50? Get my Dentures

so I’m listening to sports talk radio today, the day after the Super Bowl, and they’re dissecting the game and then they announce that they’re waiting for Eli Manning, who is expected to call in. While the hosts are killing time until then they begin to talk about the halftime show and Madonna, and they immediately begin to grill her. After hammering her on the lip syncing (which may be a good thing after enduring to the Black Eyed Peas performance during last year’s game) they turn to her age. She’s old, they surmise, she looks old, and she almost fell on those steps. Why didn’t they have a ramp instead of steps, especially for someone her age!  And they continued . . .

Madonna is 53, hardly someone ready for the retirement home, a nursing facility or social security.

 I’m no fan of the Material Girl, but I think I see a bit of discrimination here. I don’t remember The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, facing any age questions when he played the Super Bowl, and he was 59. Tom Petty was 57, Paul McCartney and Who members Roger Daltry & Peter Townsend were in their sixties, yet there was no criticism that they were too old too be hip or cool that I can recall. Why is this?

“I'm sure there is some gender double standard, but that's always the case,” says my good friend Chris. “Think about the "wardrobe malfunction": Who actually ripped the clothes off Janet Jackson's breast? Justin Timberlake. Who got the majority of the blame? Janet Jackson. Whose album sales and singles rocketed after ‘nipplegate?’ Justin Timberlake. Whose career, which to that point had consistently delivered top 10 hit songs, crumbled to the point she could barely make the Top 40 anymore? Janet Jackson.

“To be fair, Madonna has always relied on her looks and sex appeal, so it probably is more noticeable that a 50-year-old Madonna doesn't move like a 30-year-old Madonna, something you wouldn't notice with someone like Springsteen.”

I think it was Glenn Close who once said that an actresses career was pretty well over when Hollywood deemed her unf%^&*able. I could not find that quote on a web search but she did say “It is very difficult for girls. They're told to look one way, but to act another.” Amen Glenn. The same criteria does not need to be met for, say, Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Robert DeNiro, Tom Hanks, and so on.

Maybe at 50+ myself I’m a little more sensitive to this. We have come a long way in our battle against discrimination, whether it be religious or race. I would hope that we would add age to it as well.

And in a “a-ha, you deserved that” moment Eli never did make the call, leaving the hosts hanging to fill time. I don't know, maybe at only 31 Eli is still too young to know how to use a phone.

End of rant. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.