“Ageism goes far beyond celebrities and public officials,” Guardian columnist Margaret Sullivan wrote on Monday, and its victims include an 80-year-old chief executive in obvious cognitive decline and a pop star who is unrecognizable after four decades of being in the public eye.
I won’t try to deny that ageism exists. But holding up people like Presidentish Joe Biden and Madonna as victims of it is the kind of ridiculous mistake we’re supposed to make in our youth.
PJ Media has turned running videos of Biden’s decline into something of a cottage industry. Your Friendly Neighborhood VodkaPundit rarely enjoys a workday more than when I get to transcribe, or at least try to transcribe, the word salad that Biden spews forth when he isn’t properly rested — and sometimes when he is.
The man has had two brain aneurysms and oftentimes he speaks like he’s in the middle of a third one.
Transcript:
I’m gonna work like the devil to bring gas prices down which I’m gonna work into make sure that we keep strengthening the supply chain to bring the cost of energy and everything else and the goods that come to America… down… by helping the ports 24/7 by changing a whole range of things that, you know, what’s happened with COVID, COVID has caused significant increases in prices in the supply chain.
Get all that? We make fun of Biden not because he’s old, but because The Most Powerful Man in the World™ is terrifyingly addled. It’s either laugh or cry, and I choose to laugh.
Let me show you a video of an old guy and his old dog that hasn’t quite yet gone viral — but should.
What a precious. The importance and companionship of a wonderful dog can never be https://t.co/p0SgPmtSQE: @Viralhog
💌Follow for the most inspirational stories of hope, love, tradition, family and art. pic.twitter.com/r7Y3LeADCe— Funniest Family Moments (@funniest_family) February 8, 2023
Yeah, getting old can suck. But look at the way these two older fellas take care of one another. If someone cared as much about Joe Biden [cough, DOCTOR Jill, cough] as that man cares about his dog, they never would have let Joe run in 2020.
Recommended: Disney Actually Just Laid Off 2.4 Million People — Including Me
Sullivan mentioned Sean Connery in her column, for being “named People magazine’s ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ at age 59.” Just a few years before, in 1983, Connery came back one last time as James Bond in Never Say Never Again. It wasn’t a great Bond movie by any stretch, but parts of the film worked because it embraced Connery’s age rather than trying to deny it.
Age gets to us all. It’s what we do along the way that determines whether we’re victims of it.
And that brings us to Madonna. If Biden and/or his handlers are in denial about what advanced age and a couple of serious brain surgeries can do to someone’s physical and mental stamina, then Madonna is a testament to the hideous outward effects of endless plastic surgeries.
When Madonna made headlines last week for her new look, many people immediately took to Twitter to compare her with Bangles frontwoman, Susanna Hoffs.
.@SusannaHoffs (Bangles) at 63. vs Madonna at 63. One’s an absolute beauty, one’s an absolute freak. pic.twitter.com/92irGnjInb
— GatorBates (@gator_bates) February 11, 2023
Hoffs looks like a 63-year-old who has taken good care of herself and has probably had minimal work done, maybe a little Botox.
Madonna looks like an inflatable sex doll that’s been overinflated.
So, yes, guys like me who fell in love with Hoffs almost 40 years ago when we first saw her in the video for “Hero Takes A Fall” still crush on her now — not because she looks like she looks 23 but because she makes 63 look this good and rock this hard:
Compare Hoffs last fall, I’m sorry to have to ask you, with Madonna last week:
OK, you lot.
I had to see it, so now it's your turn! #Madonna pic.twitter.com/Lxpp0zaadm
— William Jordan (@WilliamJordanUK) February 7, 2023
It isn’t ageism to wonder why she made herself look like that, or why she behaves the way she does.
“For Madonna,” Sullivan argued, “it’s deciding not to give a damn.”
Is this the face of someone who doesn’t give a damn? Or is it the face of someone so desperate to cling to youth that they’ve tortured their own skin into something barely recognizable as human?
When it comes to Biden and Madonna, their critics aren’t the ageists.
In their harmful denial, Biden and Madonna are.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member