Maggie Smith, expensive handbags and the fight against ageism

In a society in which youth is extolled as an ideal (while at the same time young people are held in such contempt through the absence of specific policies aimed at the problems they face), the appearance of an 88-year-old model can shake the foundations of certain non-explicit consensuses. 

By non-explicit consensus, I am referring here to the consensus of ageism, that "word" that for some people says nothing, even when they practice it or suffer from it. Ageism or age discrimination may sound distant, not real, until we refer to the fact that when people over 50 are made redundant they find it much more difficult to re-enter working life. Among the 2,855,200 unemployed people in Spain, those over 50 account for almost 30% of the total. The over-50s also account for almost 30% of those who have been unemployed for less than two years and almost 50% when we analyse the data for unemployed people who have been looking for work for more than two years. Without finding it. To imagine the psychological effects (not to mention the economic ones) does not, I think, require great empathy. 

That is why, because of this ageism that is so embedded in our society, experiences (social experiments, one might even say) that put the spotlight on elderly people playing roles that are not those we traditionally assign to them stand out so much. This is the case of a recent advert for one of these expensive brands, which has used the actress Maggie Smith, among other personalities, in its latest campaign. In fact, we could say so many, many things about Maggie Smith - starting with the fact that she is one of those spectacular actresses who adapts to any role, winner of two Oscars (in 1970 and 1979) - that it is surprising that the reflection or focus of the advert is her age: Maggie Smith was born in 1934. That makes her 88 years old. 

And for this reason, the choice of the actress for this brand is even controversial in a world accustomed to the most absolute irreverence. We are modern for what we want, but selecting a lady full of wrinkles (which she is) to sell a very expensive brand seems a challenge to the establishment. Even if that old lady is a top actress. And even if she wasn't. But she is.

Above all, may I add that, beyond her age, it turns out that Maggie Smith, as a model, breaks the mould. Of the photographs of Juergen Teller that the brand has circulated, one of them catches my eye (precisely because it seems traditional to me), the second, in which she appears seated, wearing one of those dresses that are not for going to buy bread and with a handbag that I don't know if we can buy among all of us here, not even by crowfunding, Maggie Smith looks divine. The part, with that dress that in our imagination we would assign to a younger woman. And daring. And modern. And a representation of the beauty we associate with the expensive (because yes, we do, even if it's absurd).

In the advert, but also outside, Maggie Smith allows us to think about other ideals of beauty, of comfort with one's own body and appearance beyond the exploitation of youth. If we try to analyse the advert with a certain distance from ageism, from the traditional (which is the rejection of old age), it fulfils its function perfectly. It turns out that old people (especially old women, who suffer much more from the negative stereotypes associated with age) can do the work that very young people do. 

However, and beyond the visibility of old age embodied in Maggie Smith (who becomes, I don't know if she wants to, an ambassador for her age), the stereotype in which we are immersed (old age equals separation from public life, old age equals decadence, distance from the new, rejection of the body, distance from beauty) leads us to reflect on the advert itself with a certain paternalistic bias. Today I was interviewed on a programme in which they alluded to the role of the actress in Harry Potter, her almost heroic behaviour in the face of the illness (cancer) she was suffering from, and how she was referred to by other co-stars as "everyone's mother". In short, the typical roles that women tend to play (not necessarily willingly) as they reach a certain age: that of mother, grandmother, tireless fighter for love towards and for others. And, in the end, what the Loewe advert tells us (they are not sisters of charity or activists against ageism) is that old women, old age, can also sell. Not sanitary towels for urinary incontinence, not denture glue or packaged foods that emulate the ideal of the granny who cooks for hours. No. They can sell handbags worth thousands of euros and the brands know it. And this is already a change of the first order, which means the manifest inclusion, the visibilisation, of the elderly in the reality that governs our days. And, above all, and finally (I've gone over the top here; I know) of old women in everyday life beyond the eternal and established roles that always place these women in the shadow of others.

That's why I don't care about the first photo (the one with the fur), because it reminds us of certain stereotypes or even of the characters that the actress plays in some of her performances (Downton Abbey, for example). I'm more interested in the dress, because it could be worn by Jennifer Lawrence or any younger actress and I don't think she would do any better. It is, with all the controversy that arises around the age of this model, a normalisation of age, of old age. And of wrinkles, of course. 

And that's why it's important that older women appear in advertisements. 

Let's hope that this doesn't fall on deaf ears and that other brands continue to have the audacity to recognise old women as consumers, as producers, as a claim. But above all, and hopefully, as people who can continue to play active roles.