This Hot Bitch is what I’ve been calling Sharon Stone, for years now. And now she’s 60 years old, just turned on March 10th. Sharon has a new movie coming out – it’s called All I Wish. It’s a rom-com. She does NOT play the mother of Dakota Johnson. She IS the Dakota Johnson. That is, Sharon Stone, at 60, is the lead character in a romantic comedy about a woman who does not have her sh-t together and then she meets a guy at a bar and he’s into her and they might be getting serious but then there’s a misunderstanding, or something, and she knows she has to take her head out of her ass and apologise so she either writes him a poem or chases him down in a taxi in the rain or stops the plane from taking off and they get back together. I’m not sure any of that happens. But this is a rom-com and all of those things have happened at one time or all at the same time in rom-coms, only most rom-coms are about the 25 year old who doesn’t have her sh-t together and not This Hot Bitch, at 60.
So, to go back to the theme of the day, and every day, the same stories, only told differently, with different characters who share the same desires and frustrations and hopes and experiences. That’s why Sharon wanted the part. And it wasn’t even her part to begin with. Originally All I Wish was written for a 25 year old and This Hot Bitch was asked to play the mother. As Sharon tells Vanity Fair though, she went back to Susan Walter, the filmmaker, and pitched it the way she imagined it instead – Sharon Stone, after all, will always imagine herself as the lead. Don’t we all though? The problem is that women often feel like they cease to have the right to the lead after a certain age and are cast instead into supporting roles. Society has told us that women become invisible as they get older. Women of colour have felt invisible at all ages. Sharon decided that that wasn’t going to be her story. And you know what?
It really wasn’t that big of a fix, as in the screenplay. All the elements were there. Because uncertainty and insecurity and the search for partnership, all of that is universal. It’s a great read, this Vanity Fair article, and it’s actually perfect for Show Your Work but I don’t want to wait for the podcast to talk about it so I’m sneaking it away from Duana which she’ll probably be pissed about as it’s all here, what we discuss all the time – the universality of specificity. There is no age requirement for a romantic comedy. And while, sure, we’ve seen Nancy Meyers put Meryl Streep in rom-coms before, there’s always a great kitchen involved, and an ex-husband, and children, and lists, all kinds of lists. Here we have a rom-com about a 50 to 60 year old woman and the whole point is that she can’t stick to a list, she’s a mess in the kitchen, she may not even be a homeowner, and she has a story too.
Also? She looks f-cking amazing. And that too is becoming more normalised. We’ve been bonering about how great Angela Bassett looks. She’s turning 60 later this year. Michelle Pfeiffer, Rene Russo, Elizabeth Hurley, Sandra Bullock, Viola Davis, Michelle Yeoh, all actresses in their 50s and 60s and hotter than ever. More viable than ever.
Here’s This Hot Bitch a few days ago with her young stud boyfriend frolicking on the beach in Miami, showing off what might be an engagement ring? It’s the same sh-t a 25 year old actress might do to promote an upcoming rom-com.
