Last week we talked about Justine Bateman’s 60 Minutes Australia interview in which she said she had no desire to erase the evidence of her age on her face. I was thrilled to see the positive response to her comments. Apparently, we were not the only ones to fist bump Justine and her ‘rad’ appearance, she’s seeing a lot of love in her DMs. While promoting her new book Face on Today, Justine told Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie that women get plastic surgery because of fear. But we’re being “lied to” about what would happen if we did look older because people make a lot of money off our desire to look younger.
Speaking to Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie this morning on the TODAY Show, Bateman said that after the segment aired, she received a meaningful message. The woman, a mom, said, “I never realized what impact this conversation was having on younger women until my [16-year-old] daughter came in from the other room. She said, ‘Hey, did you guys see the 60 Minutes thing with Justine Bateman?’ She said it was great–now I’m not afraid of getting old.”
Bateman was glad to hear it. “I was like, oh my god, if just one person, like, is not afraid,” she said. “It’s silly. I’ve never been smarter, I’ve never had more connections. It’s like when you’re younger you know the [guy at the] door of the nightclub? When you’re older, you know the person who owns the building that the nightclub is in.”
The 57-year-old said the war on aging was an “inside job” that left some women doubting their appearance. “I would say to any young woman, you’re being lied to. Who is making money off this? You’re being lied to and you’re being tricked off your path… You’ve got awesome things coming your way. Just stay on your path and just ride it out.”
Bateman told Kotb and Guthrie it was this fear that left people not wanting to look older. “Some people are afraid they’ll lose their job or never get a job or not get a mate or no one’s going to listen to them or whatever. And that fear, my position is, that fear existed before their face started changing,” Bateman says.
“I’m just somebody who got myself on the other side of what that fear was for me in particular, and I’m just sharing what worked for me. Lots of ways to get there, but for anyone who wants to get free,” she told the TODAY Show.
To be fair to Justine, in the full interview, she emphasizes that she is not an advocate against plastic surgery, she just pushed past the desire to do any work. Ultimately, I agree with her points, too. I absolutely agree that Bottled Youth is big business and nobody’s willing to give up that cash cow. I agree that the pervasive ageism in society motivates women to hide their age. But in Justine’s segment, posted below, when she spoke about how we are being lied to, she suggests the hurdles are all in our heads and we just need to push past it like she did. On this point she may be coming from a position of privilege of being able to jump from actress to director/author. Any job site warns you to restructure your work experience on your resume so potential employers can’t tell your age. While some myths are being perpetuated about the need to turn back the clock, it isn’t just in our heads.
Justine’s primary message, though, is to push past the fear of looking older, which is a good one. I appreciate the part that we should embrace our age and celebrate who we are. I also still believe, however, that we all have our little ways of getting there. I’ve admitted that I dress flamboyantly as kind of an armor. Justine clearly still dyes her hair. Maybe someone else minimizes their smile lines but keeps their crows’ feet. We all push past the fear in different ways so let’s continue to lift each other up along the way.
In an exclusive interview with @SavannahGuthrie and @hodakotb, @JustineBateman opens up about women and aging: “When you’re younger, you know the doorman of the nightclub. When you’re older, you know the person who owns the building that the nightclub is in.” pic.twitter.com/84tZHf9LuK
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) April 3, 2023
Photo credit: Instagram and Getty Images
I understand that this is a complicated issue and there are real, societal threats due to aging but I’m so happy to hear someone who is quite popular and well known say LOUDLY that is encouraged fear of aging, especially in women, is driven by billion dollar industries. White men will lose a lot of money if women can let go of this fear even just a little.
Petty moment – I don’t want Justine to do anything to her face. I think she’s beautifully herself but the undereye eyeliner irks me. Which is fine and not her issue so keep being you Justine!
She looks super rad in those jeans. I don’t like the black eyeliner or the long hair. Maybe a high ponytail would be better if she wants it long?
Or a bob right above her shoulders would really frame her beautiful jawline, no jowls on her!
In addition to money, they’ll lose power over women. The time spent on getting to look like you’re pressured to look takes away from other things you could be doing, and looking younger makes you look unthreatening, more pliant and nice. The damage that always having to “fix” or hide yourself does to your self-image probably has consequences for confidence. Beauty and submission can go hand in hand in this way.
Excellent points @Shawna. I love what you said here.
Thanks, Side Eye! I placed my comment in the wrong place, so I’m glad it didn’t seem totally weird.
Do you not realize that your asinine suggestions about how to improve her appearance play into the same BS about women she’s speaking against? Cut her hair why? Because older women look better/more age appropriate with short hair? Because it would make her more aesthetically pleasing to YOUR eye? Can you imagine if we all commented on your Instagram page ways for you to improve your appearance to look better under a post about how you feel great about yourself? SMH
@Hamsandwich I thought the same thing.
YES! 100%. And the complement about not having jowls. When you age naturally, you are pretty much going to have jowls! And her entire point is that it is ok.
💯
Let’s mutually agree to stop with the “suggestions” on how other people can improve, until they outright ask for input.
You know what? I bet she likes her hair as it is. She’s the one who has to walk around with it looking however it does. If you like a high pony or a bob, do it to your own hair.
Exactly, @Wendy! She obviously likes her long hair & eyeliner. She can wear whatever makeup/hairstyle she wants (& look rad rocking it).
It’s her hair and her eyeliner. If it makes her happy so be it. I appreciate the stand she’s taking about fighting through the fear of looking old, that’s what we should be congratulating her for, not telling her she should do this or that with her hair and make-up. That’s just continuing the pressure on women that they must look a certain way.
It’s not only surgery to look younger. The amount of young girls I see out these days with lips like sausages worries me. The beauty standard is getting more and more ridiculous.
Justine does not “clearly” dye her hair. My mother’s hair is that color, and she’s 65 and does not dye her hair. I’m 46, and have had 2 grey hairs in my life, one when I was 16.
All the men in my dad’s family never went grey. In their 90s with jet black hair.
meanwhile i’m asian and my hair started going gray at 11
@Emily_C, nice! Both my grans kept natural dark hair until they passed but I’ve had a bright white streak since my teens
Agreed. My mother and I are exactly the same way and my mom is in her 80’s. Some white hairs here and there, and only she and I can see them lol. I see a few in Justine’s hair; it’s not as dark in overall shade as it used to be and that smattering of white hairs proves to me that she doesn’t dye her hair same as my mother and I do not
My paternal grandmother didn’t go grey until her 80’s (her friends all thought she lied about coloring her hair), nor did my father. I am 70% grey in my 50’s – my husband – not 1 grey hair.
I’m in my mid 50s and I only have a few gray hairs. People I haven’t seen in a while will ask me what my “new color” is and I just say this is my color and it isn’t new, lol. Maybe it just gets darker in the winter when I’m not out in the sun as much.
I think when my hair does go gray, I’ll color it. Probably. It depends when it happens and how it looks when it does happen.
In the Today show segment you can clearly see she has gray strands. She’s only 57, some people don’t go completely gray until much later, if ever.
Yep, I’m 54 and only have one or two greys. Just genetics!
51 here – I am not grey, either. My grandfather died in his 80s with no grey hair.
I find it sad that so many women are afraid of aging in the first place. Being old is better than the alternative.
There is truth to what she is saying. Maybe when we are younger our insecurities are about being pretty enough or thin enough. As we age, those insecurities turn age related. Are we looking young enough or are we aging badly? I’ve never thought about that, but knowing myself, I’ve always been insecure about something and this makes sense, at least for me.
The other truth is that plastic surgery doesn’t really make you look younger, and in fact, can do the opposite. How many times have we said a certain actress or singer would look better if she had just let herself age naturally?
When I went down a rabbit hole once considering options to reduce jowls I read about a study that showed plastic surgery doesn’t make you more attractive to other people it just takes a few years off your perceived age. Which when you think about it is kind of funny. Like you’re paying all this money and undergoing surgery and at the end of the day the only external result is someone would guess you are a little bit younger than you are. Not prettier, not hotter, just a wee bit younger. I was like wow the cost benefit analysis is really not in favor of doing anything here. Once you’ve sunk money into it you’d probably feel compelled to keep protecting the youthful image as you age and keep getting more procedures. I’d rather just go on some nice vacations with my family with that money.
Also disagree that she has privilege to view ageing as not a big deal. As we all know actresses are probably under the most pressure to stay youthful looking, more so than your average Jane. It’s pretty impressive to me she was able to work through her fears when they were actually probably well-founded (like I won’t be able to get any jobs if I keep my wrinkles).
I can’t help but say it: her brother has had a crap ton of work done. I wonder how that effects their dynamic. He’ll never be recognized as having had plastic surgery.
I know most of the industry is marketed most obviously towards women, but men should not be excluded from this convo.
Curious why you think he’s had work done, I just saw his interview on his new film Air, he has brow heaviness and eyelids, deep set ‘eleven’ wrinkles and forehead lines, heavy marionette lines, and undereye bags. There is nothing on his face that indicates he has had any work done, he looks like a normal 50+ year old man to me…
No he hasn’t. He too is aging naturally. He has wrinkles, sagginess under his chin and other facial indicators that he hasn’t had a “crap ton of work done”. Check out his interviews for “Air”, you’ll see.
I just now learned that Jason Bateman is her brother
*mind blown*
I wonder how close her and Jason are these days. He seems to run with a crowd that spends a lot of money and effort on looking youthful. Makes you wonder what Jason actually thinks about these topics.
If you’re referring to Jennifer Aniston, she’s a friend as are other actors in his circle. It’s Hollywood, I doubt he even thinks about cosmetic surgery twice. He chooses his friends not for the fact they can spend a lot of money and effort on looking young.
She looks great. Plastic surgery can sometimes make you unrecognizable. I watched Helen Hunt’s latest movie and didn’t even know it was her. She’s definitely gone too far.
That’s the biggest fear of repeated procedures, isn’t it (other than serious health complications, obviously)? That you look younger to yourself with each one until one tie you’re no longer yourself in the mirror.
I agree with most of what’s being said. But one thing I can’t really get behind is that opportunities come to you regardless of looks. She even includes skin color. That’s just not true at all and while I know she means well, to act like it’s all in our heads is just ridculous.
In another interview she also said social media is not the real world. Yes it is. As an elder millennial, I know what people mean when they say that but Gen Z is living their lives online as well as analog. And we can discuss the pros and cons, the opportunities and dangers. But just because my or her generation long for the good old days of landlines and being unreachable most hours of the day, doesn’t mean this world isn’t real.
I can get behind a lot what she’s trying to represent but there’s a healthy dose of ignorance in there as well.
If that’s true that social media is the real world, then the good news is there are so many filters that plastic surgery is wholly unnecessary to make yourself look younger if that’s what you value. I’m not sure the context that she was saying it’s not real though. Maybe it was exactly that, that when you see people looking perfect online, that doesn’t accurately reflect how they look every day when a camera is not pointed at them and they don’t have perfect lighting and filtering
Are you saying social media has not become part of the real world? Just because you live your life online and outside does not mean one isn’t real.
She was saying it in the context of it doesn’t matter. As in, put down the phone and accept that the real world is outside. Which is really naive in my opinion. And saying if filters are real you don’t need plastic surgery is … an interesting take but I assume you were trying to show my statement was ridiculous.
She said that what you see on social media is not real. Which means to me not that social media isn’t real, because obviously it exists and many of us enjoy using it, but that the images you see of people looking beautiful/youthful/perfect are not real. They are curated. This isn’t a brand new opinion or way out there – we know this already. Plenty of more humorous influencers post memes like “IG vs. real life” and they’ll show a picture with a mess in the background and then the same picture cropped with a filter. Or one of my favorite people to follow sometimes posts pics where she is looking made up and well-lit and then the second pic in the slide is her looking shlubby and having a double chin and her caption is that these were taken on the same day 1.5 hours apart, just in case you were comparing yourself to someone on IG today.
I get your point that you don’t like her judgment that spending time online isn’t valuable or valid and the only things worthwhile doing are being in the physical outside world. It’s def a broad sweeping statement that isn’t very realistic to most of us.
The only anti-aging product I use is sunscreen. I started following this awesome dermatologist on Instagram, and she said it’s really all you need. And both my parents had skin cancers on their faces, so I slather mineral sunscreen on every single day.
I’m working on my acceptance of my white hairs. I’m naturally a strawberry blonde, so the white kind of blends. I just keep reminding myself that age is a privilege denied to many.
It’s not old men keeping women down. From these comments it’s obvious it’s other women… applaud her lack of Botox but trash her hair and eyeliner. Women need to stop policing other women’s bodies and choices, period. Stop commenting on how someone looks, period. This includes mocking a Kardashians butt and lips…. All of it is just pitting women against women and sending a message that our bodies and by extension our rights over them, reproductive and otherwise, are up for discussion. Our own bodies, our own choices- no judgment.
‘Women need to stop policing other women’s bodies and choices, period. ‘
Bravo Sienna.
Second this.
I know this is a gossip site, that btw I love, especially because of the sense, sensibility, intelligence, and care shown by bloggers and commenters alike; but imo probably gossiping should grow in some ways too, and be able to be accepting of women bodies (and bodies in general) while still preserving its ability to be fun.
Inclusivity and acceptance, while still gossiping around.
Even if it sounds like squaring the circle, I believe it’s a path we can at least start walking on.
Agreed.
thank you so much for saying this, @sienna. so many comments on this site attack a woman’s looks, and commenters think it’s ok because they don’t like that particular person, or think they’re not a good person, etc. misogyny is misogyny if you like the woman or not.
Exactly.
it’s internalized misogyny, for sure. It’s all of popular culture. Women internalize what our culture values and weaponize that against other women. I mean, women have been culturally valued for their appearance since the dawn of civilization. I generally agree that the most revolutionary thing we can do is simply ignore other womens’ appearance and treat it as a personal/private subject that needs no commentary.
Thanks so much for that! Too often on this site women who are disliked are attacked for their personal appearance. Beauty is nice to have but it’s not a virtue and being old or plain does not make you worthless.
Well said. Also, it would be nice if the culture’s focus was less on the physical appearance piece of getting older as a woman and more on aging without losing compassion for other women and girls. There’s just not enough discussion of that piece, and it’s something we need to be concerned with earlier in life.
Sienna internalized misogyny is real AND men are still out there thinking it’s natural to get with an 18-21 year old at any age. Men in my life also told me misogynistic and ageist lies, much more so than women.
One of my current fave instagram account is swipes4daddy, where she sets her age as 21 and her preferred age range as 45+ and the way these men just…tell on themselves about what creeps they are. It’s sad, hilarious and they get mad when she holds up the mirror. Internalized misogyny sucks yes, but I don’t see so.many.women rhapsodizing barely legal boys, and insisting men wear makeup and keep their youthful figure and putting 18 year old boys on magazine covers and runways.
Sienna your comment is 10,000%
I can’t believe women are commenting support about aging but then in same comment criticizing Justine’s appearance.
I think the aging culture is women tearing down other women. White men are profiting off of it. You want to make a white man rich the best way is to be against women,
I am slightly younger than Justine. I have no reason to make myself aesthetically pleasing to anyone except me. At the end of the day I need to be proud of who I am and not some rando that passed me by at WalMart. I still dye my hair because it makes me feel pretty. I use lots of moisturizers because I love them. I love trashy long nails and lots of jewelry. I also love my laugh lines and peri curves. Kudos to Justine for living her life and not giving a care in the world for impressing others. It is her eyeliner and her hair. I I have always thought she is so pretty. I think a lot of the controversial stars are beautiful, even the hated Kardashians.
She’s my hero! I hope to be as cool as her one day!
Not only is Bottled Youth expensive, it carries significant health risks! I hate the general discussion around plastic surgery. We generally present it as a personal choice – as though there aren’t real risks to our health from it. I’d like to hear more discussion about why we think it is worth jeopardizing our health for cosmetic reasons. Clearly, there is a great deal of pressure on women to look a certain way – to the extent that we ARE willing to jeopardize our health for cosmetic reasons. And that’s just…sad.
I think it’s a perverse form of misogyny/sexism; yet again, women are made to feel as if their appearance matters most, as if their value is attached to youth, “fertility” (don’t even get me started on the sexism in fertility research), etc. I’m HERE for the resurgence of the 40+ year old women. I want to see women in their 50s looking HOT, looking exactly like women in their 50s look. I want to see that celebrated!
Why don’t we ever talk about the benefits of simply accepting parts of ourselves that we may not like (as opposed to changing them with surgery)? How about the benefits of sourcing our value in things that have nothing to do with our appearance? Why isn’t THAT the discussion instead of “oh, cosmetic surgery is just an individual choice that carries no consequences”?
@GrnieWnie
Absolutely.
We should all start by praising uniqueness.
Each one of us, at any age, is unique because of the way we are, supposed “defects” included, even more *because* of them
(Dirty Dancing’s Jennifer Grey anyone?)
And aging should be celebrated per se, lines and wrinkle represent our lives, our experiences, ourselves…
You should do whatever you feel makes you feel good. I DO think you should put sunscreen on and move on about your life.
Justine is so cool and im happy I have decided to also jump on the ride through your age bandwagon. Also happy to see how some of my friends are also killing it by not coloring their hair, not getting into injections and surgeries. They look absolutely beautiful !!!!!!!! I have rad girlfriends and i dare believe im that cool too.
I am 44, and I recently began perimenopause. It’s sad but not surprising that menopause isn’t talked about. If it is mentioned, it’s often in a way that describes menopausal women as bitches with dried out vaginas and zero sex drive. I’ve been intimate with middle aged men and I get why they describe women their age this way. I think they are really scared and insecure about changes their own bodies are going through, and instead of addressing those issues they lash out at women.
Getting older is scary. I am scared of becoming invisible. I fear losing those little interactions with strangers that make my life richer because people will see right through me. I don’t know how to put it into words.
She is correct in that the makeup/beauty industry makes Billions.
She seems very content in her looks and her career, so I say More Power to Ya!
Remember the “fresh face” or “natural” makeup in the 60-70’s? Light makeup, pale or clear lips gloss, natural hair (which still needed a ton of product sometimes)
I’d like to see the end of the Kardashian style, i.e. lip injections, layers of makeup, foundation, shading, plastic surgery.