In a world where rigidly-defined beauty standards are part and parcel of being a woman, the Freaky Friday actress is opting out.
Jamie Lee Curtis has been making the headlines for all the right reasons lately. From her steadfast support of her daughter’s transition to confirming that she’ll be officiating her wedding in World of Warcraft cosplay, she really is an incredible mother and role model.
The daughter of the brilliant Tony Curtis, whose acting career spanned six decades and featured a starring role opposite Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot, the Halloween star grew up in the spotlight. In the past, the actress has spoken out about the pressures of movie sets and the Hollywood high life, and now — at 63 years of age — she’s washing her hands of the anti-ageing mindset.
At the recent Radically Reframing Aging Summit that was held to facilitate candid discussion about the positives of growing older, Jamie Lee Curtis dropped some truth bombs. “This word anti-aging has to be struck,” she said. “I am pro-aging. I want to age with intelligence, and grace, and dignity, and verve, and energy.”
Embracing the realities of womanhood
This is not the first time the actress has spoken out about her desire to revel in the reality of her natural self. Ahead of the release of her latest upcoming film, Everything Everywhere All At Once, the actress revealed that she requested to show her body in its natural form, without prosthetics, shapewear or filters.
Taking to Instagram to share a photo of herself in costume, Curtis wrote, “In the world, there is an industry — a billion-dollar, trillion-dollar industry — about hiding things. Concealers. Body-shapers. Fillers. Procedures. Clothing. Hair accessories. Hair products. Everything to conceal the reality of who we are.”
“I want there to be no concealing of anything. I’ve been sucking my stomach in since I was 11, when you start being conscious of boys and bodies, and the jeans are super tight. I very specifically decided to relinquish and release every muscle I had that I used to clench to hide the reality. That was my goal. I have never felt more free creatively and physically.”
Should the fact that an actor proudly foregoes a ‘fat suit’ and leans into body normativity and acceptance be revolutionary? No, but it’s a refreshing departure from what’s become the norm. Eternal youth is an unattainable desire, Death Becomes Her taught us that way back in 1992.
‘You never ask a woman her age’
We read headlines atop paparazzi photos that exclaim ‘child actor looks unrecognisable 20 years on’ and any actress brave enough to age under the glare of the limelight is taunted if a fine line or wrinkle appears on their once-taut skin. There’s a presumption that actresses of a certain age have or will have work done because, sure why the hell wouldn’t they?
Societally, we’ve been raised to consider our age a taboo subject. There’s a cultural obsession with youth, and we subconsciously fall victim to it all the time. We think we have to behave a certain way when we reach a certain age, whether that’s retiring our crop tops or avoiding the nightclub dance floor, when that’s simply not the case.
We’re all suddenly two years older than we were when we went into the pandemic, and while we may feel robbed of that time, it’s given us an opportunity to reassess the way we feel about ageing. They say age is but a number, that you’re only as old as you feel, and the fact of the matter is that to grow old is a luxury afforded to few.
