SATC 2 – Dawn of a New Age

Posted: Wednesday 26 May 2010 04:51pm

Something happened on the way to the film premiere of Sex And The City 2 in New York this week. It’s been happening quietly for a while but never has it been more obvious.
Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis are all well into their 40s. Kim Cattrall is in her mid-50s.

Multi-millions of people, young and old, are breathlessly anticipating the release of the latest addition to SATC franchise in their part of the world (in Australia, June 2). The gals’  every pose on the red carpet was gold, their gowns Googled, their bodies, make up and hairstyles ogled.

SJP’s hot lemon Valentino was the standout dress, Kim’s curves continued to defy the passage of time, and Kristin and Cynthia looked sleeker and hotter than ever before (are the two wallflowers beginning to outgrow the tall poppies?).

Female contemporaries want to look like them, younger women aspire to be them, men just want them.
What is wrong with this picture? Nothing, except that even 10 years ago this would never have happened; four middle-aged women playing middle-aged (dare we say, even menopausal) women who are vibrant and sexual beings at the centre of a media and pop culture frenzy. This, 12 years after the debut of their cult phenomenon TV series and the second movie spin-off in two years, with a third in the works. Ageing has never looked so good.

It’s tempting to say that, when you reach a certain age, everything looks younger/better in hindsight. But there’s physical evidence to support the dawning of a New Age.
Kim Cattrall is 54. She doesn’t look a whole lot different from when she debuted as Samantha Jones in 1998 or, indeed, starred in a hokey 1986 action movie, Big Trouble in Little China, where she first caught my attention.

In previous generations, actresses of her age either played elderly-ish ladies, were in dignified retirement, tragic figures or long forgotten. Think Vivien Leigh, Bette Davis, Princess Grace of Monaco (the former Grace Kelly), Audrey Hepburn and Lana Turner.

> GALLERY: Old Hollywood vs New Hollywood: In Their 50′s

Sarah Jessica Parker (Carrie Bradshaw) is 45, as is (astonishingly) baby-faced Kristin Davis (Charlotte York), and Cynthia Nixon (Miranda Hobbes), 46.
Their Hollywood predecessors of a similar vintage were still beautiful “for their age”, but the glow had undeniably faded and there was no mistaking their chronological years. Think two of the most exquisite women to ever grace the screen, Ava Gardner and Elizabeth Taylor, who reigned supreme in the 1950s and 60s. Still lovely in their 40s, they had nonetheless become distinctly matronly.
Katharine Hepburn was 44 but looked up to 20 years older when she starred opposite Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen in 1951 and Angela Lansbury was only 36 – looking 56 – when she played actor Laurence Harvey’s mother in 1962’s The Manchurian Candidate. He was 33.

> GALLERY: Old Hollywood vs New Hollywood: In Their 40′s

Today’s actresses of course have an arsenal of anti-ageing armoury at their disposal – discreet cosmetic surgery (not that anyone’s admitting to it), non-surgical procedures such as Botox, dermal fillers and cosmeceutical skincare, a phalanx of personal trainers, hairdressers and stylists, plus a wealth of knowledge and therapies with which to reverse the inevitable changes wrought on skin, weight and body shape by menopause.
Their Hollywood predecessors also had no shortage of personal assistants and access to cosmetic surgery (albeit far less sophisticated and more obvious than today) but menopause was still a taboo subject. A-listers and average women alike fought hot flushes, sagging skin and burgeoning bulges in silence.

But it goes deeper than that. As a teenager in the 70s, it was generally accepted (if not uttered aloud) that once a woman turned 40, she was officially over the hill. Whatever went on behind closed bedroom doors, her sexuality was no longer for public consumption.

It was time to cut her hair short into a nice, sensible ‘do, choose nice sensible clothes that did not say “sex appeal”, and leave it to the young ‘uns to carry the torch.
Amen, those days are over.

by Jenni Gilbert

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