Sarah Jessica Parker spoke out about misogyny and hair color. Her good friend Andy Cohen is commenting on her comments. Here’s what they both have to say about aging gracefully in Hollywood.
Gray Hair Hatred
Parker and Cohen were recently spotted getting a meal in the Big Apple. The photographs served as a helpful microcosm of Hollywood’s double standards. Parker, betrothed in natural gray hair, was criticized for looking old, while Cohen faced no such flack. Considering Parkers only three years older than Cohen, it’s obvious that there’s a gendered nature to these attacks.
Parker spoke to Vogue about the photograph. She eloquently described the double beauty standard around gray hair: “There’s so much misogynist chatter in response to us that would never. Happen. About. A. Man.” She says Cohen “has a full head of gray hair, and he’s exquisite. Why is it okay for him? I don’t know what to tell you people!”
Parker then turns her attention to social media: “It almost feels as if people don’t want us to be perfectly okay with where we are as if they almost enjoy us being pained by who we are today…I know what I look like. I have no choice. What am I going to do about it? Stop aging? Disappear?” Parker understands more than most that you just cannot win this game.
Cohen Expresses Support
Cohen himself sat down with Drew Barrymore to discuss, among other things, Parker’s misogynistic criticism. The Real Housewives honcho explained, “All the articles were ‘Sarah Jessica Parker, she’s going gray’ and ‘She looks old,’ and it was insanity.” He concurred with his longtime friend that this was not okay: “here she is sitting next to me, who’s gray, and people just missed the mark totally. It was so misogynistic.”
Beauty Standards Abound
Glancing at tabloids will validate everything Parker and Cohen are saying. These rags make money by attacking the bodies of celebrities, and there’s just no acceptable body type in their demented eyes. Everyone’s either too old, too big, or too small. If someone gets plastic surgery for whatever reason, then tabloids will attack them for not aging naturally. If someone does age naturally, like Parker, it makes no difference. They’ll still be bogged with vicious attacks and rumormongering.
If a man like Cohen goes out in gray hair, then he’ll probably be lauded as a silver fox. There’s no silver fox status for women in Hollywood. Perhaps projects like And Just Like That can help change this.
