Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Modern Maturity -- the largest-circulation magazine in America -- gets sexier as the baby boomers realize that 50 isn't old after all.
Sep 1, 1999 | At the end of his novel "Breakfast of Champions," Kurt Vonnegut liberated his characters, as if (in his analogy) he were Lincoln freeing the slaves. As the author sails off, turning somersaults in the void, the aged sci-fi writer Kilgore Trout runs after him shouting, "Make me young, make me young, make me young!" Many magazines seem to believe that their readers have the same fervent wish, and repay them with stories on cosmetic surgery and "Dawson's Creek." It is young people, after all, who are having all the fun, drinking all the Chai, coupling in the corners while taking the odd moment out to answer a reporter's lame questions via e-mail. All you old crones and geezers (hey, the baggy shorts and turned-around baseball cap really isn't working, bud) can only recall those bygone days of lust and ardor, and stew. (Easy on the salt.) Kids rule; seniors drool.
So when the AARP publication Modern Maturity released its study on sex among the elderly last month, the press treated it as a man-
"When we talked about picking the sexiest we looked at people who were comfortable with being who they are, not necessarily the Goldie Hawns of the world, who are trying to look 22," says editor in chief Hugh Delahanty. Sarandon, 52, certainly has the natural look -- but she also evokes fond feelings for nearly anyone who grew up in the '60s, whether they first noticed her in "Joe" or doing the Time Warp in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." And that, according to Delahanty (a mere 50 himself), was at least part of the idea. The AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons -- the group now prefers the acronym alone since so many of its members are working) boasts more than 32 million members over the age of 50 and doesn't need glasses to see the approaching tsunami of baby boomers; it's waxing its surfboard as we speak. "You know how when baby boomers turned 40, all of the sudden 40 wasn't so old anymore?" says Delahanty. "I think with 50 you're going to see the same thing." Indeed, Sarandon (who did not pose for the cover but approved the use of her image) ordered extra copies for her friends, and a number of older stars called to ask why they didn't make the list.
It wasn't always thus. In the past, celebrities have contacted the magazine (the largest-circulation publication in America, with 20.7 million readers) and asked not to be included in the magazine's regular "Big Five-Oh" list of folks turning 50. One of this year's inductees, Don Imus (who looks like he could be Keith Richards' funeral director), frequently complained on the air about his inclusion.
But just as John Lennon's death was made front-page news by a generation of journalists who grew up on the Beatles, doing anything other than waiting for Ed McMahon to come knocking at the door of your double-wide, carrying a scythe, is becoming headline stuff for editors and writers approaching AARP candidacy.
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