Monday, March 13, 2006

AARP airbrushes in youth...shame shame

As if Goldie Hawn weren't attractive enough, a recent AARP cover, the magazine geared for men and women over the age of 50, took it upon itself to improve on the real thing. I'm posting the cover photo below (click to enlarge), followed by a regular photo taken of Goldie at a celebrity event. If you look closely, you can see that, no, Goldie isn't the magical image of youth AARP tried to portray her as at age 60 and,though she still looks really great in a regular photo, she shows some of those same tell-tale signs of aging we all eventually face, if not already.

My question is this: I could understand a different magazine doing this, but why AARP? This magazine is supposed to celebrate aging, to try to offset the 'youth culture' that still dominates us. If AARP fakes a photo with the thought that 'this is what 60 looks like, ideally', then how are earth is our culture going to come to terms with real life aging? Will they be selling special glasses next, for us to wear to see people young and bouncy as we might wish them to be, not as they are??

Opinions??


8 comments:

Unknown said...
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Endment said...

It is time to value maturity

Clearly AARP does not understand that concept yet.

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...
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Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Best to be positive, I think. We all have problems with aging, concerns over it. Different folks handle it different ways, Michael.

Pris said...

Michael,endment, ginger...I've always doubted that we were seeing the real aging process, even in the unbrushed shots. I think what bothers me so much isn't whether she's had a face lift or not, but again the message, double reinforced by AARP in their photo tampering, that this is what women should look like. Men can have wrinkles, go bald, etc and still be considered charismatic and attractive. That hasn't happened for women yet. We need role models to show that can be the case, too. I think Kate Hapburn made a good one.

Pris said...

I don't think there's any question of liking Goldie. She's positive in her outlook and her friendliness is contageous. I still feel on my end that some airbrushing was used, not just the smile. Look at her eyes in the regular photo. The whole point is that I think she looks great in the non AARP photo, so why not show a few signs of aging to encourage those of us who struggle mightily with that issue-)