and we've talked about that recently, and we're
not going to go into too much history because we
did talk about it, and we have talked about it
in several things. If you didn't listen to our Ridiculous
(44:28):
History episode, you can hear us go into more examples
of the history of women trying to usually capture beauty
and youth through these very dangerous and painful looking things. Often,
but yes, there are so many instances throughout history of
people and especially women going to extreme measures to stay young,
whether it's Cleopatra bathing in the milk of animals, Elizabeth
(44:50):
Bathory allegedly bathing in the blood of virgins, Medieval and
Victorian practices of putting slices of meat or putting some
wine on the face and hope of minimizing the appearance
of wrinkles. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, ads
around skin creams were almost entirely targeted towards women with
these messages that looking young was the only way that
(45:11):
they could attract men. And here are some examples of
it at copy from this time, one claiming that quote
middle aged skin, which could set in as young as
twenty two, meant that women had quote empty date books
or a wife who quote loses love. There was an
ad that featured to Belieguered Cupid crying I give up
(45:32):
um a nineteen ad read poor lois, see how old
she's growing? Or this ad that asked is it the
greatest crisis of a woman's emotional life? The sudden merciless
message from a mirrors crystal dips you are fading just
a bit? How dare you? Yes, don't throw me? And
(45:54):
this is also like, I mean, no surprise, but depending
on the life you've had and career options you've had,
an environment you grew up in, your skin might just
get a little rougher around the edges, have access genetics,
there's all kinds of things not necessarily in your control
or at all in your control. And this is just terrible. Again,
(46:18):
I filled that's a threat. So as these days have
shifted gears to sound yes, more modern, moving from shaming
language to traditionally empowering language like defy or combat as
you had just said. And then there's also the health
based jargon for you, like vitality, radiance, or that glow
which I told recently that I was glowing. I was like, yeah,
(46:40):
I'm just really oil any things right. And there's a
lot of emphasis on natural and the scientific sounding terms,
which if you haven't noticed, we don't have many of
those ads that we boys because and he's like Helena
and I definitely agree. And in two thousand seven, Dove
even debuted a pro age line because we're pro age.
(47:01):
In eighteen and neut Regina ran an ad featuring Kerrie Washington,
Nicole Kidman, and Jennifer Garner, women all over forty with
a tagline We're not anti aging, We're anti recals. Yeah.
I feel like that's the same thing in that Well,
that's that's kind of this whole thing we've been talking about,
is we're these companies are so good at this. They're
(47:22):
repackaging the same thing different language, but it's still the
same thing with celebrity level of examples. Rather occasionally, these
companies get fine for making unsubstantiated claims like boosting Jenes.
If you'll notice the language in these ad copy is
usually quite vague, and I only did a precursorysearch on this,
(47:44):
but I'm fairly certain nothing has None of this has
been proven to work. All it does like a lot
of times they'll say might minimize the appearance of wrinkles
or something like that, but yeah, you might want to
keep an eye out for that. We've also got things, yes,
the vampire facial leeches and placentic treatments that celebrities are
singing the praises of, like some of the sounds when
(48:05):
I was reading up like surely this is the six
or something. Nope, it is modern day. So this has
just been a through line through our history. And also
like it is fascinating kind of what's been happening with
some of these women celebrities who have been releasing like
that non edited picture um, which is also we've talked
(48:28):
about that in the past episode, but it was a
couple of years ago, so we might want to revisit it.
That can be problematic as well. It's tricky, it's yeah,
but it's interesting, interesting stuff happening here. Well, all of
this rebranding around anti age was mostly due to the
fact that anti aging was already on the way out
from profits in that sector of fill from two point
(48:51):
to billion dollars to one point nine billion dollars. So yeah,
I do hope it decreases. I really do. Yeah. I
mean again, if it's something that makes you feel good
and you like it, like I have plenty of skin
products that just make my skin feel nice, and I
love a good just washing of the face, to be honest,
it's surprising how nice that can feel. But yeah, this
(49:14):
like language and rhetoric around demonizing aging and women especially
who are aging any signs of it, that's not healthy
and that we need to change and we need to
work change that, right and anything that's too gimmicky and
over the top versus the things that, yeah, again make
you feel good by yourself, that's great if that's something
(49:34):
that you enjoy and feel good, wonderful. But to be
obsessive and lose a lot of money and doing all
these things that really causes you more harm, that's that's
a different question in itself, and I think that that
that's definitely what we're talking about and understanding, Like aging
is not a bad thing, surviving is incredible good job,
you did it, which is kind of how I celebrate.
(49:56):
I get depressed around my birthday. I've been talking a
lot about depression likely uh, mainly because it has a
whole other connotation with trauma, and that has something to
do with the holidays, which happened around the season, and
I have a whole lot of like feelings on that.
But what I do celebrate the reason I don't hide
my ages because I'm like, yeah, I did it. Yeah,
I didn't think I can make it. I made it.
(50:17):
Forty one did it? Yes, So we're happy that you
did many more returns. Um. But that's the other thing
I was thinking about the other day, is I just
it's not a great way to live if every day
you're like you think your value is getting less, and
it's not a great way to go, um, go about life. Anyway.
(50:39):
We had a lot to say about this, Yes we
did well. Listeners. As always, we would love to hear
from you. You can email us at step Media, mom
Stuff at i heeart media dot com. You can find
us on Twitter at most of podcast or Instagram at
stuff I've Never told you things. As always, to our
super producer Christina, thank you, Thanks to you, for listening
stuff I never told his prediction of I Radio. For
(51:00):
more podcast on my Heart Radio VI is the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't welcome to
stuff I've never told you production of I Heart Radio.
So I feel like I have asked you this before,
and if so, you'll have to forgive me listeners. And Samantha, Um,
but what are your thoughts on immortality? I don't think
(00:28):
you've asked me this before because that is a very
broad in general question. Who knows a lot of conversations, Yes,
we have off and on my when it comes to immortality.
Mm hmmm. I have no thoughts other than it's not real,
So why are we talking about it. My own set,
(00:53):
my own sad take on death and immortality is that
I assumed I would have been dead of flour. I
would be dead before fifty five. And I think it's
just because of all the things that I've gone through
as a kid that it didn't make sense. But I
would extend past a certain time. I do have a
small fear of growing old. Actually have a lot of
(01:14):
fears in growing older, and as my body feels like
it's slowly giving out is getting worse, those little fears
and trying to figure out what to do just because
I don't want to go to like revert back to
being dependent on someone. And then, of course you and
I talked about the fact that if we don't have children,
who's gonna look after us, who's gonna care for us?
(01:35):
And what's gonna happen we can't care for ourselves. So
those are my thoughts on life and death and immortality.
I don't live forever because that sounds miserable, especially with
some of the things that have happened. Being a depressive,
it makes me sad to think that I would have
to be depressed with the rest of my life seeing
(01:55):
some of the bad things that have happened. I am
a pessimist, so it doesn't help. True, true, Yeah, I
mean it's interesting because I've always felt that way too.
Of like, immortality doesn't appeal to me unless people around
me that I cared about were and also that I
was in good like mental and physical condition. Um, even then,
(02:20):
it just sounds like eventually you'd get pretty bored. But
I don't know. I mean, I was telling you the
other day, it's like this Star Wars is gonna be
coming out when I die, And I never stopped true
that A care for you. Also as of late, like
the more we talked about the apocalypse and thinking if
it happens sooner the later, Oh lord, I don't know
if I want to be alive through that. That's yeah. Yeah,
(02:45):
we're starting out really griham with this one. Yeah, sure,
are sure are We're certainly not the only people who
have been talking about this and thinking about this and
as our technology shifts, because has been a part of
our cultural narrative forever, like when we talk about any
(03:05):
type of creature like vampires, and that's always like one
of the reasons I love what we do in the
shadows as you get to see how um wonky they are,
out of touch they are with their immortality. But as
as technology has advanced, people are legitimately talking about ways
to slow down or stop aging and or achieve immortality.
(03:26):
And I know Jeff Bezos was just in the news
for investing in something looking into this um and there
there's been a lot of movies about it, for sure.
If for anybody who's already like preemptively angry, that of
the language I used around that abaultics stopping aging. We'll
get to that. We'll get to that a second. But um,
as we are are moving into you listeners, know, we
(03:50):
love some Halloween, we love the season of fall and
the scary movies and spooky things. And as we're moving
into that, this is sort of a lower key tie
in because it's just this concept we've been talking about
for a couple of months now about dying to be
young and our cultural just real fascination and occupation with
(04:13):
being young and where did that come from and some
of the extremes that it has gone to. So to
start out with, we're gonna be talking about media because,
as we've talked about before, in in our popular media
and movies and TV, as a woman, it's a joke,
it's a running joke that you're dead after thirty, like
(04:35):
that's your career is over. Um. And the average age
of a Hollywood Stars female UM is thirty four, whereas
for a man it is forty six. So you can
already see that's ten your gap. Yes, yes, absolutely, oh
yeah so as in fact, an i AMDB study reported
(04:55):
on by Washington Post found that among twenty year old actors,
women get eight percent of the leading roles. By age thirty,
women only get of the leading roles, and past age forty,
men claim eight of the leading roles while women only
get twenty percent and have all these roles for women
to go to those thirty three any younger and men
(05:18):
overall just have way more roles available to them, and
we've seen that constantly. Yeah, I think I've told this
story before, but I remember so clearly watching I think
I was too young to be watching it, but I
was watching Entrapment and I turned to my friend and
I was like, why does she want to be with
Sean Connery? Question? But that being said, I know that
(05:44):
people can have age gaps and relationships it would be great,
but as a child, it just did not. I was like,
I don't understand this, And I think what we're talking
about here is not just that fact, but that it
is more acceptable to see you very young women with
older men to be more like yeah, absolutely normal, um
to the point that it reflects real life Leonardo DiCaprio
(06:06):
and everybody kind of just accepts it. Yeah, there's a
factor of like, uh what after a while, But in
the actuality was like, yeah, okay, obviously when it is
more acceptable than a woman doing that, because she is right,
And we've talked about that a lot before, about that
double standard of for men it's seen as like, oh,
(06:28):
props to you, You've got a young lady interested in you,
young lady, whereas for women, it's like she's praying upon
this young man and it must be for nefarious reasons, right, Yeah,
those are generalizations and stereotypes, but it's definitely more acceptable
for an older man to be with a younger woman
then vice versa. And so this whole, like all these
(06:50):
ideas around women in age in Hollywood, has been a
topic of conversation, especially among female celebrities who has spoken
out about this. Maggie Smith, Charlie's They're On, Sara, Jessica Parker,
Helen Mire, and Mel Street, Kate Lynchet, so many mostly
white women in this context. But a lot of it
is happening like now and within recent years. It's pretty
(07:10):
new in terms of how many women have spoken up
about it. And I did want to give some brief
like examples that were just top of mind for me,
because this is an idea that we see so often.
And one is um from Black Swan, which I watched recently,
where Winona Writer is this ballet dancer who's been like
(07:35):
head of the ballet. She's made a lot of money
for this troop, this huge New York troop, but then
all the other ballet danswers are kind of talking about
her behind her back and saying like, oh, she's dead,
like she's a dancing corpse, like she's so old. And
then Wanona Writer's character obviously being upset about this and
(07:55):
furious that she's given so much of herself to this company,
and then he just kind of unceremoniously to her away
when she gets older and replace her with Natalie Portman.
And even in terms of like the romance kind of
dynamic between the male leader of the ballet and an
own writer and then Natalie Portman. But that always stuck
(08:16):
with me. And Natalie Portman's character has that see where
she's like, oh, poor death um, like obviously feeling sympathy
and like seeing that happened with her mom when she
got pregnant, and feeling like I one day I will
be thrown away too. But yeah, that is always stuck
with me because it's like, like I said, it is
a running joke. We all know this joke and this idea,
(08:37):
and there are certain aspects that I get, like it's
weird because I understand that, you know, younger people in
general can do more athletic things. I don't know, but
still like that's really terrible to just be like, well,
you're done and you'll never work again. So another example,
I've never actually seen Black Swant, I need to go
(08:58):
back to it. But another exam a bowl would be
of course, our one of our episodes, First Wives Club.
I mean that is the ultimate story of being replaced
by younger women, as each one of the characters show,
whether it's Sarah Jessica Parker's character who is in competition
with Bette Midler, or even the therapist with Diane Keaton's
(09:22):
character you know who gets gets ran over her. And
then you've got the Goldie Hawn character, which she's replaced
by the sixteen year old actress because she I think
she's in her thirties. In this I'm pretty sure she
comments directly on what we're talking about and talking about
being replaced, and to the point that she plays the
hagmother who dies essentially an upcoming movie and heard thinking
(09:45):
she's coming in for the younger character and being like, whoops,
just kidding um, And so she retires out of film
to go onto Broadway because it's more acceptable for mature
women to be a part of. Essentially, Yeah, there are
so many things in that storyline on it altogether, just
talking about how women are said to pasture at a
(10:06):
certain age as if they are no longer of any purpose.
And we think about that with like menopause again, like
whether or not we're able to breed essentially, to put
it very bluntly, and or what our value is. And
when it comes to Hollywood, I'm sure and we have
seen it being even harsher narratives. But you know, in
everyday life people talk about that too, whether it's the
(10:26):
cliche of being left for a younger woman and or
having to compete with younger women for career or any
of those status is. You know, it's interesting to see.
But this movie was definitely one of those like, hey,
in your face, this is what's happening, right, commented, Right, yeah,
and we're gonna we're gonna break in break down some
(10:48):
of that. Um a bit more later about kind of
this pressure to be invisible as you get older as
a woman. And then I was thinking about this Amazon
movie called Neon Demon, which I don't know if you've
seen that, I have not. Okay, well it was a
very strange film, but it kind of That's why every
time I think of it, I feel like it's some
(11:09):
fever dream that I had. But it's about like models
in Hollywood, And is it L Fanning or Ellie Fanning?
L Fanning, I don't know, you know who I'm talking about. Yeah, yeah,
she comes into the young model into this world and
there's a lot of this movie is very up and
(11:29):
down and bumpy, but there was an interesting commentary on
the power of beauty and youth for women, and she
says something about, like, you know what the power she
feels when she walks into her room and everyone is
looking at her and feeling jealous of her. Of course,
these other models that have been in the game longer
than her don't like that, so they end up spoilers,
I guess how old is this movie is pretty old? Um,
they end up killing her and eating pieces of her
(11:50):
body to try to get her youth, including an eyeball.
Was really gruesome. Well okay then, but yeah, that was
just I did not expect that turn for one, But yeah,
it was another kind of example of this this pressure
to feel young and kind of that diminishing value of
(12:13):
like they were willing to murder this person to feel
like they were young and had in their minds more power.
And then on top of that, songs. We've been seeing
these songs, and I will say so for the first
song you picked out, because as you were and I
were talking about this episode, I told you in my head,
(12:34):
I can't stop seeing forever young. Also, that makes me
go back to a thirty Rock episode in which is
Jenna is being she has that same insidence of going
to a show because she's about to be cast as
a teenager where probably she's cast as a dying mother
once again, and she actually says in the line I
have to die now I'm thirty six, essentially saying that,
(12:58):
but because she you so in such shock and so
sad about it that she's taping up her face singing
forever young and rather trying to make herself look younger
because he was in that crisis. But that is where
both of those things come into mind. Yes, forever young.
It's been sick in my head too. What did you know? Good?
I always thought of that as being like in your heart,
(13:19):
forever young? But what do I know? And then for me,
are you old enough? Which is a very creepy song
which is about this guy basically saying like are you
old enough to have sex with? But that was recently
featured in Wellington Paranormal and it has been stuck in
my head. But there's I mean, there's so many songs
about that, and right, yes, yes, and kind of like
(13:42):
a lot of times it is dudes like trying to
get young girls. And then there are plenty of songs
about you know that romanticized youth, and we're gonna look
into that as well. But yeah, that it's very present
and a lot of our media. I was also thinking
about book because like the Portrait of Dorian Gray, which
isn't women but kind of again shows this like real
(14:05):
historical preoccupation we've had with youth, or the old hag
feeding on the young maiden shop which is in snow white,
and pretty much every fairy tale features an older woman
and a younger woman. I don't take that youth, yes,
which is another way women have been pitted against each
other in our media. Um, but also if you move
(14:26):
out of that, like it's a compliment to say you
look so much younger, and it's one of those kind
of problematic compliments where what are you really saying and
what are we holding up with a compliment like that? Um,
there's this whole idea of like trying to get away
with it or looking you know, younger. And I was
(14:55):
thinking about this too in terms of I haven't been
shopping in am all in a very long time, but
I mean certainly within the past couple of years. I
always I still go to the junior section, and it's
because I feel like that closed their acuter and if
you go into like the women's section, it's all like
business clothes. Right, I'm not gonna lie. I've now jumped
(15:18):
away from the junior's clothing because their size no longer
makes sense to me, so I'm gonna go over here.
I think that's why I stay away from things like
the mall, where you have departments who are very like
ages in that they separated like that. In places like
Target where they do have the junior sections, I've seen it,
(15:39):
but the women's section and the junior section are similar
enough that it's like, Okay, there's not really the different
variations to this. I'm good with it. Um. And typically
it's just all like, hey, here's this one sweater. It
was like Ponchos season of the Ponchos. So I'm definitely
leaning into quote unquote my age clothed in that I'm
(16:00):
just rather but I've always dressed like this. There's nothing
in my wardrobes, I even being younger, that really said
this is a junior self of it. Like I never
really wore like jeans, I had holes in it. I
don't have one accidentally tripped and fell, and I you know,
like that's why, sure, But like it was never my
(16:22):
thing because I was always so self conscious that I
wanted to mute it down as much as possible. So
just as plain as playing can be is my my
go to and I still am that way to this day.
And again, I love cardigans and ponchos, and I feel
like that's definitely like older leaning, and I'm like, I'm
cool with that. I will forever wear that. This is
my this is who I am. Yeah, yeah, I mean
(16:44):
I do think there's I don't want to make it
sound like there aren't cute clothes for women who are
not juniors like older there are, but I feel like
in a traditional mall department store setting, it's like, oh
these are It's again like the breakdown of the badana
and the whore almost where it's like, oh, junior section, cuter,
cuter things, maybe some cleavage going on, and then like
(17:05):
business suits. Yeah, you have the dresses that has no
body shape and it's somehow doubles up to something else
and you're like what is this because yeah, even in shoes,
I do that, like this is obviously a younger kid
to stick with this, you know, not this, and it's
kind of like these are shoes I don't, right, Yeah,
(17:28):
And that's something I know a lot of my friends
and I have joked about because I'm really young at heart,
as they say, and I feel like I get judged
for liking childish things and a lot of times I'll
end up in like the boys section because they have
like Superhero shirts or Star Wars shirts and that's what
I like. Um. But then there's this whole idea of
(17:48):
like age appropriate clothing, which we could break down in
more seriously, but in terms of what we're talking about now,
it's like you reach an age and that's just you
have to wear, yeah, a formal, right, blanket, you know
what they give me? My mum, I've got my Star
Wars poncho. You know all of a good poncho. I
(18:11):
do too. I have not there's nothing wrong with it,
but I think we need our options and we need
to investigate why this is. You know, when it comes
to also, it's kind of the expense and who gets
what what is seen as stylish. And we also know
that we see that as in sizes too, like when
we talk about celebrities trying to find really nice, fancy
things and being told we're not going to give you this,
(18:33):
we're not gonna sponsor to you this, we don't want
you to wear this type a thing, um, And we
see that agism is a complete thing where we saw
Millie Bobby Brown got like ripped apart because they were like,
you wearing clothes as too old for you. And it's
kind of like, I don't understand she's wearing a cute
suit outfit. Yeah she's sixteen, but she's pulling it off
(18:54):
and she's coming to a fancy event. M what's what's
the problem and her right ripped for that. It's not
only it was sexy, and even them like, we need
to talk about that standard dress co standard outside of
this anyway, But all that say is why can't she
And then having older women who were wearing a little
bit tighter clothes and a few more things would be like,
that's that's too sexy. You're a mom, You're like does
(19:17):
that mean? Yeah, it's just another instance of policing women's
bodies and what they wear. And like we'll take we
being society at large, not me but personally, but any
opportunity to tear a woman down right um and make
her feel bad about her body. But yeah, like going
(19:38):
back to the you know that whole quote of like
looking good for your age, which is I think also
problematic in terms of behind your back. They might be
saying she's too old for that or whatever. You know,
never ask a woman her age, which really implies that
it's shameful and embarrassing to get older. And then yeah,
I was just kind of as you were talking, I
(19:59):
was kind of thinking about how clothing cycles, so like
what people might have been wearing in the eighties is
now popular nineties among younger people, and so it's kind
of like silly that will police people for this, but
when when the cycle comes back now, it's cool when
young people are right. I really kept some of my
(20:21):
clothes because it has. I'm like, I had that outfit,
like I picked out specifically, I wore that in junior
high school, in middle school. Cool cool cool. Yeah. And
I think one of the big things too, as you
were talking about, you know, being complimented, I I tell
my age. Obviously I'm very fed everyone knows my age.
I'm turning forty one soon, and it's kind of like,
oh god, I'm turning these a huge number. And then
(20:43):
comparing myself and this is really bad on me and
my own perspective as well as my own biases, was like,
do I look like that forty one year old? Because
I don't. I don't want to look like that like that.
There's levels of like I need to look younger, and
I want to tell people my age so they better
have a right reaction, like myad it's gonna be shocked
(21:03):
or disbelief because as a way that has to that
they're like okay, like son of and I just kind
of walk away. But there is that level as I'm
getting older, like but I don't look like that forty
one year older because I still have the image of
my mother being forty something when I was so young,
and now I'm like yeah, I look like my mother.
Obviously I don't because she's very white and I'm not. Uh,
(21:27):
there's very big differences, but the aging level of like wow,
it's weird. Yeah, And I think that kind it is.
I think, I think that line of thinking is really
it is encouraged by our media because I feel like
I see magazine headlines like that all the time, like
how did she accomplish this? Look? She looks so young
(21:48):
and right, I know, like you know, list thirty under thirty.
When I was researching this, this came up a lot
of like that's also kind of a troublesome line thinking,
But we do see it. We see it, and it
usually is trying to sell something where it's like how
does she do it with this retina cream? Of course,
(22:12):
it's the whole thing, you know, going back to it
is a whole conversation about how we look at youth
and how we treasure that and long for it. Sometimes
I don't want I wish there's a part of me
we're like, man, I do wish that I was able
to enjoy my youth in that I have so much
more confidence now than I did a more ten, fifteen,
(22:36):
even five years ago. Honestly not really like to ten
fifteen years ago and really wishing that I could have
gone back to be like, hey, it's okay, enjoy being
you instead of constantly being so self conscious that you
can't you feel awkward in any situation. And that's not
a way to enjoy life. That's the only part in that. Um.
(22:56):
But Yeah, in the West, the aging is often seen
as something shameful and to be hidden away and fought
against instead of being respected, which I'm like, let's get
back to that. Also, to be fair, some of the
boomers have not shown that level of I think, which
we could talk about that later, but like in general,
respecting age versus yeah, experience being invisible because we're no
(23:24):
longer relevant. We are elderly are often invisible to us.
And yeah, in the US, specifically in this culture, it's
kind of gross. Yeah, we don't respect. Of course, respect
is earned, but there's just that level of like, huh,
where's that sort of like we want to age that
(23:45):
means we've come through life okay, ish, we've survived it. Uh.
And we've long discussed the link between traditional beauty for
women and power, and that's a whole big conversation. Looking young,
(24:12):
especially when it comes to women, is a big business.
So many products promising to do away with any signs
of age. You can get rid of your wrinkles or
race gray hairs, get thinner and look younger, get dimples
that will make you look young to like almost everything.
When we did our episode of Ridiculous History where we
were talking about beauty trends, um kind of ridiculous beauty
(24:33):
trends or dangerous beauty trends of history, almost all of
them were about looking younger. Right, Oh yeah, absolutely, we're
looking wider both of those things. And some numbers for you,
because you know we love some numbers up in here.
As of two thousand eleven, Americans spent about ten point
four billion dollars on cosmetic surgery. The anti aging industry
(24:54):
is believed to be worth a hundred and forty billion dollars.
And then a two thousand eighteen study found that over
fifty percent of women aged eighteen to twenty four survey
agreed that an anti wrinkle treatment was essential to their
beauty regiment. I'm like, I don't think I have any
(25:15):
of those. I'm trying to think about it. Mine was
all about acting because I still get them. I got
one between with people right here. I'm like, I'm supposed
to be forty. This is not supposed to be an
issue anymore. It's okay. And this was a from twenty
percent who said the same thing in two thousand twelve
and searches for retinal I believed anti Asian ingredient doubled
(25:38):
in twenty twenty. Not gonna lie kind of us that
from my under eyes because I was like, WHOA, I
was like tired. Yeah, I've definitely tried products for my
under eyes. It's a minor very dark and baggy, and
that is because I don't sleep very well, among things.
But and yes, it's just disclaimer. We're not really coming
(26:00):
out against any of these things per se, but more
against the societal pressure that makes people, and in this
context mostly women feel like they have to do these
things that it has to do with their worth, and
I think there's a lot of fear around it, like
every day your skin is getting worse. I saw this.
I think it must have been in two thousand one
or two thousand two interview with oh, what's her name?
(26:23):
Naomi Watts, and she was saying, you know, my skin
The way I keep it this way is I put
on sound screen every day and ever since then, I
put on sun scary owns every day on my face. Um.
But that was like the power of it, because I
was like, what if if I if I mess it
up now, it'll be too late later. And yeah, this
does start at a young age, because I must have
(26:45):
been like, I don't know, fourteen, thirteen or fourteen. And
I saw that interview, and I remember when I was
in high school, this really traditionally pretty girl who was
like a year older than me. She was talking about
her anti wrinkle regimen that she was doing, and I
was I looked at her, like, oh my gosh, am
I supposed to be doing that already. And a lot
of anti wrinkle commercials do use young women that definitely
(27:08):
don't have wrinkles anywhere. If they do, they're airbushed out
or like not that many, right, And I find this interesting.
I think the other big problem is not we're not
saying that these things are awful or that you know,
the devil or anything. What we're saying is we see
this as a marketing racket that is completely aimed at women.
And if this is truly for their benefit, women's benefit.
(27:30):
Why the hell is this so damn expensive? That's the
other part. I'm like, what is happening? And then the
links and the way we're ruining the environment to get
to some of those things also really really problematic. Um
and it's all about that capitalism. Yeah, and we know this,
and I think that's part of the problem. Is it's
not so bad to want to try things that are
(27:51):
good for your skin or what you don't want to
do things preventatively whatever. I'm being self conscious and making
you feel good about yourself, that's one thing. But doing
it at what cost is the conversation as well as
who is benefiting it and why aren't we looking closer?
That's and of course we make fun of older women
(28:12):
who do it too, that they're pathetic and not fooling anyone,
despite the fact that we live in a society that
penalizes age and our further penalizing women for trying to
fit into that society that was created to go against
right essentially, so trying to fit into that narrative, trying
to make it a situation or having you know, uh,
(28:34):
the audacity to change something that they don't really find
uplifting for themselves. That's whole other conversation too. Why can't
we let it be? Yeah? And I think this has
been a big It's been something people have been discussing
a lot around um women and cosmetic surgery and all
of this stuff we're talking about. We could unpack further
in other episodes. But how like we're saying the joke
(28:56):
is your debt at thirty like the media ages thirty
three or whatever. And then and yet we make fun
of actresses who get cosmetic surgery to look younger when
that's their career and their job, and that is a problem.
It's a problem that that's true. But I think it's
very telling that we are making fun of people who
(29:16):
are trying to not lose their job essentially in a
really sexist, patriarchal, agist system, right, and also just knowing
that for a lot, And we can talk about the
Korean beauty standards, which is just which is a whole
different conversation in itself. That happens starts at a very
young age and being molded essentially into what is thought
(29:40):
of as the perfect body, the perfect face, the perfect
skin tone, like all of these things. It's such an
oh yeah, overwhelming sense of like what what are we
supposed to be doing? And for those who aren't within
that narrative, within that frame of thinking and or seeing looking,
(30:02):
what happens to those people completely dismissed and I'm not
seeing Yeah, Yeah, it's yeah, like we said, it starts
at such a young age and you really get inundated
with it and internalized it. I know there's been studies
that found by like the age of four, for young girls,
they're like wrinkles are bad, age is bad um and
a lot of other troubling beauty standards as well, just
(30:23):
so young we pick up on it. And like, going
back to your point when it comes to this whole
conversation of yeah, we want women to do what they
want to look to feel good about themselves or something
they might just enjoy. It's like when we talked about
in UM taking self care and you know, spa days.
That might really be your thing, but there is a
(30:44):
financial and time cost. And also this whole what we're
really talking about is the demonizing of age and particularly
for women. And also yeah, it's just that pressure, the
pressure to do it, like if you want to do it,
you know good for you, but it's I think a
lot of us feel like we have to do it,
(31:05):
and there is this kind of like a fear based
decision of oh no, my my value is going down.
I need to save up money and go get this
and go do this, and just feeling bad about yourself,
which I hate. Yeah. Um. And then when we look
at sexual assault and grooming, there so many instances like
we were talking about earlier, of older famous men grooming
(31:26):
younger often underage young women. Um. And there are even
pieces of media, in all kinds of media, directly about
that whole thing. Several recent studies have looked into why
growing numbers of young women are seeking cosmetic surgeries, with
one of the dominant theories being asked to do with
social media filters. So basically, you want to look as
(31:46):
airbrushed as your social media filter looks. You want to
match that. Um. But also obviously the constant bombardment of
messaging in our media. Again, we can unpack all of
the right and yeah, it's definitely grown. Maybe also accessibility
has grown. That needs to be part of that conversation too. Uh,
(32:09):
But it's always been there where if you think about
the women who literally went through plastic surgery to look
like Barbie, and that was before social media. She was
already famous because that was her whole stint. And then
there's been several more that follows suit and they're big influencers.
And that's kind of that other conversations the level of
what we look at as who are influencers, and it's
(32:31):
typically everything about looks. So it seems to me, especially
when it comes to women or non binary and it's
one thing to love makeup and do makeup that's gorgeous.
I really wish people could teach me how to do
do it well because I'm not one of those people think, well,
my niece is really good at it. She's actually a
makeup artist, and like, go ahead, do your things. I
don't know what this means, right, and like maybe I
(32:53):
need your help, But that's something different than that. That's
the influence and trying to get that perfect standard. And yes,
some of these what's we need to come back to
Annie is decide that a lot of these filters are
not made for women of color. Many times that I've
put it on my face and it did nothing, I
was like, what is this? And the fact of the
matter is because it's not for women of color, and
(33:16):
it doesn't do which is probably a good thing. Honestly,
I don't. I don't know. It looks yeah, I don't know.
There's many times when I did the filters like why why,
So it's probably a good thing. But many times when
there was nothing, I was like, oh, I'm too brown
for this. Interesting, will come back to that. Uh So.
(33:36):
Data from Okay cupids suggests, not surprisingly, that men seek
out slightly younger women when they may be the first
time women slightly older, but if men be married, they
seek out women have their age. The rating theory for
why is this is how men and women have been
socialized historically, with women more concerned about social status, men
(33:59):
more concerned with indicators of fertility. I wonder, though, I
have to go back, because We've talked about this a
little bit. Every time I've ever been on a site.
Most of the men, if they had an age preference,
if I would always do their own age as the
cap and younger m So if the man was thirty five,
(34:21):
it would be four like I've seen that, And there
will be several men who would do not even to that.
As they were getting older, the age would stay the same.
So they might be thirty eight, but their capped for
thirty five. And I'm kind of like, you're a thirty
y year old man, you want to have twenty four
year old what is what is happening? So I did
(34:43):
find that a lot like if it was specific, it
was much younger typically, and I found that very interesting.
So I find this like, I feel like that's underwhelming
of a report. Well, you know, it was only a
couple of thousands of people and all. So yeah, I
mean it's hard to I would imagine the data pool.
(35:06):
It's probably pretty significant, but not too significant when it
comes to remarrying and um and things like that. But
it was just interesting because he the founder, wanted to
look more into this and that's sort of the general
pattern that he saw, but yeah, be interested to find
out more. In the US Food and Drug Administration had
(35:41):
to release a statement advising against older people injecting themselves
with the plasma of younger people, the so called vampire treatment.
Soon after the FDA statement, California started up. Ambrosia Health
began offering one leader of quote youth blood for eight
thousand dollars and two leaders for twelve thousand dollars, and
several companies have popped up around blood and use in
(36:04):
this idea of like it's not always framed as it
will make you younger, but it's supposed to like revitalize
your body inside. And yeah, we talked about the vampire
facial as well. I feel like if you got like
just blood, that's going to start a lot of flowing
in your system, and typically not necessarily because you're healthier,
(36:24):
but because of like the flow, the blood flow, which
we know doesn't have a little to do with like
whether or not you are pale, you know all of that.
I feel like that whole narrative is misleading. But any
you want to go in, we'll buy two two for
one to pull the cheaper price. No, that's some weird
like blood bond is. Look at two bags. It's cheaper
(36:47):
to get too, obviously, look at it. There we go,
There we go. I have actually written a horror story
about this very thing. When it happened, I remember this
new story and I was like, it's happened. Speaking of
horror stories. UM. Q and on has gotten in on
this too. Um. Some followers of Q and on believe
that members of the Hollywood elite take a psychedelic drug
manufactured from the fear of children called adreno chrome, and
(37:11):
they also think that Monsters eight, the Pixar film is
essentially a forty and slip that that's what kind of
happens and Hollywood accidentally told on themselves. Um so the
story goes that this chemical is extracted from the pituitary
gland of tortured children. From what I can tell, the
actual adrena chrome is fairly easily obtained chemical. I don't
know that it's like legal, but it's not too hard
(37:34):
to get. Not that it's like it doesn't matter, they're
not going to listen to me. But obviously I know
they went as far as the saying that, yeah, pedophiles,
that eight children and that has something to do with
that as well, like keeping you as well, because as
a satanic ritual, right right you are you are something
(37:59):
else anyway. So there has been some pushback against these
narratives recently. In seventeen, Helen Maron appeared on the cover
of a Lord magazine where she was called the hero
we need and when it comes to ending the anti
aging industry. That same article got a lot of flak
(38:19):
for its promise to use different terms of things like
anti aging, anti wrinkle drawing criticism that it was just
repackaging the same stereotypes. Yeah, it was this whole thing.
It's kind of hard where you're like, I think this
is where we have a hard time with feminism as
well women, not because we don't think it exists and
we know it's necessary, but the fact that we have
(38:41):
to highlight it in such a way that it becomes
a typical and it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be like
they should just let it be. The opposite should be happening,
where we don't have to worry about aging. Instead of
highlighting it looks she looks so young and forever young
because she's successful. Now it's like we should change that
and make that a norm instead of trying to highlight
(39:02):
it being unusual. Can we do that same thing with
feminist stuff, Like we shouldn't be highlighting someone because they're
doing well as a woman, but we have to in
order for any recognition or any equity to be had.
And it's irritating. Yeah, oh yeah, but whatever the case.
People are finally getting tired of all of this. Yea
(39:22):
US included two thousand twelve worldwide study found a sixty
of respondents belief that our cultural preoccupation with youth have
gone too far. And yeah, I think we just started
to understand that as all of the regimens and the
turturies and the money that we could spend, and the
(39:43):
lies that are happening, and the influencers like keep spouting
miracle drug. Yeah. Yeah. And there are a lot of
reasons behind our cultural preoccupation with you, some of which
we've already talked about, and particularly in this context in
the West, one is yep, money, capitalism. People are believed
to be, not always accurately, actually the people who spend
(40:04):
more time on screens and thus are exposed to more ads.
Because of that, ads often are more geared towards younger
people and feature younger people, which intern leads to this
idea that youth is the norm and what we should
all strive for. We should all want to be these
beautiful young people were seeing in ads because they're cool
and there's something to aspire to. Again, generalizations, because most
(40:27):
ads I see these days are just cringe e. But
you know that's the idea. Um They represent people who
are connected and living life to the fullest people aged
eighteen to thirty have long been believed to have the
most disposable income, but again study found that people over
fifty accounted for over forty seven percent of household spending.
(40:47):
And that's been an interesting conversation to play out as
well of just like how these kids are just coming
out of college, how do they have disposable And I
think it's just a really false It kind of goes
back to this conversation where we're there's all this handwringing
over likens aren't buying houses and known cars anymore, and
we're like, yeah, because we are not the same generation
(41:08):
and we don't have we can't get jobs, we can't
get well paid jobs, Like it's different. But I think
they're basing it off of how it was and it's
a mistake and it's not the same anymore. Interesting I'm
baffle because I'm like, I didn't get a living wage,
truly living wage until I had three jobs and that
was just four years ago. Yeah. No, I think it's
(41:30):
really misinformed. I think it's based off of how it
was with like boomers who who had this postible right,
but it's not. So another reason our narratives around age,
especially for women, as something humiliating, in shapable, something to
fight against lest yeah, we need to we need to fight. Yeah,
(41:50):
for that, we need to fight to change it. Well,
let's just how when you think of because companies and
capitalism is so good at doing this and adapting, right,
So we're like, oh, we don't like anti agent. Quit
saying that in your ads, and they're like okay, And
so now they're using all these words like combat or
defy or implying that you're fighting against this thing, which
thereby implies that it is bad. Yeah. Yep. Another factor
(42:19):
is this long held belief that youth is linked to
fertility and health and women, and that's a young person,
particularly a woman, is a more desirable partner. And we've
talked about that a lot. This very unfortunate, unfortunate pressure
for young women like our sexual desirability, particularly when comes
of the male gaze, is also the value and youth
(42:40):
is usually almost always tied into that. A study of
dating sites conducted by sociologists at the University of Michigan
found that a woman's desirability to other website users began
to decline after age eighteen, whereas a man's desirability as
a potential date could peak as late as forty five,
which is just upsetting. That's eight. Yeah, yeah, this makes
(43:03):
me want of like flip the table over what eighteen
the hill. So in two thousand and eleven, study found
that men reported feeling old at fifty eight. For women,
oh yeah, twenty nine. Yeah. I always talk about I
make a joke about feeling older. It's typically because my
(43:24):
friend groups, I'm the older one of the friends groups,
so I always tease about the fact that I'm old.
I don't know if I started feeling really old until
recently when my hips started hurting, which I was running in.
My hips started hurting around thirty five, and I was like,
oh God, what's happening? And my back went out, and
I was like, yep, there it is. Yeah. I think
(43:47):
it's an interesting juxtaposition with conversations that you and I
have had. Whereas I don't necessarily feel old, but man,
am I already preparing for what if I slip in
the shower? Like I'm already imagining these scenarios and what
am I gonna do? Um? Which is I mean that
is also a big part of what we're talking about.
Too right that we've talked about that a lot of
(44:08):
this fear of ending up as the heaven forbid the
spinster who has no one who's gonna care for her,
and she's going to die alone, die alone. Un yep
it is, and we've talked about that recently, and we're
not going to go into too much history because we
did talk about it, and we have talked about it
in several things. If you didn't listen to our Ridiculous
(44:28):
History episode, you can hear us go into more examples
of the history of women trying to usually capture beauty
and youth through these very dangerous and painful looking things. Often,
but yes, there are so many instances throughout history of
people and especially women going to extreme measures to stay young,
whether it's Cleopatra bathing in the milk of animals, Elizabeth
(44:50):
Bathory allegedly bathing in the blood of virgins, Medieval and
Victorian practices of putting slices of meat or putting some
wine on the face and hope of minimizing the appearance
of wrinkles. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, ads
around skin creams were almost entirely targeted towards women with
these messages that looking young was the only way that
(45:11):
they could attract men. And here are some examples of
it at copy from this time, one claiming that quote
middle aged skin, which could set in as young as
twenty two, meant that women had quote empty date books
or a wife who quote loses love. There was an
ad that featured to Belieguered Cupid crying I give up
(45:32):
um a nineteen ad read poor lois, see how old
she's growing? Or this ad that asked is it the
greatest crisis of a woman's emotional life? The sudden merciless
message from a mirrors crystal dips you are fading just
a bit? How dare you? Yes, don't throw me? And
(45:54):
this is also like, I mean, no surprise, but depending
on the life you've had and career options you've had,
an environment you grew up in, your skin might just
get a little rougher around the edges, have access genetics,
there's all kinds of things not necessarily in your control
or at all in your control. And this is just terrible. Again,
(46:18):
I filled that's a threat. So as these days have
shifted gears to sound yes, more modern, moving from shaming
language to traditionally empowering language like defy or combat as
you had just said. And then there's also the health
based jargon for you, like vitality, radiance, or that glow
which I told recently that I was glowing. I was like, yeah,
(46:40):
I'm just really oil any things right. And there's a
lot of emphasis on natural and the scientific sounding terms,
which if you haven't noticed, we don't have many of
those ads that we boys because and he's like Helena
and I definitely agree. And in two thousand seven, Dove
even debuted a pro age line because we're pro age.
(47:01):
In eighteen and neut Regina ran an ad featuring Kerrie Washington,
Nicole Kidman, and Jennifer Garner, women all over forty with
a tagline We're not anti aging, We're anti recals. Yeah.
I feel like that's the same thing in that Well,
that's that's kind of this whole thing we've been talking about,
is we're these companies are so good at this. They're
(47:22):
repackaging the same thing different language, but it's still the
same thing with celebrity level of examples. Rather occasionally, these
companies get fine for making unsubstantiated claims like boosting Jenes.
If you'll notice the language in these ad copy is
usually quite vague, and I only did a precursorysearch on this,
(47:44):
but I'm fairly certain nothing has None of this has
been proven to work. All it does like a lot
of times they'll say might minimize the appearance of wrinkles
or something like that, but yeah, you might want to
keep an eye out for that. We've also got things, yes,
the vampire facial leeches and placentic treatments that celebrities are
singing the praises of, like some of the sounds when
(48:05):
I was reading up like surely this is the six
or something. Nope, it is modern day. So this has
just been a through line through our history. And also
like it is fascinating kind of what's been happening with
some of these women celebrities who have been releasing like
that non edited picture um, which is also we've talked
(48:28):
about that in the past episode, but it was a
couple of years ago, so we might want to revisit it.
That can be problematic as well. It's tricky, it's yeah,
but it's interesting, interesting stuff happening here. Well, all of
this rebranding around anti age was mostly due to the
fact that anti aging was already on the way out
from profits in that sector of fill from two point
(48:51):
to billion dollars to one point nine billion dollars. So yeah,
I do hope it decreases. I really do. Yeah. I
mean again, if it's something that makes you feel good
and you like it, like I have plenty of skin
products that just make my skin feel nice, and I
love a good just washing of the face, to be honest,
it's surprising how nice that can feel. But yeah, this
(49:14):
like language and rhetoric around demonizing aging and women especially
who are aging any signs of it, that's not healthy
and that we need to change and we need to
work change that, right and anything that's too gimmicky and
over the top versus the things that, yeah, again make
you feel good by yourself, that's great if that's something
(49:34):
that you enjoy and feel good, wonderful. But to be
obsessive and lose a lot of money and doing all
these things that really causes you more harm, that's that's
a different question in itself, and I think that that
that's definitely what we're talking about and understanding, Like aging
is not a bad thing, surviving is incredible good job,
you did it, which is kind of how I celebrate.
(49:56):
I get depressed around my birthday. I've been talking a
lot about depression likely uh, mainly because it has a
whole other connotation with trauma, and that has something to
do with the holidays, which happened around the season, and
I have a whole lot of like feelings on that.
But what I do celebrate the reason I don't hide
my ages because I'm like, yeah, I did it. Yeah,
I didn't think I can make it. I made it.
(50:17):
Forty one did it? Yes, So we're happy that you
did many more returns. Um. But that's the other thing
I was thinking about the other day, is I just
it's not a great way to live if every day
you're like you think your value is getting less, and
it's not a great way to go, um, go about life. Anyway.
(50:39):
We had a lot to say about this, Yes we
did well. Listeners. As always, we would love to hear
from you. You can email us at step Media, mom
Stuff at i heeart media dot com. You can find
us on Twitter at most of podcast or Instagram at
stuff I've Never told you things. As always, to our
super producer Christina, thank you, Thanks to you, for listening
stuff I never told his prediction of I Radio. For
(51:00):
more podcast on my Heart Radio VI is the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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