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This just in: As women age, their appearance may change.
There seems to be quite a clear formula at play for women existing under the glare of the Hollywood spotlight, and Kristin Davis has spoken candidly about its impact on her sense of self. In 1998, she waltzed onto our screens as the ever-optimistic and hopelessly romantic Charlotte York, and spent six seasons and two Sex and the City films stunning viewers with her youthful effervescence.
Then, in 2021, Kristin reprised her much beloved role for the highly anticipated SATC spinoff, And Just Like That…, as series that reintroduces us to our New York singletons, but this time, they’re in their fifties and either married, in the process of divorce, or widowed.
A fact of life that seemed to have come as a shock to many, our leading ladies had aged. Miranda’s carrot top was grey, Carrie had to get her hip done, and a facelift storyline that feels all too fitting in moments like these.
Accompanying Anthony for his incredibly positive surgeon’s appraisal — “nice Italian skin, good muscle tone… you’re hot!” — Carrie ends up getting a consultation of her own, which involves the recommendation of several painful nips, tucks and tweaks that her male counterpart seemed to simply not need.
Here Cynthia Nixon’s character says, “This is what they do to women, they make it wrong for us to age,” Kristin Davis’s Charlotte counters with: “A woman should be able to freshen up without other people making them feel bad about it. Botox and a little filler are not the end of the world.”
And just like that… the solution is simple: Let’s just let women do what they want to do with their own bodies. It may seem obvious, but in a recent interview with The Telegraph, Kristin Davis reminds us that it’s not quite that easy.
“I have done fillers and it’s been good and I’ve done fillers and it’s been bad,” she said. “I’ve had to get them dissolved and I’ve been ridiculed relentlessly. And I have shed tears about it. It’s very stressful.”
Speaking to Vogue following the release of AJLT Davis’ co-star Sarah-Jessica Parker said that she has grown weary of absolutely everyone having something to say about her appearance. “‘She has too many wrinkles, she doesn’t have enough wrinkles.’ It almost feels as if people don’t want us to be perfectly okay with where we are,” she said.
Echoing these sentiments now, Davis elaborated further: “It’s hard to be confronted with your younger self at all times. It’s a challenge to remember that you don’t have to look like that. The internet wants you to — but they also don’t want you to. They’re very conflicted.”
Let’s just get one thing absolutely straight: Beauty is not synonymous with youth. Women don’t become dull, boring, and withered of any and all worth once they reach a certain age. Must we even begin to unpack the colossal double standard between all the male counterparts fondly referred to as ‘silver foxes’ who have ‘aged like a fine wine’?
For decades now, female celebrities have had any and all semblance of ageing scrutinised on the front page of tabloids. Laugh lines, ‘crow’s feet’, rogue greys — we’ve been taught that these signs of the passage of time are to be equated with shame, and ought to be rectified.
Enter the multi-billion dollar industry that benefits off our insecurities, reiterating to us time and time again that our faces and bodies need to be sculpted just right, but if it looks too obvious, or becomes botched, a similar fate of critique awaits.
Featured image via @iamkristindavis on Instagram.