"Anti-aging" adverts - a new insulting angle.

[rosabud]

I went to the cinema at the weekend and there were 2 adverts that made me feel very uncomfortable. One was Helen Mirren advertising an anti-wrinkle cream and another was an older actress (no idea if she is famous or not) advertising a vitamin pill to help you stay active. At the end of each advert, a much, much younger man (easily under 30) looked appreciatively at the woman and the woman did the raised eyes to camera thing - implications were clear.

I felt so insulted by these two adverts but I find it difficult to explain why. Firstly, it's so ridiculously unrealistic - most men in their 20s are not attracted to women over 50 and they are certainly not going to be in our culture - where women over 50 are invisible and young men are bombarded with sexualised images of young, attractive women on a daily basis.

Secondly, why do intelligent, mature women, like Helen Mirren, need to attract young men? Why can't they have older men? Is that because all the older men are after younger women? How depressing is that? The message seemed to be: you are old and ugly but you still need to compete with young, beautiful women, you will never be accepted for your achievements/wisdom/personality, it will always and only be about your looks and ability to appeal to men.

Anti-wrinkle, anti-aging stuff is nothing new, but the whole much younger men angle really depressed me.

The fictional characters don't really want to attract younger men. The advertisers hook here is that 'use this and you'll look premenopausal' (ie a man who might be expected to look for a woman of childbearing years will put you in that category).

That message cannot be conveyed by using an older man, nor can it be applied when the woman is clearly still in her childbearing years and has no call for specialist 'anti-ageing' products.

A lot of the beauty industry runs on similar false promises. More is sold to women, so there is more advertising of products used by women. But the I've seen a similar 'look younger and you'll be more attractive' approach on products marketed primarily at men, such as Grecian 2000.

When buying beauty products, you're not buying effectiveness (or there would be little in bathroom cabinets other than Nivea or Simple), you are actually buying the stereotype and the weasel words. And it's a market worth billions.

Secondly, why do intelligent, mature women, like Helen Mirren, need to attract young men?

Well presumably it's the large fee she will have been paid rather than the younger man which is the attraction.

The celeb commentators tell us that Helen Mirren is a woman of mature years who's managed to remain attractive in conventional terms. Therefore if a company can hire her to endorse some anti-aging product, it'll seem like an effective advertisement.

I'm not sure why "That message cannot be conveyed by using an older man" though somehow it can't. If it were a product that they were trying to sell to young people, I don't think there'd be any inhibition about showing the process taking place. Can it be that showing attraction between people over 35 is just instinctively regarded as obscene? Or at least not likely to produce the positive feelings that get people into a buying mood.

I dunno

Balancing out the idea that attractive young women are likely to be attracted to men old enough to be their fathers (looking at you, hollywood).

When women have the things that have previously been reserved for men, ie money and / or power, they quite often seem to have younger attractive partners (thinking of a few famous women).

Yes your point is a good one, and 2 wrongs doesn't make a right (not that fancying someone older than you is wrong but in terms of frequent representation of relationships between older men and younger women as totally bog-standard and almost never the other way around and certainly not unremarkable) but hmmm dunno.

I have seen the Helen Mirren one and it did irk me, I think just the gist of yes even at however old Helen Mirren is the most vital thing is still to be hot - yes I think that irked me and not the younger man thing.

If a young handsome man flirted with me I'd be quite flattered TBH

Sorry that was a bit stream of consciousness.

I suspect you've hit on another ageist weak spot in the ad industry, Tei. The 30-year-olds conceptualising & creating advertisements have a lot of trouble envisioning anybody over 45 as anything but a grandparent trope, with fluffy white hair and baggy cardigans. For a beauty product, they have to turn this granny glamorous but the vision stops there. The only possible motive for a granny to want to look nice is to snare a young man.

They could have had the actresses doing a bit of steamy attraction with sexy older men, and I think that would sell more product. I might be wrong, but although my generation (baby boomers) does go for Botox, it's not exactly about looking younger. We're more confident than our mums, who were seriously terrified of looking older.

Why do intelligent, mature women, like Helen Mirren, need to attract young men?

'Need'? Sheesh. Three things. Confirmation of high value desirability, vigorous sex and comfort in being able to drive the relationship and not bruise male ego in the process.

YY, Dad, but I still think they'd imply that if they portrayed Mirren & Clooney, for eg. Or Lineker, if he stopped clowning around with the snacks. And it'd be a more engaging narrative!

Mirren has never made a secret of her taste for younger lovers and Clooney has traditionally been cast in movies, as 99 out of 100 men in movies are, opposite younger women. His real life wife is 16 years younger than him. As an advertisement Mirren-Clooney would not be seen as credible. The ultimate message, to consume more, is not helped by attempting to imply to everyday older women they can bag a Clooney in competition with younger women. It is a far less believable construct on many levels. The advertisement is powered by suggesting to women they can seize the same agency Mirren herself has, the same agency they believe men traditionally seize for themselves.

Ahh ... I didn't know that about Mirren! Thanks, Dad, it all becomes clear: I just don't read enough sleb gossip