Don't Depress Me

Did anyone else see the BAFTA’s? Mickey Rourke won best actor for his role in The Wrestler. I think the same thing was on a lot of people’s minds. What the fuck happened to his face? In case you weren’t aware, Mickey was once a very handsome young man. Looking his best in the likes of Diner (1982) and Rumble Fish (1983).

However, a boxing career and subsequent reconstructive plastic surgery left him as the ugly bucket he is today.

It is a mighty shame, but it’s not just being repeatedly punched in the face that will save you money on future Halloween masks. Time can be a cruel bitch. The most frightening example I’ve found is the once beautiful Claudia Cardinale from Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).
See now the old hag. An impostor, a ravaged relic.
This is what 50 years can do to someone. Render them unrecognisable. Only a fragment of their former selves. This notion scares me. No matter how we try to fight it, the matter is out of our hands. Our features soften and become rounder. The skin rubberising, becoming Play-Doh in our grandchildren’s hands.

There’s a horrific circularity to it. As babies we all looked the same, and as old people we shall again. Is there anything more depressing than when an old biddy takes great pleasure in surprising you that she was once a beauty? That when old couples look at each other and smile, they’re trying their hardest to remember what they used to look like, and try to forget that they are now different people who have nothing in common.

I suppose the best they can do is laugh at themselves. Find humour in the slapstick nature of life unique to the aged. Like when Doris sets down a brew on the dinner table, only for her swinging breast to swoop down and knock it into the lap of her beloved. Albert doesn’t mind though, grateful that his wet lap isn’t tinged with the humiliation he’s become accustomed to. The shoulder shrug and ‘I’ve only gone and done it again!’ joke was getting old anyway.

Are we still attracted to people our own generation when we get to that age, or do we only look longingly at those in their prime? Does either party even enjoy sex with one another anymore? I imagine the more intimate acts are spoilt by overgrown pubic hairs, and fatflaps covering crevices that haven’t seen soap for 25 years.

Does Doris stop teabagging when she tastes the tang of toilet water?