Aging Well: News & Insights for Seniors and Caregivers
- Television producers and executives panic at the word Grandma, refusing projects about women over 49.
- In Europe older women like Sophia Loren are celebrated as sexy, wise, and worldly, unlike in America.
- Los Angeles cosmetic obsession is absurd; Beverly Hills City Council almost voted to ticket excessive wrinkling.
- Grandchildren provide real joy and rejuvenation, a cheap, pain free alternative to endless cosmetic fixes.
Hollywood is a Grandma-free-zone and no one who is intimidated by the aging process should step foot on Hollywood Blvd.
Last week I saw them dragging a screaming old lady away from Clark Gable’s footsteps at Mann’s Theatre for being old in public. One tourist turned to another and asked, “Who was Clark Gable?”
I’m not sure what was the saddest part of that whole scene.
The newest and most profitable business in Los Angeles is a company that builds boats for people over 49 to be sent out to sea to die. There’s a three-year waiting list already.
If you think I’m imagining this insanity ask any producer or television exec what happens when you mention the word Grandmother. They break out in hives, start to hyperventilate and run from the room in terror.
Exaggeration?
I think not.
A friend and I met with a producer about a show we developed for older women.
His eyes bugged out of his head when he saw the word Grandma in the title.
I quickly covered the word with my hand and said, “It’s okay, calm down, see, I made it go away.”
After catching his breath and downing two Xanax he informed us in no uncertain terms no one was interested in women on television over 49.
“And don’t say Betty White either,” he retorted. “She is only on there because she is surrounded by young hotties.”
I never had the heart to tell him that those “hotties” would never see fifty again. Why destroy his illusions?
Forget that one of the most popular and loveable characters on Bravo television was realtor Josh Flagg’s late grandmother, Edith.
Yes, Hollywood is a world-unto-itself. Thank the Lord.
In Europe older women are embraced as sexy, wise and worldly. Men delight in their vast experience and their ageless beauty. Sophia Loren is looked on as a goddess, not an old crone.
I am not certain this is because the men in America have better eyesight or the Europeans are not as fussy about their women. And yes, let us keep in mind French women don’t shave their armpits. Of course Europe is an old country and America a baby so maybe…
In America women over fifty are invisible, unless of course they are walking around half naked with a set of store-bought DDDs stopping traffic on Sunset Boulevard.
If you would think it is a scary state of being, you would be correct. So what is a Grandmother to do?
Throw away her Oil of Olay? Pack and leave town before she brings disgrace on her family? Wear a veil?
Okay, so that does work for Muslim women.
Ah, now I get the whole Burqua thing!
Shall I repair into my golden years in a black dress and sensible shoes like an Italian grandmother? Spending all my time making sauce and rolling pasta dough?
“Come dip my homemade Italian bread in Grandma’s perfect marinara.”
Or shall I make Aliyah to an assisted living home where my children may come to visit once a month, if I am lucky?
Or if wealthy enough make a pilgrimage to Boca Raton, where I can spend my time playing maj jong and looking for a man with his own teeth who can still drive at night?
You would think I am embellishing my conundrum, but unfortunately I am not.
Last week the Beverly Hills City Council took up the issue of whether or not the police should give tickets for excessive wrinkling. The measure was, of course supported by all the plastic surgeons and Botox manufacturers. It failed by only one vote.
Isn’t it bad enough the fat police patrol is still at large, suspiciously eyeing anyone at the Krispy Krème drive thru and taking license plate numbers?
So what should one do who feels they still have more to offer the world than good lasagna or mandal bread?
Don’t move to Los Angeles is a damn good start. There is no doubt in my mind as to why there are so many kooks running through the palm-tree and homeless laden streets of LA. Why there are so many car chases across its bumper-to-bumper freeways. Why men always look like a cat that just ingested a ten-pound canary.
Simply, it is because young women are in abundance and older women are in hiding. Or, as we refer to these young chicks in over 49 circles the third-wife-to-be.
Yoga classes are filled with fifties and ups stretching and downward dogging their way back to youth. Hair colorists are so abundant you can’t blink without bumping into one and plastic surgeons are so finely honed, that a woman can leave for lunch and arrive back at work looking ten years younger.
Men check women out like Carl Sagan checked out every star in the galaxy. They balk if a woman has one wrinkle too many, reminds them of their mother or simply isn’t the perfect image of beauty they feel they deserve.
Meanwhile, have you taken a look at these aging Lotharios lately?
OY!
They have spray on tans, spray on hair, blue pills bulging from their pockets and a dating profile on those meet-a-felon sites that is filled with more lies and exaggerations than a politician’s resume. Quick dating tip here: orange jump suits are not a turn on!
They examine every woman they date with the precision of a butcher frenching a lamb chop for the Oscar’s Governor’s Ball. Their expectations are higher than Keith Richard’s partying with Janis Joplin.
As Bette Davis once opined, “getting old is not for sissies.” It is also not for women. And please don’t ask me, who is Bette Davis!
Men age well. They gain an air of distingue and intrigue. Women gain weight and arm themselves each day for another battle with gravity. A war they ultimately lose.
They Spanx themselves together as best as they can before embarking into the world, ass dragging and boobs searching the sidewalk like they are looking for lost quarters.
No bra too big
No skin too tight to hide the ravages of time.
Good News! There is always a way to cope with these depressing facts of life; grandchildren. One hug from my grandsons and I am immediately as young at heart as a 66-year-old man riding the Seine at midnight with a Paris model.
As one learns quickly in LA, there are certain foods that will arm one best for battle against the aging process and this week’s miracle food is beets. Supposedly it is the nuclear option for battling all the ravages of time. I am of course waiting for the day the Surgeon General announces chocolate as the cure all for all human ailments.
Until that glorious day you can find a good plastic surgeon on your own. But before you do, go hug your grandchildren. I promise it will help keep you young, and it’s cheaper and totally pain free.
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