The hell of being ‘too sexy’? Come off it, Helen!
ReMeMBer that girl at school who was superclever but always moaning she’d done really badly in her exams? Or the friend who’s a perfect size 8 yet claims she hates her figure? exactly: irritating as hell.
that’s Helen Mirren in her latest magazine interview. dame Helen, she of the iconic red-bikini-at-60 shot, is featured on the cover of next month’s Allure, tattooed hunk draped around her neck and looking, quite frankly, as fabulous as is humanly possible.
Swan neck, knowing smile, her snowy white hair short and chic, a twinkle in her eye: she is the very essence of modern glamour. All the more so since, at 72, she completely redefines what it means to be an older woman.
She looks better than most women half her age — testimony to both her lifestyle and her good genetic fortune. if ever anyone had a reason to be pretty damn pleased with themselves, it’s her.
And yet, oh no! there has to be a self-indulgent — and to my ears utterly tokenistic — display of self-doubt.
Looking back on her youth, she laments her appearance: ‘My cheeks were too fat, legs were too short, breasts too big.
‘it was the time of twiggy, and i did not look like a twig,’ she says, adding — somewhat disingenuously — ‘i fell into the cliché of sexiness: blonde hair, t**s, waist.’
AprOud feminist nowadays, she wasn’t so keen on that sort of thing back in the day. ‘i liked wearing make-up and high heels,’ she says, even if it did make her the target of unwanted male attention and, as Michael parkinson once famously pointed out to her, detracted from her desire to be taken seriously as an actress.
that 1975 interview — Mirren in full dolly bird mode, flirting and waving a feather around coquettishly, poor parky struggling to maintain his composure — is a classic of its kind, a vintage example of the hypocrisy that seems to afflict so many celebrity women.
Women whose exceptional beauty opens up all sorts of opportunities but who flatly refuse not only to acknowledge the arsenal of weapons at their disposal but also their willingness to deploy them.
Who, instead of just admitting that the world is a sucker for a sexy body and a pretty face, and that they just got very lucky, persist in trying to persuade the rest of us that it means nothing to them.
Why they do this? if it’s to make themselves relate to other women, ordinary women, then they’re wasting their time. Because it just gets on our nerves. it’s patronising, implausible, insulting.
i mean, honestly: what do you mean you were ‘too sexy’ in your youth?
that’s like being too rich or too thin. it’s not possible.
Helen Mirren is not the only one, either. Cara delevingne, Keira Knightley, Jennifer Lawrence, Beyonce, Anne Hathaway, Angelina . . . the list is endless.
Moaning about the unwanted attention, picking holes in their appearance. (Lawrence apparently doesn’t like her armpits; Beyonce her ears.)
Being pretty is a doubleedged sword, says Keira. Maybe. Still, no plain Jane ever landed a lucrative Chanel Jolie contract, did they? What they want us to believe is that their looks mean nothing to them. that they are just an afterthought — when in fact they are the key to everything. And even more so in today’s hyper visual world of instagram and Snapchat.
they know this, we know this, the magazines and photographers and filmmakers know this. But for some reason we all have to pretend otherwise, be complicit in their hypocrisy.
dame Helen, you’re a knockout, an icon, an inspiration. So enough of the false modesty. Own it. enjoy it.
And, above all, be grateful for your great good fortune.