With the recent appearance of the aged Joan Didion, Charlotte Rampling and Jessica Lange fronting ad campaigns, Radio 4's Woman's Hour last week asked if it's just a cynical marketing ploy of advertisers to use women of a certain age to sell products or a change in attitudes towards the ageing woman?
Advertisers cynical?
All advertising is about making us buy the things they want to sell, none of it is about our health, happiness or wellbeing. It's not about right and wrong it's about shifting product and was ever thus. Romantic love was, as Don Draper, explained, invented by mad men to sell women like us nylons.... and we bought it.
Honestly, does it really matter why 'old' women are being used in advertising campaigns? Sometimes, I do feel that Woman's Hour, much though I love it, does just like to carp on for the sake of it. They don't like it when young upstarts are used so sell the middle-aged beauty creams so why not just enjoy all the grey hair and wrinkles while it lasts?
I don't think it really matters who tries to sell us beauty products ….. none of them are going to make us look any younger or look like these actresses etc. All that creams can do is make our skin a little bit softer and a little less dry. Once the collagen has gone, it's gone !!!! … and, unless one wants to use Botox and look like one is contantly in a wind tunnel, we need to grow old gracefully !! The whole of Hollywood { and over here now } look like the Stepford Wives !! Beauty product rant over, I LOVE Angelica Huston and will definitely get her books. XXXX
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteWell, darling Jackie has said it all so perfectly. It seems to us that certain types of women at certain types of parties all wish to look alike. There is not a facial expression amongst them and, together, they look like a doll collection. The men, invariably, look hundreds of years older than their partners with hair which has a life of its own! Not for us!
The Huston family have generations of talent between them. We are fans. We can well imagine that the book makes riveting reading......she was quite the wild child in her youth!
Must read those books.
ReplyDeleteWell, when we were young advertisers told us we needed long slender legs and bouncy hair and thick flirty eyelashes. It's the same thing now only advanced by a few years. Tout ca change, tout c'est la meme chose. Meanwhile, can't wait to read Angelica's book. Thanks for the tip.
ReplyDeleteI rather like the 'older' women advertising, but that's because I'm old too!
ReplyDeleteAnd I will be looking out for Anjelica's books too, because anyone who almost tamed Jack Nicholson has got to be interesting!
Do keep in touch and maybe we can go to Tea and Sympathy in NY?
ReplyDeleteStill cold here.
Yes, I am very old i.e. 65 and feel about 8.
Saw Angelica Huston once in Beverly Hills in the 70's when she was with Jack Nicholson.....
so we are ancient - either that or dead...
so enjoy it while it lasts.
One of my dearest friends -and sharpest and wittiest is 90.
She makes me feel ashamed of myself!
I prefer women my age when companies are trying to sell me something - whether I buy or not! Especially for clothing xxx
ReplyDeleteOn the whole, I'm not much of a consumer, mainly because I hate to shop. Well, wine, of course, but nobody advertises wine. (I heard AH interviewed and she told some great stories. I'll have to check this out.)
ReplyDelete