Do sex kittens have nine lives?
By Beth Teitell
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Does a sex kitten have an expiration date? Is there a ‘‘sell by” deadline for temptresses? America will have its answer Friday, when Sharon Stone’s new movie, ‘‘Middle-Aged Woman Gets Nekkid,” debuts. Sorry, the film’s actually called ‘‘Basic Instinct 2,” but given all the attention Stone’s advanced age has attracted, you’ll forgive me for getting it wrong.
The body-image experts basking in this coveted media moment can’t stop crowing about the wonderful message 48-year-old Stone’s naked turn sends to the public, particularly because she’s made such a big point about not using a body double.
I don’t think Kathy Bates had one in ‘‘About Schmidt,” either.
Personally, I wish Stone would keep her clothes on and use a stand-in. Not because she doesn’t look terrific. I’m sure she does. That’s the very problem, at least according to, oh, just every woman I interviewed. Stone is unilaterally raising the bar without asking us, her ticket-buying female public.
Actually, it’s not quite unilateral. Her move is part of a worrying trend that’s seeing other Sex Kittens of a Certain Age (Sex Tabbies?) show a lot of skin, too. Lauren Hutton, Kathleen Turner, Diane Keaton. With all due respect to their acting talents, how hard is it to look fantastic when you’re older if you looked fantastic when you were younger?
Oh, how I wish they’d take the Brigitte Bardot route, retire the vamp and get their kicks being nice to small animals.
‘‘Basic Instinct 2” has been rated ‘‘R,” which means that kids 17 and oldercan see it without their mothers, and if they care about mom at all, they certainly will leave her at home. ‘‘The movie could set off a wave of adult-onset anorexia and bulimia,” one 36-year-old predicted.
She plans to risk bodily and mental health and go anyway, which will put her in a large segment of the film’s audience: viewers looking for flaws not in the plot, but in the star’s skin. Not that she’ll admit that’s why she’s going.
‘‘I’m wary of the movie,” she explained, lying through her teeth. ‘‘Reprising one’s breakthrough role can be tricky. Imagine Tatum O’Neal playing the tot in ‘Paper Moon’ now. Scary. But in terms of the character, yeah, I kinda want to see what happens to a woman who may or may not have gotten away with murder.”
I looked at her and told her to cut the phony stuff. ‘‘OK,” she said, ‘‘I will sit in the front row and do a thorough crows-feet search whenever her mug is on screen. Relentlessly.”
Meanwhile, if there’s any good news for such viewers, it’s this: Sharon Stone’s not the only one getting older. We all are, and if my understanding of Einstein’s theory of relativity serves me, she’s still an ingenue.
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