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Impaired judgment


While watching television yesterday evening, I saw a commercial — perhaps you’ve seen it as well — in which a young man offers an elderly woman a hand as she crosses the street and then asks if she’d like to go out sometime. Shortly before the viewer learns what the commercial is for, the man hollers to the woman as she continues on her way, “Hey, wait! I didn’t get your phone number!”

And then it becomes evident that this is an advertisement for a Snickers bar, as the picture of the candy bar on the voice-over says something along the lines of “Snickers — the answer to impaired judgment.”

Which begs the question of what it was about this guy’s judgment that the advertisers think is impaired. Is it that a young man could be attracted to a (much) older woman? Is it that this older woman is a tad bit wrinkled and walks rather slowly? And is she unattractive — even undesirable — as a result of this?

That was certainly what I sensed advertisers were trying to say. I can’t honestly say as a 25-year-old woman that I could imagine myself being attracted to an elderly man. But the commercial’s characterization of this elderly woman as “undesirable” — except for those with “impaired” judgment — seems to degrade the value of older people in our society. In the capitalist culture informing such commericals, this seems to make sense. After all, unlike many cultures, which revere their elders, the desire for innovation, constant turnover, newness, and shiny objects is the driving force behind our capitalist culture. In other words, a culture that deems wrinkles, gray hair, and difficulty walking unattractive — and undesirable.

Consider, for instance, an episode of Sex and the City in which Samantha discovered that she had a gray pubic hair. Desperate to maintain the interest of her hot 20-something boyfriend, she shaved off all of her pubic hair. Perhaps the situation would’ve been different if Smith had been closer to her age or if the two of them had been together for 20 years. But if her attraction to him was based largely on his youth, how could she expect him to embrace her aging body? And Samantha was only in her 40s. Imagine what it’s like for older women who have more far more gray hair (or no hair at all).

I’ll admit that at the time I saw this episode of Sex and the City, Samantha’s response seemed a bit neurotic (okay, admittedly, almost every response of the show’s characters could be termed neurotic). But the link between ageism and desirability in our culture made more sense to me after seeing a documentary entitled Still Doing It: The Intimate Lives of Women Over 65, for an article I was writing for The Independent, a film magazine, during the South-by-Southwest film festival here in Austin this past March.

In this, her debut feature film, director Dierdre Fischel critiques the Western “rules” of attraction that discriminate against women over a certain age. It is, in a sense, a coming-of-age story about nine women between 60 and 87 who became wives and mothers during the 1950s, when gender roles were strict and sex was expected to be confined to the married heterosexual couple, primarily for reproductive purposes.

But as the women in the film remind us, they also lived through – and are now extending – the sexual revolution of the ‘60s. Disproving popular belief in the first couple of minutes of the film, the words “80 perecnt of women experience mild or no menopausal symptoms” appear on the screen in bold font. As one interviewee asks, “Why would I be feeling [these sexual desires] if my body was too old?” Another woman reminds viewers that sex is a basic human need. While not all nine women featured in Fischel’s film have partners, each of them still has desires. Many of the women even act on these desires in places as unlikely as their nursing home rooms and on the Internet.

And as women continue outliving men, many women have grown more open to the idea of experimenting with sexual arrangements that would’ve been considered taboo during their youth. For instance, Betty, a woman in her late 60s has taken a 26-year-old lover, whom she met online. As her lover reflects, “She’s such a wonderful woman, and I’m lucky to have this time with her before she’s gone.” Some women have taken their experiments one step further. Once married to men, for instance, two women have since chosen each other as life partners. With their days numbered, they no longer care what others think and cherish intimacy and true love.

Are these women anomalies? Yes and no. While the nine women Fischel interviewed were the only nine women who responded to her advertisements seeking subjects for her film, keep in mind that they are part of a generation for which sex — and particularly homosexuality — was long considered taboo. And they continue to live in a culture where frank discussions about sex and sexuality continue to be considered taboo in many circles, particularly among women. Thanks to a culture that raised them to be passive, most of these women’s contemporaries have allowed themselves to become invisible. Fischel doubts, however, that babyboomers will remain silent when they pass the senior citizen threshold.

But as Still Doing It suggests, ageism, particularly with regard to attraction and desirability, is pervasive in the United States. Consequently, it will be extremely difficult for even the loudest babyboomers to command respect — much less desirability — in a culture that privileges new over old, attractive over unappealing. In fact, even though I tried to keep an open mind while viewing Still Doing It, I was extremely unsettled for hours after the film ended. I didn’t want to think about older people having sex in a nursing home. I didn’t want to think about one of my contemporaries being intimately involved with a woman 40 years our senior.

And I’m sure many others felt the same way. In fact, I would even guess that the advertisers for Snickers who put together that advertisement about impaired judgment thought their advertisement would go over well since, well, in our culture, most people think you must have impaired judgment to be attracted to someone who is elderly, particularly when you’re young. But given that the Snickers commercial’s portrayal of this woman as undesirable made me think twice, perhaps Fischel’s film is serving its purpose by challenging viewers to question the basis for their discomfort — and the Western rules of attraction which facilitate this discomfort and ageism.

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