Last published May 2004. Updated with more fabulous women!
Culture at large has always had a fixation on youth. Note the dearth of older women on TV who play roles other than wife or mother. The strange looks a woman still gets when she dates/marries a much younger man. The industry of expensive and painful surgeries promoted to help women look younger. And, after pushing youth as the ultimate in attractiveness, ridiculing women – who always must be pretty! – for trying to hang on to it. Even through we’re living in a post-Sex and the City world, where women living it up in their 40’s should be no big deal, popular culture still has a long way to go towards welcoming women over the threshold of thirty – or even “The Big 2-5.”
But the subcultures, which already snicker at the follies of conventionality, don’t have quite the same knee-jerk disdain for aging – probably because there are more ways to define success other than “finding a man” and raising children: art, dance, magick, design, history, travel, and music – pursuits sorely lacking space in mainstream women’s magazines, which seem to devote 90% of their content to 300 overpriced looks for spring and retreading fellatio techniques. Is it any wonder some of us crave a lifestyle that’s a little more substantial? (So now, when someone brings on the attitude of “aren’t you a little old for that goth stuff?“ you can officially look at them like they’re crazy.)
Women over 25 are older, wiser, seasoned. They have more experience and know more secrets. These women are the fierce black widows, the wise witches, the skilled dommes. Think back to the glamour icons of yesteryear: Marlene Dietrich. Joan Crawford. Barbara Stanwyck. Even Marilyn Monroe was past 30 at the height of her fame. In looking though tons of gothic fashion catalogs, I’ve noticed that the younger kids dressing up in long velvet sorceress dresses tend to look like they’re wearing Mommy’s clothes, while the older ones look completely comfortable and quite regal in long flowing gowns, shapely corsets, pieces that are more commanding than cute. They look like they belong on thrones. Age, through knowledge and experience, has earned them the right to be there.
It’s sometimes all too easy to forget that growing older is not such a bad thing when you’re bombarded by ads, movies, countless images that glorify youthful beauty and rarely any other kind. So, the next time something happens to make you feel bad about your age, remember you’re in a lot of really, really good company:
- Marie Laveau began her training to become a voodoo queen at age 25.
- Tori Amos was 29 when “Silent All These Years” became her first hit.
- Wendy O. Williamsstarted the Plasmatics when she was 29. The obscenity charges didn’t start happening until she was 32.
- Bettie Page was 29 when she first started appearing in pinup magazines.
- Vivienne Westwood opened her first fashion boutique “Let it Rock” at the age of 30, and would not get into the official “punk” fashion of SEX until she was 34.
- Cassandra Peterson came up with her persona of Elvira at 30, and was 37 when she starred in Mistress of the Dark.
- Cyndi Lauper was 30 when she released She’s So Unusual and rocked that awesome red vintage getup in in “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.”
- Dita Von Teese scored the cover of Playboy at age 30.
- The Wilson sisters of Heart were in their early to mid 30’s when their singles repeatedly hit the Top 10. And went for totally unrestrained 80’s glamour in their videos.
- Maila Nurmi was 31 when she attended a masquerade party dressed as a Charles Addams cartoon character – and sparked her career as horror hostess Vampira.
- Lynn Breedlove started all-dyke punk band Tribe 8 at the age of 31, questioning gender dynamics and breaking out the infamous rubber penis during performances.
- Stevie Nicks was 33 when she released Bella Donna in 1981, firmly establishing her solo career and infectious fairy-gypsy fashion sense.
- Tairrie B started My Ruin in her mid 30’s – when she also broadcasted her unapologetic femme manifesto in the video for “Terror.”
- Debbie Harry was 35 when Blondie’s “Call Me” hit #1.
- Mary Woronov murdered swingers in the cult classic Eating Raoul at the age of 39.
- Anjelica Huston was 40 when she played Morticia Addams.
- Kim Gordon spent The Year Punk Broke turning 38, and was 42 when Sonic Youth headlined Lollapalooza in 1995.
- Martha Graham was 42 when she started a new form of contemporary dance through the dark themes of “Chronicle.”
- While the show pokes fun at fortysomethings still trying to crash the most glamorous parties and hang onto their youth, Absolutely Fabulous totally rocks for shameless champagne-guzzler Patsy Stone, supposedly age 47.
- Betsey Johnson is over 60 and continues to cartwheel down the catwalk every season.
- Still amazing: Nina Hagen(54), Dinah Cancer (49), Doro Pesch (45), Siouxsie Sioux(52), Joan Jett (51), Kathleen Hanna (41), Sabina Classen (46), Julie Strain (47), Jarboe (mid-50’s), Diamanda Galas(54).
(Have I missed anybody? Leave them in the comments!)
