Ragne's Abyss

In Hollywood, aging is treated like a scandal instead of a natural part of life. Every few months, there’s a new product that’s supposed to get rid of wrinkles, tighten your skin, or plump your cheeks. On top of that, people get Botox too. The craziest part is that people are now injecting areas that no one talked about ten years ago. We have neck lifts, chin tweaks, nose injections — every facial feature has become ‘fixable’. 

Celebrities like the Kardashians are walking advertisements for this. Look at Kris Jenner—she’s being praised all over the media for looking so good at 70. Her face has become a symbol of Hollywood’s obsession with turning back the clock. Celebrities and influencers, like the Kardashians, are promoting getting work done to keep their youth and to stay within the beauty standards. The idea of looking young forever is geared only towards women. It’s like aging naturally is treated like a failure. When women in Hollywood age publicly, the Internet treats it like breaking news.

Hollywood is using youth to make currency, and women pay the highest price for it. Brooke Shields is an example of women hated for aging. She has spoken about the hate she’s received because of her age on numerous occasions. She even wrote a book titled “Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed To Get Old”. 

In her interview with Allure, she mentioned that people would tell her kids how beautiful she used to be. For society, the moment you age is when your beauty fades. Women are criticized, not for aging poorly, but for aging at all. Your beauty is now a memory people choose to be nostalgic over.

Cosmetic procedures aren’t the only anti-aging process advertised. Just scroll through TikTok. There’s always a new skincare product marketed to keep women looking youthful and iridescent. I mean–ear seeding, really? We go to the extent of poking tiny needles into our skin just to look young. Look at micro-needling; everyone in Hollywood has had it done. Spending thousands on skincare products and regimens to fit the media’s image. 

We even have anti-wrinkle straws. Literally, drinking a certain way just so that we don’t age. Retinoid advertisements are everywhere, and collagen masks are encouraged for sleep. I, at 18 years old, have fallen for some of these anti-aging products. I don’t have a wrinkle in sight. I haven’t even finished growing, and I’m slapping on anti-aging creams and sleeping with facemasks. 

This concept led me to think. The epidemic of children flooding Sephora for skincare products stems from this anti-aging “trend”. Think about it! Kids are buying skincare products for “problems” they won’t have in decades because they’re being advertised by their idols on social media. Surprisingly so, they’re easily influenced. So, now we have 10-year-old’s plastering retinoid all over their face, irritating their skin for no reason. When influencers panic about aging, kids learn to panic too.

Hollywood is always portraying aging in women as if it’s some disease. This idea made me wonder, where did this idea spark from–who lit the match? Women end up doing the most to look young. It isn’t because they genuinely want to for themselves, no matter how hard we portray it as self-love. It’s because there are standards that need to be upheld. In Hollywood, you must fit ideals that appease men. This is essential if you want to make it in the limelight. The first step to fitting the standards is to be young. 

Youthfulness is glorified and placed on a pedestal. Men place it on that pedestal and women upkeep it. There used to be a time when men only ever married teenage girls in America. Then they’d leave them once fine lines started to emerge. Even today, big-time celebrities are being exposed for dealing with younger women, disturbingly younger. It’s all because men value youthfulness. Even when an older woman gets with a younger man, the hate train runs her over. People are appalled by the idea of an older woman and a younger man. Though, for a man’s case, it’s often applauded. 

We, as women, are following the beauty norms set by society and pretending that we’re doing it for ourselves. Then many of us blame each other for being male-centered, as if we don’t know that we’ve been conditioned to be that way. We as women need to stop dusting the pedestal and help each other stand.

 We’re living in denial–that’s why there’s so much insecurity amongst us women. That’s why we’re seeing celebrities becoming thinner and their faces changing little by little each year. We even adjust ourselves to fit the man we’re currently seeing—to keep their image. Kourtney Kardashian is a prime example of this; her entire look changed when she married Travis Barker.

 Kourtney’s look changing overnight entertains the idea that a woman doesn’t have a personality without a man by her side. It’s as if women would be nothing without them. We find ourselves feeding into misogynistic views unconsciously when we follow male-centered trends.

It will never end because trends constantly change. Standards always change, and procedures evolve with them. People will always have opinions about women. So, the chase of perceived beauty will be infinite. You’ll run after it forever until your legs break. It’s a shame that we promote feminism and still find ourselves centering our lives around appealing to the opposite sex. The pressure we put on ourselves as women is feeding into society’s sexism. Women are far more than appearance; we hold so much. We need to start embracing ourselves without the arms of men. 

Aging is an indication that you have lived–that’s the whole point. If anything, aging is a flex. We should use women like Audrey Hepburn, Linda Hamilton, Tracee Ellis Ross, Meryl Streep, and Jamie Lee Curtis as examples. They should be our influences. We should embrace aging rather than discourage it. Nature can’t be fought—It’ll show no matter how many procedures or products you go through. As Audrey Hepburn once said: “I’ve earned every one of those wrinkles”. Aging is an award not given to many — let’s treat it as such. The power age holds does not warrant an apology.