Dear Icons of My Youth….Please Stop Aging
I've noticed an alarming trend lately, and I think it started with the
new 90210, or maybe the new Melrose Place (neither of which I watch
because I can no longer relate to the challenges faced by people in
their teens and early twenties– now I'm like "you think that's bad–
just wait ten years!').
The disturbing trend I'm talking about is the one where people
who were famous when we were in our teens and early twenties are now
playing the MOMS of people that age now. Here are a few examples:
Molly Ringwald on that American Teenager show, and now Laura Leighton (from the original Melrose Place)
and Holly Combs both playing moms of teenagers on "Pretty Little Liars." Also, AnnaLynne McCord telling Tori Spelling during an interview that she thought Spelling was TWENTY YEARS OLDER than her. Dude! Hello! We're not in our forties yet!
I'm not saying we're not old enough to have teenagers. In fact, some of
my high school friends have children who are not only teenagers, but
who GO TO OUR HIGH SCHOOL, which is very disturbing. But– does it not seem like all of a sudden the people from our generation took this huge leap forward in age (or at least that's how it's being portrayed in the media)?
The thing about getting older is– you feel the same inside, but the
people around you are all getting older, which just reminds you that
time is passing, so this new development is at once surprising and totally unwelcome. This started with the Brat Pack reunion at the
Oscars, and now it seems like every time I turn around, there's Molly
Ringwald promoting her book on "Wait, Wait…Don't Tell Me" and reminding me that she's not Samantha from 16
Candles anymore. Also, it is impossible for me to believe that I am staying the same age
(inside, at least) while the icons of my youth are aging in celluloid
all around me, and are now being cast in roles that make them out to be EVEN OLDER than they actually are. Dislike!
Is it too much to ask that the icons of our youth just stop working and /
or appearing in any media, thus reminding us of the realities of time
passing, or at least for network executives to stop casting people in their thirties as people in their forties? Jeez.
I gotta admit, that Brat Pack reunion at the Oscars was brutal. That even made ME feel old and I’m not officially out of my 20’s yet. I wasn’t a teenager when all those Shermer, IL movies came out, but I wasn’t TOO far behind, and then they show up at the Oscars looking liked corpses. It’s like, are they trying to make everyone over 25 run out and get botox? Was that appearance sponsored by plastic surgeons? I was super excited to turn 30, and now I’m all “Waaiitt!”
I guess they are casting our contemporaries as parents of older teenagers because they want us to believe that those in their 40s should look like they are in their 30s.
Which, of course, I will.
You have to consider as well that they cast people to play roles inconsistent with their age. These actors were 23 playing a 17 year old in some cases so they already have a leap on us even though we were watching these shows, relating to the character and thus convincing ourselves we were relating to the actor who we presumed to be our age. And then we grew up, ended sentences with prepositions, started sentences with, “And”, and wrote really long run-on sentences…oh wait, that’s just me 🙂