I'll Be Your Whatever You Want

season of the swamp witch

When the TV show Mare of Easttown first aired, my friend Martha and I enjoyed texting each other every time we read a description of how “brave” lead actress Kate Winslet was. Not, as you might think, because she had taken on a complex role in a gritty crime drama. Or even because she, an actress from England, had attempted a thick Boston accent for the role. Nope, apparently the reason why Winslet was so shockingly brave was that, she, a middle aged lady, spent all her time on screen looking like, *checks notes*, a middle aged lady.

Martha and I, both middle aged ladies ourselves, spent a lot of time congratulating each other on our own bravery, as we went about our daily lives daring to look like our actual selves. How shockingly courageous we were, walking around with our eye wrinkles and baggy sweaters and greying hair. Please, someone, give us some awards or something. All this bravery going unacknowledged every day.

I think of this sarcastic riff often, I’m sad to say. Similar situations come up on a regular basis. Once you start noticing this theme, this expectation that women will somehow just not ever appear to have aged, it is everywhere. And when it doesn’t feel funny, it feels exhausting.

I don’t need to be told that Jennifer Lopez is in her fifties and STILL! LOOKS! HOT! Sure, okay fine, but when are we allowed to not look hot anymore? At eighty? Martha Stewart was a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model at age eighty-one, so apparently not even octogenarians are spared the requirement to be sexy. When do we get to wear kaftans and eschew make up and spend most of our time not thinking about our appearances? At ninety? At a hundred and seven? That doesn’t leave me nearly enough kaftan years.

This all came up again recently for me when problematic fave, Katy Perry, released her ridiculous new single “Woman’s World” (I just tried to listen to it again for the sake of writing about it here and I think I got seven seconds in before I had to turn it off). My love for Katy Perry is well documented, but, to put it elegantly, I can not with this. This song feels like it’s approximately thirty years too late, like it should have been released in the era of Spice Girls feminism, when people thought that girl bossing ourselves out of oppression was possible. But in 2024, with abortion bans and trad wives and men’s rights activists and the racial disparity in maternal mortality rates and oh, did you hear it’s trendy to be skinny again? it is absolutely jarring to hear Perry telling us that it’s a woman’s world and we’re lucky to be living in it. Is it? And are we?

And why does she have to look like that? As a rule I try to avoid critiquing how other women look, because there are more than enough people out there in the world doing that and if I want to be free to walk around looking like an aging riot grrrl swamp witch then who am I to criticize other ladies for wearing shape wear? But this is the same Katy Perry who won me over when she wore a cow print dress (with matching hat!) during the audition rounds of American Idol because she had just had a baby and was nursing! The dress had a placket that opened at the boobs! She goofed around between auditions by getting on all fours on the floor and pretending to be a cow. Okay, so it’s not deep social critique, but it drew attention to her body in a way that wasn’t about sexiness. It was funny, it had a slight edge, it was self-aware in a way that I thought was interesting.

Katy Perry is pushing forty and has given birth and nursed a kid and has been criticized by the right and the left and the parents of children who watch Sesame Street and has ugly-cried on American Idol about motherhood and gun violence and myriad other things and all I’m saying is that she should be allowed to have a bit of a swamp witch time too. And maybe she doesn’t want to, which is fine. But seeing people aging in a way that is air-brushed and spray tanned and likely doesn’t include eating a lot of sandwiches just tends to bum me out.

(for more on the “Woman’s World” debacle here’s an excellent piece by Alim Kheraj on Dazed about the whole mess.)

Anyway, it’s okay, because the universe gifted something else to me this week, something to soothe the Katy Perry rage and give me a model for aging that I can happily follow. Clips from The Breeders “Live in Big Sur” set started popping up on my social media feed and I immediately sought out the full performance and watched it. Several times. The Deal sisters are now 63 years old and they look, at least to me, remarkably the same as they have for years. But older in a normal way. Their bodies and faces are those of women in their sixties and the expressions on their faces are the ones I remember from watching them play various times over the past thirty-or-so years. And they sound fucking great in that beautifully shot performance.

Kim wearing a worn, long-sleeved t-shirt with her reading glasses hanging on the neck is perfection as far as I’m concerned.

Listen, I’m not saying there is a right way or a wrong way to age. I don’t want to start fights between the JLo’s and the swamp witches among us. We can not afford that. All I’m saying is that the Kim Deal style of aging allows me to take a deep breath and understand that there is a way to do this without being deeply bogged down by weird societal expectations. I don’t want to use forty skin care products before I go to bed every night. I want to have a bath and watch an episode of Grantchester and read a book. And sometimes it takes an aging rock star in the woods to remind me that I can.

July 2024 - Songs

The line in “No Aloha” about motherhood meaning “mental freeze” has haunted me since I had my first child but I still love the song. It is perhaps my favourite Breeders song though “Divine Hammer” is also in the running.

I was supposed to see William Prince play this week but the show got cancelled, which was a big buzzkill because I have listened almost exclusively to William Prince over the past two months and I was really looking forward to seeing him play outdoors at Bluesfest here in Ottawa. Another time! Anyway, here’s his lovely song “Only Thing We Need”.

This newsletter was originally going to be an optimistic chronicle of how my oldest child’s musical theatre obsession has reminded me that there is hope and goodness in the world but then Katy Perry spoiled it for everyone, so as a consolation here is the song my kid got to feature in during his theatre camp’s performance of Mamma Mia last week: “Does Your Mother Know”.

July 2024 - Feelings

I’ll just go ahead and admit it that I have been in a reading slump and haven’t gotten through a lot of new books recently. It happens! Anyway, here is one recommendation from each person in my family, and that should tide us all over until next month.

-My husband has just read Yellowface by R.F. Kuang and said that it kept making him feel a vague unease whenever I was talking about what was going on in my IRL publishing experience. I assured him that I did not steal someone else’s manuscript and pretend that I’m not white, so everything should be okay for me.

-My eleven year old kid just finished Stand Up, Yumi Chung! which I read as well and we both really enjoyed. A heartening story about the pressures of being a tween with demanding parents and a passion for stand up comedy.

-My nine year old and I are reading Mitch and Amy by Beverly Cleary which is very engrossing. I remember reading it as a kid and being equally fascinated. Panning for gold at the bank! Bullies! Eucalyptus trees! Soggy pinatas! So many middle-grade dramas.

-And I did manage to get through a few books this month, my favourite being Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin. I read half of it a few months ago and then had to put it aside due to a library book situation, but when I went back to it I raced through the second half. Super good.

And just as reminder that my own book, Make Me a Mixtape, is now available for pre-order at whatever bookstore you enjoy hanging out in. You can also request copies on NetGalley for review if you do that sort of thing, and/or add it on Goodreads.

Thanks for reading! See you next month.

J.W.

Instagram : @JenniferWhitefordWrites

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