Yoko Ono and Madonna both fight ageism – in radically different ways
Yoko Ono turned 82 on 18 February, and noted the occasion with an open letter titled Don’t Stop Me!, addressed to critics who think it unseemly that she’s still making music at her age. Ono doesn’t often respond to criticism, but whatever has been flung at her lately has evidently flustered her.
“I don’t want to be old and sick like many others of my age. Please don’t create another old person,” she begins, going on to defend her singing and the right to wear hot pants in the video for her 2013 track Bad Dancer.
“I am afraid of just one thing,” she concludes. “That those ageism criticism [sic] will finally influence me … Because dancing in the middle of an ageism society is a lonely trip.”
Ono and Madonna are tackling ageism in their own ways, one publicly decrying it, the other ignoring it. Each to her own.
Madonna’s refusal to be affected by age is inspiring. She looks, dresses and sounds exactly as she pleases,. Five seconds after her fall, she was back on her feet, singing from where she left off, chipper as a teenager. She must have been in considerable pain – and has since revealed that she suffered whiplash – but to give in to it would have involved losing face, and given the trolls even more ammunition.
I get the impression that she sees ageing as a mere barrier in a career that’s consisted of steaming through barriers – from the early assumption that she needed men to write and produce her records, to her recent contretemps with Radio 1, which refused to A-list her current single. (The station denied accusations that this was based on her age, and has since claimed its only consideration is “musical merit”.)
Somehow, you feel, she’ll plough through society’s distaste for older women and create her own version of midlife, where she continues to be a successful artist and dates people she finds attractive, whatever their age.
Ono says: “I am covering my ears not to listen to you guys! Don’t stone me! Let me be! Love me plenty for what I am!”
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