Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Hag Horror: Older Women in Film

Episode Date: February 17, 2023

Why are women over the age of 50 so often cast as terrifying, decaying, manipulative people in Hollywood? When did this start? And how might it have been a reaction to second wave feminism?In this episode, Kate is joined by Caroline Young to talk about the birth of Hagsploitation, or Hag Horror, and what it has meant for the women involved.*WARNING there are adult words and themes in this episode*Produced by Charlotte Long and Sophie Gee. Mixed by Anisha Deva.Betwixt the Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society. A podcast by History Hit.For more History Hit content, subscribe to our newsletters here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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because we will be discussing adult themes in an adult way, two adults speaking about adulty things in an adult subjects to you who are hopefully also adults. And if you're not an adult, you shouldn't be listening to this. Go away right now and put play school on. Okay, the rest of you, grown-ups. Let's get into it. Of the top 100 grossing films of 2021,

only seven included a woman in a lead role who was over the age of 45. It seems that Hollywood may just not have the roles there for older women. Well, except one, of course. Since the 1960s, older women have been cast. in so-called hag-horror films. What's that, you ask? Well, today, betwixt the sheets,

you, me, and my fellow Crohn's are gonna find out. What do you look for a man? Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning it up and pushing the funny. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference.

Goodness, what beautiful time. Goodness had nothing to do with it, Dary. Hello and welcome back to Betwixta Sheets, the History of Sex Scandal and Society with me, Kate Lister. Hollywood film fads tend to come in waves. There was the gangster fad of the 1920s, the 1940s westerns, the 1950s rebellious teen movies, but in the 60s nearly 70s, a wave of films signalled the dawn of a new role for women in films. Sound good? Well, it's... perhaps. Hague horrors.

cast women who were deemed unsuitable for romantic roles due to their advanced age, which actually might not have been much north of 40. Oh, God, it's depressing. But they were faced with a new challenge, how to portray themselves as hideous objects of decay. Today, I am joined by Caroline Young to find out where hag horror came from,

how it continues, and what it means for women in film today, and whether or not men face it. the same problem. Intrigued? Well, I am as well. Let's get on with it. Oh, and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets Caroline Young. How are you? I'm great, thank you. Thank you for having me on your podcast. Are you kidding? I am so excited to talk to you about your book, Crazy Old Ladies, the story of hag horror. That, it's just something that I feel a lot of empathy with right now. Me too. Not at all. Not at all.

Maybe we should be embracing Hagnus instead of fearing it and, you know, like embracing extensive croning. I'm not sure. Yeah, well, I think it's interesting because, well, I wrote the book when I was just about to turn 40, so I had it very much on my mind. But yeah, I think that concept of Hague, I was watching White Lotus. They use the word hag. Do they? Yeah, to talk about women of a certain age. And yeah, it is insulting when you hear it, but you think, well, maybe, you know what?

If you're a woman over 40, just embrace that. There is something about turning 40 that sort of makes you re-evaluate these type of things. And obviously everyone over the age of 40 is going, oh, shut up, because that's just the way it works. But yeah, like, I'm 41 now, and I've had similar thoughts with myself of just like, wow. I mean, it is quite a milestone, isn't it? It's like, I guess I have to be a grown-up now or slash potential hag. Yeah, it does feel like you can't really get away from the fact that you're a grown-off. You can pretend when you're in your 30s almost that you're not, even though that's a bit ridiculous,

because you clearly are. But yeah, I think when you get it, it's kind of serious when you get into the 40s. It is, and it sneaks up on you as well. Yeah. What was it the made you want to write this book? And what do you mean by hag horror? So the term hag horror is one that has been coined in recent years to describe a group of films that were made in the 60s and 70s

that cast an older actress, such as Betty Davis or Joan Crawford, one of those proper movie stars who have got older and they've struggled to find work and they were cast in these horror movies. It's also referred to as high exploitation, psychobody, and they're quite camp. They have certain similar veins that run through them, such as older women, who's single, either doesn't have children or if she does, she's a bad mother, or they've died, usually living alone in a creepy old house, and that house is a symbol of her sort of mental deterioration. So there were all these films in the 60s and 70s, and there was a TV series called Feud about Joan Crawford

and Betty Davis and it told some of that story. And I just got really fascinated with all the other films that were as part of that genre. And I was also really interested in some films that came out about actresses and what happens in later life, such as Judy. I don't know if you've seen that one, but it was about Judy Garland. I have. Yes, very good. Yes.

Yeah, and it was really heartbreaking. And there was also one called Film Stars Don't Die Liverpool, which told the story of Gloria Graham in her later life as well. And yeah, I wanted to take those ideas of what happens to older actresses. they were once massive, massive stars and what happens in their later life and weave their stories together while also looking at this genre of horror movie. So that was the concept. Is it like an extension of the witch person, like the witch figure, that an older woman normally without kids or possibly eating kids who lives, not in a castle but in a gingerbread

house? Is it part of that? Definitely, yeah, it is. It ties into that concept of the witch, of the older women who you should be afraid of and you should be afraid of turning into. So I think it's very much that idea. And also it goes back to Gothic fiction as well, you know, the mad woman in the attic. For centuries, this notion of this old spinster without children is sort of ingrained in our culture. I suppose like the wife of Bath and the Canterbury Tales, 1400, she might fit into the hag category. She's married, but she goes through husbands like hot meals and is kind of like this sort of shrew who is really naggs her husband to death literally and is really proud of it. That's probably the earliest example I can think of, but there'll be others of like this kind of nagging, older woman.

But what are some of the early examples that you've found of this? Jane Eyre, the madwoman in the attic, Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham, of course. Yeah, in Dickens and Great Expectations. You know, that's the classic one. Because also what these characters have in common is that they live in this state of regret. So they regret their lost chances in life, like Miss Havisham. You know, she's going around in her wedding dress decaying. So, yeah, it's this idea of what could have been.

and as I discuss in the book, it's this idea, I think, of this is what will happen if you don't get married or you don't have children or you leave it too late. You'll end up like one of these tragic ladies. So, yeah, it was a warning to younger women, I think, that they should really get on with it and get married and have children. Is that like one of the differences between the hag and the witch, this idea of regret, because I don't recall many witches being like, oh, it's really sad, I'm a witch, like they properly lean into it and just go with it. Yeah, that's true. Although I suppose you don't know what's good. on behind the scenes of a witch release, you may be.

True. Might be really sad about it here. I think it's the extension of the spinster. Spinsters can't possibly be happy. You know, they have to be sort of regretful of the situation, I suppose. We said there that it was sort of like a warning to young women. Why did this kind of like re-emerge in the 1960s in film form to the point where it had its own genre of film? What was going on there?

What was this a reaction to? There's a number of things. So whatever happened to baby Jane really came out at the same. same time when there was more sort of violence in cinema. Oh, there was a need to have more violence in cinema. People wanted to see horror. Television was taking audiences away from the cinema, so filmmakers wanted to create films with more difficult subjects. You know, there was the censorship code, which kind of prevented a lot of violence and sex being shown, and this relaxed in the 60s, so it allowed for an increase in horror movies. But there was also at the same time,

there was the rise of the feminist movement, and there was also youth cultures that were, there was this kind of unrest, the sense of youth cultures kind of fighting for civil rights, feminism. And I think it's kind of all plays a part in that when you look at these films. As I said, you know, the warning about what happens to women if they don't follow that traditional path. And so, yeah, I think it seems to me that that is why they kind of, one of the reasons why they came about. There were a sort of form of warning. And also, I suppose, to people who were afraid of feminism, it played into that as well. I mean, it's a really old reaction against feminism is to present feminists as killjoy dried up old crones who aren't fulfilling their maternal duties.

And you still get echoes of that in, you know, online today with various dickheads who say stupid things. You do, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, because there was somebody, you know, to talk about the abortion rights in America, you know, and there were some terrible comments by people who were saying that the only people who are protesting against it are ugly and can't have children. So that same language is around. And I think also what's happening now is we're still seeing, because of the feminist, the rise in feminism over the last few years, there's a backlash against it. And you kind of see that.

It all comes back in cycles, really, doesn't it? And we're kind of seeing this. It does. I think there's something has shifted now, though. And I'm seeing this, like, with sort of the debates that are going on on social media, things like TikTok, the youngsters, the youths, but like all across the board. Because I think that there has been a shift in that this is one of the first generations, where women can earn their own money and out-earn men.

Now, there's always been a potential to do that, but you don't have to go back very far at all to when women were very financially dependent on men. Like I've said this on this podcast before, but my mum couldn't get a credit card without it being co-signed by her dad or her husband. So we're now at a point where women can earn their own money. They don't have to have a man co-signing

to get a mortgage or a bank account and things like that. So there's a real shift in that women don't financially need men, and that's created quite a lot of this angry reaction of like, well, then you're all just dried up ugly old Harrodons and how dare you do this. Does that play into this at all? Is I do financial independence, do you think? I think so, yeah, because I think in the 60s that there was more women coming into the workplace as well. So definitely a woman were wanting careers. Yeah, I absolutely think it kind of plays into that. And interestingly, I remember my mom saying that when she was dating.

my dad. There was some pubs that they went into where she wasn't allowed in there. She had to remember her being very annoyed at my dad for going in to the pub of his friends and she had to go and wait somewhere. It's like a couple of generations ago. That's like how much has changed and shifted and that there seems to be a lot of upset from certain quarters that now women are putting off having children. More and more women are choosing not to have children, are choosing to stay single. And there seems to be this kind of, I keep seeing, like all these, poor, bewildered, silly people on social media. I just don't understand it.

It's like, really? You don't understand that? But tell me about the film what happened to Baby Jane, because that's a significant one for you, isn't it? So what's the plot line? Who's starred in it? And why are you drawn to it? The stars Betty Davis and Joan Crawford,

who were these two huge, huge stars in the 1930s and 1940s. They both worked for Warner Brothers Studios at one point, and they generated a lot of money for the studio. But by the time they got to the 60s, they've kind of been cast aside. And then the script came along called whatever happened to Baby Jane. It was about two sisters who live alone in a house together.

They're both former actresses. One of them's in a wheelchair. The other one, Baby Jane, is trying to revive her career. She was a child star. And so she's kind of still stuck in this kind of stunted development where she dresses up as baby Jane and she wants to bring back this act

because it will sort of help her find happiness again. And she blames her sister who's in a wheelchair. Her sister was more successful. and after an accident she's now in a wheelchair and we see the resentment between the two sisters. And yeah, so they both got offered the starring roles in this movie. No one wanted to make it. Eventually, a studio called Seven Arts made it.

It was distributed by Warner Brothers and it turned out to be a huge, huge hit. And it really demonstrated that these two actresses could draw in audiences and people wanted to see them. And it led to a lot of films that tried to mimic the success. So there was a film called Straight Jacket with Joan Crawford. There was Dead Ringer with Ben Affir. Betty Davis. There was a film called Lady in a Cage with Olivia de Havelin, where she plays this older

woman trapped in a private elevator, and she's under attack from a gang of youths. Baby Jane was the film that kind of started a big trend in that kind of film. And how old are they supposed to be in the film? So they're supposed to be in their 60s. Okay. Late 50s, early 60s, I think. The actresses themselves, they were mid-50s, but yeah, yeah, they were very much sort of considered over the hill at that point. And yeah, it did help to revive their careers for a bit. But then again, they were just getting stereotyped in these sort of rules. Just about to ask it, when you revive their career, does that mean like more hagwork was coming? Yeah, I didn't. I think they actually kind of liked the challenge.

Well, I mean, yeah, there's something in it, isn't it? But there's this really old question that, like, what do actresses do? And it's long been acknowledged that it's really unfair that there seems to be this, who is it was Amy Schumer, the comedian who did that sketch of your last fuckable day as an actress. she has this. Oh yeah, remember that one. She has this scene where, like, her and a group of actresses around about 40 or 50 you sat around and they're celebrating the last fuckable day as if it's like a tick, tick, tick, tick, boom. And it's really, it's really sharp of like that it just drops off. Did the film, whatever happened to Baby Jane, set to, did it address any of that?

Or did it just sort of roll with this idea that, well, they're older now, so they must be bitter and miserable? I think so. There wasn't any kind of notion of them as ever having a sex like. those two characters. You know, they were past that point, really. Betty Davis's character was a grotesque. Joan Crawford, you know, she was kind of, she still wanted to look glamorous and she still was very glamorous and very beautiful. There wouldn't have been any opportunity for having a sex life in that film. Although she did always in her films later on, always have a younger love interest. She kind of went beyond age, I think, Joan Crawford. She was slightly

different. She would always ensure that she had a sort of younger man who lusted after her. That's a nice touch. Yeah, I'd definitely put that in my contract as well. After that happens, it's kind of difficult in it, because more work opens up for older actresses, but if what's an option is Crone, Hague, which that's not great. Have we got to a point now where older women are allowed space in film, in your opinion? I think so, yeah, I say so, because we've got Jennifer Lopez, who I adore. She played a stripper, and she was 50. And she was amazing in that as well.

She was brilliant. And then Emma Thompson in good luck to Leo Grande. It was very racy that film. And that's about an older woman who goes to a jiggle-o. And it really explores this idea of women's sexuality after a certain age. And I think that's something that wouldn't have been made, you know, a few years ago. And I think people are talking now about menopause and it's much more open. These are things that would never, never have been talked about, you know, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, I guess.

And definitely not in the 60s. So I think people are a lot more open about these things. Yeah, it's not like the 60s or 70s where women were. expected to be sort of invisible after a certain point. I'll be back with Caroline after this short break. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and this month on not just the Tudors from History Hit, I'm dusting down my magnifying glass to investigate some of history's most notorious murders and brutal crimes.

Was it a quarrel, or was the brilliant playwright Christopher Marl, actually murdered in that Deptford Inn? Was Amy Dudley, wife of Elizabeth I first favourite Robert, pushed down a flight of stairs to her death. Were the Geese, that great French family, actually bloodthirsty murderers, who secured their power through ruthlessness and violence? And what's the truth about the Hungarian noblewoman who allegedly killed hundreds of young women?

Join me, but not on an empty stomach, for not just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. I think the menopause has got anything to do with these early depictions? Now, obviously, Davina McCall wasn't around in the story. 60s to get us all talking about this stuff. And it was euphemistically referred to as the change and things that have. But I wonder, like, in the films that you've been examining, does this idea that your past reproductive capacity, that your postmenopausal feed into this narrative of like, and now you're a crone? I think so, because I think this idea of, I suppose, they've lost

their chances of happiness, so they can't have children. And so that would, you know, because they're over a certain age. So I think it does. I think it's, you know, you become the tragic figure because your chances have gone with your sort of fertility. So, yeah, I think happiness and beauty are tied into fertility. And I think when that fertility has gone, then, yeah, I think these films were basically saying that you're kind of past it at that point. And if Miss Havisham had access to H.R.T, it might have been a whole other story. She just got just got, actually, I'm just starting crying over a man, this is really crap, but I'm going to go and travel the world. Yes, yes. Yeah, it would have been a completely different book.

I'm just gone to a strange place in my head now. Has there any kind of equivalent for men? Because the hag is a very specific female creature, isn't she, a stereotype? Is there any genre of film where older men regrets that they haven't done the things with their life that they want? I can't think of a male equivalent of a hag. No, there are examples in this genre of movie of older actors. So actually there is a kind of idea of the washed-up actor. that is something that is there.

There's one called Targets, and it had Boris Karloff in it. He plays kind of this washed-up actor. He helps stop a shooter, somebody who's shooting people from the top of a building. And it's a director of Peter Bogdanovich. And, yeah, that's really interesting because it revived Boris Carlos a little bit. So, yeah, and there's other examples, Anthony Perkins was in a couple of films. And he, after Psycho, he was kind of typecast a little bit. And so he struggled to find some good roles.

and he was featured in a couple of these films. So, yeah, there is this idea of the older actor, I think. There's definitely a trope. I don't know if he's got a name for this trope, but a very grumpy older man who's become reclusive and he's very aggressive and antisocial, but somehow he gets contact with someone and they soften his heart.

And there's one with Tom Hanks that's coming out very soon that's in that vein. And, oh, the one with Jack Nicholson, as good as it gets. Yeah, and as Clint Eastwood is kind of specialised in those ones. Grand Turino. That was good, wasn't it? Yeah, that was really good. Yeah, it's usually some young people Yeah. Yeah, as you said, who soften them. They're kind of really curmudgeonally hate life. Oh, there's one with Michael Kane. Yes. He shoots everyone in the end. That's really good. Yes. Well, yeah, that's the thing actually. They usually do something dramatic. I think Kuntisu does that

in Grand Turino or something, doesn't he? So they do, they go for violence. Hags don't do that? Oh, do they? Well, they do, but it's not shown in that good way. So they, when they break down, it's like considered really negative. Well, obviously violence is negative, but when they do, it's seen as a slightly different way. Whereas Clint East were doing it is kind of, you see it as this, yeah, it's his last, he's, you know, he's back on his feet. He's having this one last showdown.

Sort of like, oh, don't underestimate this man. Exactly. Whereas when she does it, it shows her mental deterioration. It's gone back crap crazy. Yeah, exactly. What is the usual outcome for a hag? Because there's a lot of research done, isn't there, on movie tropes? And I was reading one about how gay characters.

are often killed off in movies. And I haven't realised that. And now that I've read that, you see, that really is true. That happens all the time. Strong female characters can be killed off or sacrificed themselves quite a lot, like strong action figures. What about the hag? What's the normal ending for a hag? Well, it's usually death, really. Or just complete mental deterioration. So they just kind of get carted off at the end, you know, because they've had a complete breakdown. So it's never a good ending for them, really. They're not saved, are they? They're not saved, no. In baby Jane, I don't think. You know, there might be hope there, but I won't give the, well, it was made in the 60s,

so you can probably give the ending away. But, yeah, it's complete mental deterioration, basically. And yeah, that's the ending. That's it, isn't it? And when Clint Eastwood gets to do it, and Michael Kane gets to do it, it's cool. And there's a gun. And when women do it, it's just, yeah, they've just gone absolute back crap now. Isn't that it?

The men gets to go out in a blaze of glory, I think. A blaze of glory. That's it. When we're talking about, like, hag tropes, you've identified a few. you there. She's got to be older. She's got to live isolated, maybe not on her own, be consumed with bitterness and regret and possibly a bit crazy.

So films like whatever happened to Baby Jane, like really obvious examples of that and like Miss Havisham as well and look to others. But do you see like softer examples of it? Like there's characters that play into these tropes but perhaps they haven't gone full hag. Like there's bits of it.

Yeah, the film Leida Cage, which I was talking about, where with Olivia De Havala. Yeah. That's an interesting well because that was making a social statement. So in the 60s, there's a lot of fear about youth culture, the idea of the beatniks, you know, the hippies. And James Cam, this is his first role, and he played one of these marauding hooligans. And so it's this idea of the clash between youth and the older person. So Olivia, the Haverland and Lady in a cage, she's trapped in an elevator, which is very glamorous and very beautiful.

And she's not a proper hag, but she's a bad mother, or because she's got a son who's possibly gay, it's into that. Oh, that's a bit, yeah, okay. Yeah, I think it's implying because of her bad mothering and that kind of thing. So, yeah. So there's a lot of issues in that film. But I think it was trying to make a statement about violence and society. I think it was... I mean, I suppose I'm trying to think of, like, positive examples that we now have in film

of older women who haven't had kids, who haven't got married, who perhaps enjoy their career, that are there now that it's, like, positive. And I just keep coming up with examples where, like, they tend to lean towards, well, now they're a workaholic, possibly. alcoholic, like really stressed out person. I see that quite a lot in film tropes. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And the older action hero, so Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween, in the latest Halloween series of films, Linda Hamilton and Sarah Connor in Terminator, she came back to be this action hero. But what I thought when I saw those films was they

have to have loss again. So it's this idea that they're struggling with something that's happened in the past or they're struggling with a loss. Yes. Or this idea of being the bad mother again, which I think is kind of interesting. It's like they can't just be sort of trying to save the world and be happy at the same time. There has to be like a motivation that... Yeah, which I guess is part of storytelling. There's a motivation, I suppose, but it does seem that older women, they do have to have that kind of, the only reason they would be able to do this

was because it's the loss, because they don't have that fulfillment. We still don't give men quite the same criticism. Things are getting better, I think, but there's still quite a spectacular disparity between the two is that men aren't criticised for ageing in the way that women are. No, they're not, no. I mean, I think sometimes men are ridiculed sometimes when you have people like Trump, I suppose. He was ridiculed for his orange skin and all that.

But no, not in the aging way. They're allowed to be balding. They're allowed to have grey hair. They're allowed to have... They can still be quite sexy, actually. Yeah. Like, the older man, you're thinking like George Clooney. Oh, Harrison Ford.

Harrison Ford, yes. I mean, they're still quite sexy. And I remember hearing loads of people throughout my life saying things like, oh, women just age worse than men. And I've always wondered, is that true? Or is it just that we're not used to seeing older women in, like, public spaces, like the movies, being sexy? Yeah, maybe that is what it is, yeah, because I think, you know, the actors are allowed to go, Harrison Ford, for example, George Clooney, they're allowed to be these older guys paired with much younger women. But yeah, I think maybe it's that representation that we don't see

older women on screen as much. And yeah, we're just always told men age better. But do they know? That's the thing, you know. Do they? Oh, we're just not used to seeing it. In Alexander the Great, with Angelina Jolie and the lovely Irish fella, Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie famously played his mum and she's like two years older than. Yeah, that was, yeah, that was ridiculous. That's really shit. I read something like, Gina Davis was once told that she was too old to play a part in a film, even though the guy she was starring opposite was 20 years older than she was. Oh, see, that's, just annoying. And Gina Davis should just be cast everywhere because she was. amazing. She should be. Yeah. What did, like, she's just won an award for her part in White Lotus,

and she's the one that goes, the 4th of July. Jennifer Coolidge. Thank you. She's an absolute legend, isn't she? Yeah. When we're looking at these kind of films, like, I'll bet I'm going to see this everywhere now, I've had this conversation with you, is like this kind of, the stereotype of the older, single, childless woman who regrets her life and is now sort of becoming a crone. Are these films, do they win awards and researchmen? Did you find research like that? That is like how successful are these films? Sometimes they do. So baby Jane, Betty Davis was nominated for Best Actress

and the supporting actor in the film. He won the Oscar for that. And I think it was nominated for Best Picture. So that did. But it depends on the quality. So horror films don't typically get nominated for Oscars anyway. So they've probably got that against them. But I think, yeah, I think if an actress does a really great performance,

then I don't think that would be held against her. think in fact, in some ways, should be rewarded by her peers for putting in that brave performance of being old and a crone on screens. Yeah, I think it's just more of the case that horror movies don't always get taken seriously. Yeah, that makes sense. So where do you think we are now? Because obviously, we're post me too. There's loads of debates going on around ageism and people calling things out and, you know, I have all these conversations with my students. It's like a geriatric millennial. I'm just stood there just going, I don't know. We just, no one really caught at the time. I'm really sorry about that. Now when you look at it, you're like, oh, God, it's

quite bad actually, is it? And no one at the time clock this. Fast forward us in another 20 years. Where do you think we'll be with discussions around women in film and age in film? And what will we be looking back at happening right now and going, oh God, yeah, that was a bit bad? It's difficult to know how the cycle of this will go. I mean, will they be more permissive? Will they be more prudish? Who, I don't know. I mean, because there's a lot of people being very open at the moment where they talk about mental health, they talk about menopause, they talk about fertility issues. At the moment, I feel like, there's a lot more conversation there. In fact, when I was at uni in the late 90s,

no one talked about mental health. It was just nothing that anyone talked about. So it's actually really good that young people have that opportunity that they can. So when talking about this films, it was this kind of idea of deteriorating mental health and that kind of thing, that conversation wasn't there when I was young, yeah, talking about women's bodies and periods and these things are never discussed. And I never sat around with my friends and talked about, you know, I don't know anything about ovulation or anything like that. And everyone's a lot more open about this. But I wonder in 20 years time, we'll kind of go in a way that, you know, people sort of become more repressed again and less will talk about it. I don't know.

It's difficult to know what the cycle will be. I like to think that we're moving to a place we're getting used to seeing older women. And when I say older, I just mean over 25, basically, in films. I mean, you know, Judy Dench and Helen Mirren have pretty much cornered the market for that. Like, we'll get more used to it. And this idea that women don't age worse than men will be kind of put to bed because we'll be used to be seeing sexy women, older sexy women who aren't reduced to being crowned. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, because actually, it's interesting with Helen Merrin, the way people say, Helen Mirren, she looks great for her age. People always say, don't I know that. I hate that caveat. It's like, she just looks great. It's like you don't have to

stick that bit in. I know. Or people say, oh, I wish I could look like Helen Mirren when I'm older, I'm thinking, but you have to look like her when you're younger. You get to look like her when you're older. So I don't know. Yeah, hopefully it won't be a case of just using that sort of thing. Oh, she looks great for her age. I remember there was some photos of Cindy Crawford when she was in her 40s and they were like, oh, she looks great for 40 or something like that because she was wearing a bikini. So we have this idea that you're not supposed to look good at 40. Or you're supposed to...

Like people are surprised by it. Yeah, exactly. But what do you think that the future of the hag is? Because I can't remember the exact statistics, but more and more women are staying single, more and more women are choosing not to have children, and men actually are choosing not to have children, they don't want to do that. So there are going to be more of us,

single, childless, older women. Are we all hags? Like, what's the future of the hag, do you think? I hopefully that term will become sort of redundant, maybe, where it's kind of seen as a negative, or as we were talking about earlier, or you just embrace it as a positive thing. Hopefully there's not that negative connotation

that if a woman goes past her sort of fertility, points, she's suddenly cast aside, that there's still value, there's value, women have value in the wisdom of the years rather than it being a kind of a negative. Because I think there's a sense of invisibility when you get to a certain point. So it'd be nice, women in their 40s and 50s don't suddenly feel like they're invisible anymore or that they don't matter because often they're dismissed because they're old, or she's just an old lady, old hag. So, yeah, to be appreciated for their wisdom and for their experience and to be admired

for being a certain age rather than kind of look down upon. It's such a weird cut-off point as well because if you think about it hopefully we're all going to live long lives and you're aiming for let's hope around 90 years old that would be a good one wouldn't it and like the idea that you're past it

at 40 when you're halfway through it is just really shit. You've got like the whole rest it's such a daft thing to do of like this idea that like well now you have to spend the rest of your life in seclusion possibly mental instability that's your fate now. We've got to challenge that

don't we? Definitely, yeah, because there is that, you know, the fear of turning 40, it was, I felt it. I felt like it was sort of going to be the end of the world. I was really worried. I was like, okay, that's it then. But that fear, because I think it is the idea of being invisible. You don't matter anymore. So it's kind of like, well, all the good stuff has happened before you're 40 and after that, it doesn't matter because you're kind of older and you're cast aside. And I think I definitely have that notion in me. So yeah, it'd be great if, you know, we could all think, well, it's better than the alternative, isn't it? So it's much better. Like, research paper after recent paper of research paper has found that one of the happiest

and securest demographics are women in their 60s. Yeah. I think it was, because that's like a really interesting thing that happens as you're getting older, I've noticed. It's like, I talk to my students who are like 18, 19, and like, you know, looking back, it's like, you're never going to look that good again. That's you at your absolute peak. Everyone looks amazing at 18.

It's a piece of piss. You look fabulous. But they're riddled with self-doubt and anxiety and they hate themselves and they hate their bodies and they can't convince them they look better, whereas you get to about 40, 50 and something in your brain just goes, I don't give a fuck anymore. And you actually get a lot more comfortable in your skin and your body and you genuinely care less about the anxieties and the worries. That's something to look forward to, isn't it? Is that you're actually going to get more confident and more happy as you're getting older? Definitely. I think, yeah, I think that does sound very good.

And also, I suppose when you get to that point, you have retirement that you can enjoy, more money, hopefully to play around with. So I think hearing more of that about all the good things, that sense of not caring anymore, you know, having that sense of freedom. Jennifer Aniston actually talked about that about how, you know, she spent her 40s battling with IVF

and various things like that. And when she got to 50, she was like, well, I don't need to worry about that anymore because that's done so I can just kind of enjoy what I have and appreciate what I have. And I think that's a really good message. I'm going to go full Joan Crawford. I'm going to buy like an isolated building and have a young lover lusting after me on my plan. She's definitely, everyone should do Joan Crawford.

Caroline, you've been just wonderful to talk to today. Thank you so much. And if people want to know more about you and your research, and they should, where can they find you at? They can visit my website, caroline jayung.com, my book, Crazy Old Ladies, the story of hag horror is available on bookshops and on Amazon and on Twitter at Caroline 779. Brilliant. Thank you so much for joining me today. You have just been an absolute treat.

Thank you. Thank you. It's nice to chat. Thank you for listening. Thank you so much to Caroline for joining me to talk about this topic. And if you like what you've heard, please don't forget to like, review and subscribe wherever it is that you get your podcasts. And if you've got something that you desperately want us to look into, if you have some suggestions or just some feedback, you can now email us at betwixt at history hit.com.

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