Disclaimer: I can’t stand Hillary Clinton. At all. But… I find her very attractive in this picture. I’m not even going to chalk it up to the hair (very nice) or necklace (meh—not a fan of chunk jewelry). Perhaps the smile? Yes, that’s it. It looks…genuine. Happy. Even as much as I despise her, I didn’t like the constant yammering on her looks. On the other hand, if she’d let this side of her show more often, would she have gotten farther?
Then there’s this picture of Dame Helen Mirren who, at 62, is totally rockin’. I wouldn’t have posted it because Karen already did, but it’s stuck with me for 3 days. To me, it’s an illustration that Mother Nature doesn’t necessarily punish us XX types for having the audacity to turn 40. Or 50. Or 60.
And the last 2 ladies in today’s lineup are Alfre Woodard (56) and Diane Keaton (62). I don’t guess I have any commentary because, well, look at ’em. Obviously, I don’t know which ladies have had what work done, if any, but still.
Over at Teach Me Tonight, Laura Vivanco discusses the topic of older women in romance vis a vis Charlotte Lamb’s novels. She also points out RfP’s post at Access Romance and about young heroines who don’t really seem young and Robin Uncapher’s post about the time warp in romance.
Well, I’ll tell you. I didn’t really feel like writing an ingenue because at my age, it’s just silly and I was never an ingenue when I was that age. I wanted to write people who had some experience with life. Now, Susan Elizabeth Phillips writes older romance, but always within the context of having the older couple as a secondary love plot.
Mine aren’t 50-ish, but they are 40-ish and as the series progresses, they age. In book #2 (Stay), the hero and heroine (Eric and Vanessa) are youngish by my standards (late 20s and early 30s, but this is a challenge I set for myself). By book #3 (Magdalene), the oldest of the original characters are on the wrong side of 45 and still going strong. Mitch and Cassie, the hero and heroine of Magdalene, are on the wrong side of 45, with grown/almost grown children and possibly a grandchild or two.
So along with my other crimes against romance, you can add major characters in their 40s. Gee, how many other ways can I bend this genre?
I wanted to write people who had some experience with life.
Hear, hear! I wish ingenues were a little less dominant in the genre–and I think that’s changing as the genre expands. Though sometimes I think there’s a strange trade-off: 18-year-old ingenues for 30-year-old virgin widows (historical) or socially stunted ‘smart girls’ (contemporary) who’ve never had a relationship. There still aren’t a lot of heroines over 40 (though many heroes strike me as about 100 years old in their outlook) or women who’ve *lived*.
The point of my post was that I don’t think the path to greater variety is to *write* older characters and *say* they’re 20. That’s what drives me crazy. It’s fine by me if characters are older, but sometimes I get the sense the author has no idea how old they are.
The young/naive/socially stunted is also the perfect setup for the Big Misunderstanding. I mean, you get to 30, 35, 40+ and at some point, you’ve learned to stop and go, “Wait a minute– explain that to me from the beginning” before blowing a gasket. Cuts about 250 pages out of a 300-page novel.
The youngish hero/heroine I’m working on right now (she’s 27; he’s 32), I’m having a lot of trouble with and you know what my biggest issue is? I wasn’t listening to the pop music they would have been listening to when they were in high school, so I can’t get my claws into their culture and their lingo. I don’t know what their points of pop culture reference are and, IMO, that shapes age.
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Women just get better looking with time, I think. I feel that way more and more as I age. And Diane Keaton is exhibit one.
That picture of Helen gets me every time! I read Oh No They Didn’t, where they are all about 15 year old celebrities I know nothing about, but when that shot of Helen was posted, even the youth obsessed ONTD community went nuts.
Jessica, thanks for coming by!
You know, I think what was most validating was that, at least for me, her beauty came from strength. She looks STRONG and HEALTHY, like an Earth Mother Goddess who could kick some serious ass if she felt like it–but probably wouldn’t feel like it because she’d have no need to prove anything.
Please note: Spam disguised as a nasty comment is still spam and still gets deleted.
Dude doesn’t even like Spam disguised as food.