Dame Helen Mirren’s Red Bikini: It’s Okay To Be Old, So Long As You’re “Hot”

(Note: If you haven’t seen the photos of Dame Helen Mirren on holidays in her red bikini yet, have a look, lest the rest of this post make no sense.)

I’ve to’ed and fro’ed over the whole “OMG Helen Mirren in a bikini!” fuss for the past week – there’s no doubt that Mirren looks smashing in her swimsuit, but it’s the media and blogosphere’s reaction that bothers me, because the not-so-hidden undertones to the coverage essentially say, “See, we’ll put a 63-year-old woman in our paper! (Provided she looks ‘hot’.)”

If Mirren stepped out in a bikini with equal confidence but instead showed off varicose veins, a sagging bosom or crepey skin, you can bet your boots the papers would be howling, “Put some clothes on, nanna!”

And while much of the coverage purports to be batting for visibility on behalf of older women, I can’t help but feel as though all this does is exert yet more pressure on women – both older and younger – who don’t manage to fit into that small and unforgiving genre of appearance known as “hot”.

Gee, I Wonder Why This Farmer Can’t Find A Wife?

I’ve been watching The Farmer Wants A Wife on and off (and by god but that title just makes me think of some cro-magnon man in R.M. Williams grunting “Me want wife! Me take now!” before doinking some girl on the head with his tyre iron) and was particularly amazed on Monday by Farmer James’ gobsmacking unreconstructed nature: letting the women do all the cooking, drinking copious amounts of beer, storming off in a rain of expletives when one of his “chosen wives” dared to pull him up on, oh, acting like a complete tool.

Well, it seems Farmer James is a real catch! Here he is, running his mouth off in TV Week:

“I chose Cherie because I thought she was a character, but once I got to know her she was as rough as guts,” James said in the latest edition of TV Week.

“She needed a 44-gallon drum of spit to shine her up! The only reason I picked her was because I didn’t have much choice. Some of the other guys had 200 women apply, but I only had 24,” he said.

“Toni was the next pick – she’s got her head screwed on and owns a house, but I’m really looking for someone a bit younger.

“She’s 36 and when someone is that age, the old body clock is ticking. You want to know someone a couple of years before you jump into (having kids).”

Charming, particularly the “44 gallon drum of spit” line. Has James looked in the mirror lately? I would advise against going anywhere near the local pig farm on slaughter day, lest he be mistaken for one of his porcine relatives and sliced up as bacon rashers. (My co-conspirator Jess has some other “highlights” from Farmer James’ repertoire over at Defamer Australia.)

Really, this has just confirmed the decidedly unpleasant undertones of this show. Sure, rural loneliness is a big problem, and so is the apparent ‘man drought’, but The Farmer Wants A Wife is like something from ancient Rome – they stop short of making the “wives” wrestle each other in a mud pit with crowbars, but I’m sure it wouldn’t take much pushing of the producers to get something like that into the show.