A well known clothing company has crowned Helen Mirren as the winner of their ‘Gran Bod’ campaign. I’m almost speechless with horror with the concept that any older woman might be thrilled at the prospect of that title. When it comes to the beauty industry, older women have a pretty rough deal – constant messaging on ‘turning back the clock’, ‘look ten years younger’, ‘banish lines and wrinkles’, but now the fashion industry has joined in with ‘Gran Bod’.
The campaign is supposed to be a positive – celebrating older women with great bodies. Any possible positive connotations with body confidence is eroded in those two awful words. Why is anyone even looking at 50+ bodies with such scrutiny? Helen Mirren was named the winner of a Facebook poll of 2K women asked to vote which celebrity looks best on the beach. Oh, really? And you are staring at celebrities on the beach, why? The awful thing about this is that other women found it perfectly okay to judge and scrutinize the body of a 70 year old woman and deem it acceptable, encouraged to do so by the fashion brand. Other celebrities such as Goldie Hawn and Lorraine Kelly were apparently ‘highly ranked’ and to my best knowledge, Lorraine Kelly is not a ‘gran’.
I think it’s fairly obvious that bodies don’t stay the same – much like beauty, they will go through many permutations throughout your life. Being over 50 in a bikini isn’t a ‘thing’ – it’s just what some women choose to wear if they want to. I fail to see how it could possibly be anyone else’s business what anyone is wearing on a beach, never mind make the assumption that if you’re over 50, you might be doing something ‘brave’ by wearing a two piece. Awarding someone for having a nice body ‘at their age’ is insulting but labelling it a ‘gran bod’ is ignorant.
I will lay money on the fact that there was nobody from the target age group giving input on this campaign – it sounds like it came out of the mouths of some giggly teenage boys who can only consider that anyone over 50 must surely want to look younger, and that there might be something vaguely distasteful in the first place about an older woman in a bikini.
In beauty world, we’re on the cusp of older women becoming ‘normalised’ – in that brands are finally starting to realise that being older isn’t the worst thing that happened and looking younger isn’t the aim of every woman over 50 – older women can be perfectly confident but they’ve had a lifetime of being told by the beauty industry that somehow ageing is shameful. They are at the very beginning of undoing that. Body shaming is unbearably commonplace – the last very thing, I would have thought, to enable pride in oneself is to be labelled a ‘Gran Bod’ because you’re over 50 by a fashion brand.
Imagine Gran Face? I’m picturing the entire Estee Lauder marketing team shuddering at the thought. So, really, you have to ask how Gran Bod ever got approved, was ever thought to be empowering or flattering or even just basically socially acceptable? If you have any answers, I’d love to know.
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16 comments
Also in the “esteemed” list were Lorraine Kelly and Elle McPherson. Neither of them grans but even if they were what planet is someone on to think that’s a title someone wants to have. I had to google which company it was. Interestingly they have a clothing line linked to Lorraine Kelly….
Plus with some women being grans in their 30’s if they’ve had their family young where does that leave everyone else?
That’s a good point well made.. Grans can be any age from 32 upwards. Some women never become Gran’s.
My Mum is 68, has 3 grandkids and looks amazing. This is in part because she leads a healthy lifestyle & looks after herself.
Looking good and being over 40 are not mutually exclusive. Gran bod manages to be both insulting & patronising at once!
Good point!
Jane, you just sum it up so well. Normalising that every woman can make a choice of how she dresses on the beach or anywhere else at any age still feels like a journey that culturally in the West we’ve only just begun. But I guess the more we discuss and accept our diversity the less we’ll feel the need to rank / label it in a poll!
The fashion world lives in its own alternative universe. The truth is they have failed to innovate. They recycle trends from previous decades such as the hippie look, ripped jeans, maxi dresses, batwing sleeves, etc. In the beauty industry, they’re back to contouring faces. Wasn’t that from the 1970s? There’s more pressure now to increase profits and profit margins but they don’t have a pipeline of new innovative products so it’s incredibly difficult. That’s why you get ridiculous campaigns like Gran Bod. It’s the sign of management and marketing teams under extreme pressure to deliver profits without any new ideas. A few days ago, I read that under-18 models are “in” again and some of them are as young as 14! We’re back to Brooke Shields and Kate Moss (when they were under 18), 1980s and 1990s, respectively. Unlike the tech industry, the fashion industry continues to live in the previous century.
Helen Mirren doesn’t even have children, let alone grand-children! To label her “Gran-Bod” is offensive as it reduces her achievements to having a good “post-reproductive” or maternal body when, for whatever reason known to her, she has not had children. It’s sexism on every possible level – objectifying a women by judging her on how her body measures up to a certain beauty ideal and by advancing the idea that women over a certain age’s only role is to be grandmothers. She’s an Oscar winning actress for crying out loud. This probably won’t even register on her radar but if it does it would be refreshing if she denounced it. That would hopefully stop companies from trying to cash in on such stupid campaigns.
Hard to leave a comment as my jaw id hanging down *effin Speechless*
Lyn x
http://www.thelavenderbarn.blogspot.co.uk
I’ve also been observing the “it’s OK to have grey hair be ause it’s fashionable now”commentary. All patronising piffle in my mind!
I even hate the term “bod” being used for anyone…but GRAN bod…as Joan Rivers would have said oh PULeese…and as a side note – Helen Mirren herself even said the reason she never had children of her own was because “she doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body”…I can just imagine the (lack of) brain storming meeting where the team came up with this ridiculous term…companies like this put out things like this because they just KNOW it will get them talked about – Im pretty sure this “poll” and Helen “winning” complete with obligatory bikini it will be featuring in the Daily Mail as I type…
I’ve just blogged about this today too. I was trying to ignore it but the Top 10 Gran Bods email was the last straw!
I tried to ignore it too… but it rankled all over the weekend.!
Idiotic use of words, yet another silly campaign…However I work in the advertising and beauty industry and call me cynical but this is an industry who wants to create a storm, outrage and make women angry, boost their advertising reach in a big way even it is very negative. The moto is’ there is no bad publicity’ Think about it I am abroad at present but want to google to find who was behind the gran bod…Actually I won’t, one less person reached !
Oh gawd. Gran bod. Really? How much longer do we have to put up with this kind of tripe.
The worst thing is that its supposed to be flattering. Jeez.
Its posts like these that make me love your blog xxx.
I do not often comment on here, but I feel so strong about this that I am almost enraged. It beggars belief that anyone could think this is a flattering comment
Really?!! Who makes these mind blowingly idiotic things up?? What about the men – it makes me angry that us women are once again put under the ageing microscope. Leave us alone beauty industry and do something more productive.