GenderIs this a feminist statement?
Jamie Lee Curtis poses in her underwear to show other women what her 43-year-old body really looks like. Muriel Gray is not impressedIn the confused post-feminist wilderness, it is dispiriting to see what straws get clutched at in the struggle to find modern role models. The latest is perhaps understandable, if not forgivable, only because she is also one of the most unlikely. The 43-year-old actress Jamie Lee Curtis, a stunning, androgynous beauty, largely thanks to the genetic combination of her toothsome parents Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, has been photographed for an American magazine, wearing only a triumphant grin and the kind of unflattering sports bra and pants set that one hopes never to be wearing if run down in the street by a bus. In the accompanying article, Curtis makes a great deal of the fact that she wears no make-up, and has asked that the photo not be retouched in order that we may scrutinise the image of her body as it really is, in this case slightly flabby with a small excess of subcutaneous fat bulging gently over her knicker elastic. Or as she puts it:"I don't have great thighs. I have very big breasts and a soft, fatty little tummy. And I've got back fat." Her reason for this apparently unnecessary and mundane humiliation, she says, is that she doesn't want "the unsuspecting 40-year-old women of the world to think that I've got it going on. It's such a fraud. And I'm the one perpetuating it."
It is not quite clear precisely how this fraud manifests itself, since the truth is that most of us don't give a damn what Curtis looks like, and indeed a great many people will never even have heard of her. However, the article makes the assumption that her body shape and fitness has been one of western womanhood's primary concerns, and to that end she talks about her forays into the world of cosmetic surgery, of liposuction and Botox, and how none of these things work, most bafflingly declaring that "nobody tells you that if you take fat from your body in one place, it comes back in another place." Presumably nobody told her such a thing because it is not true. Fat, of course, will build up steadily and continuously on any body if the owner of that body simply eats more calories than they burn and takes no exercise. But Curtis's sinister implication that the specific little pieces of blubber removed from the thighs of someone foolish enough to pay for it, may suddenly start popping back without warning on to one's knees or neck like evil creatures from some bargain-shelf horror video, is as hilarious as it is sad.
But Curtis's ignorance is not at issue here, particularly as she reveals the real reason for the publicity stunt is as a catharsis, suggested and encouraged by the therapists leading her rehabilitation for alcohol addiction who wanted her to "expose more layers". In other words, this is a profoundly damaged woman who suffers, as almost all addicts do, from a self-loathing that may have its roots in a great variety of causes and not necessarily in the conundrums and complexities of dealing with the expectations of external image. "Demystifying has been a real goal for me," she says. "For myself, as well as on a public level."
So, in a sensible world we would look on her display with some pity, hope she gets better soon and move on. Instead, this sad piece of therapeutic exhibitionism is being held up as the great feminist statement that women over 40 have been waiting for. Yes, there is great concern for women out there.
Of course, the increase in cosmetic surgery that seems to be igniting this moral outrage is, indeed, a reality. A report by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons shows that almost £159m was spent on their art in 2000, and it says there is an exponential growth continuing among both British men and women.
Does this mean that these people (or more specifically, these women, for the press is not much interested in men who don't like their noses or have their ears pinned back) are all screwed-up losers desperate to look 17 when they are 50? Or could it simply be that for those who care about such things as appearance, and prioritise it to the point of spending a large part of their income on it, then it is simply another branch of consumerism, no more bizarre than spraying on a fake tan or dying one's hair? The health risks may be greater, but as technology and skills increase the processes lessen in jeopardy and heighten in convenience. Few would consider cosmetic dentistry as a symbol of western decline, and yet a woman smoothing out a few laughter lines for the same price as capping some discoloured front teeth is automatically read as a sign of her covert dysmorphia and ultimate failure as a rounded, liberated, modern woman.
It is difficult to take Curtis's crusade - trying to make women over 40 feel good about themselves - at face value, because she is a troubled Hollywood princess, as far removed from the real world as money and fame can buy. It is also meaningless unless one presumes we have all bought into the idea that women have to stay perfect beyond 30, which, despite the increase in interest in cosmetic surgery, seems to be far from the truth, certainly in Britain.
Curtis's stance is credible when held up in comparison to other dysfunctional Hollywood casualties such as Cher, Farrah Fawcett and Joan Rivers, the pinched masked harridans who have made their inner problems visible with an over zealous reliance on the surgeon's knife. In order to take her seriously, it is essential to avoid mentioning women such as Susan Sarandon, Sigourney Weaver or even Frances McDormand who are still as beautiful in their 40s and 50s as they were in their 20s, and perhaps even a little more so for the gentle remoulding effect on their faces and bodies that experiences such as motherhood have wrought. There is no case here for Curtis being any kind of cipher for the way that those outside that Californian corral of infantile madness feel about their bodies or self-image.
Of course, youth has, and always will have, a cult of beauty that applies to both men and women, but there is enough evidence to suggest that we still appreciate the beauty of those who are far from the first flush of youth. It can be sensibly argued that the handsome, intelligent beauty of Germaine Greer is considerably more appealing to many than the pug-nosed, pinched mask of 20-something Victoria Beckham. The actress Helen Mirren still turns heads in her 50s, as does Dame Judi Dench, who is even further down the road to the grim reaper's arms, with a face so impossibly beguiling that it often eclipses those of her young and fresh faced co-stars. Even Doris Lessing, speaking at The Edinburgh Book Festival this week, was striking in how utterly beautiful she has become at 83, her glittering little eyes looking out from a perfect skin lined like an expensive Italian truffle, giving her a radiance that far exceeds the simple prettiness of her youth.
It seems the fraud that Curtis refers to is in her head and not ours, and perhaps the most telling aspect of her self-obsession masquerading as a new-found unselfconsciousness is in declaring that this gesture is for "the women of the world". Yes. Jamie, I am certain that the women at the heart of the Middle Eastern conflict, the female farm workers of Botswana who are about to starve, the rural Indian woman carrying a bundle of sticks on her head for three kilometres to light a fire, are all deeply grateful to you for telling them it is OK to show off their fat.
Get a life woman, and start by putting your bloody clothes back on.
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