Madonna’s 65, Jagger’s 80: guess who’s told to ‘grow up’?

No prizes for that one, which is why Eleanor Mills says to the much-maligned Queen of Pop: I love you, but couldn’t you break the final taboo and tell the world to stuff its double standards when it comes to age?

(Reuters)

“Oh Madge, isn’t it time you grew up?” was the headline on a review of the Queen of Pop’s Celebration Tour. “While we’ve all grown up and moved on, she doesn’t seem to have done,” was one wincingly sexist reaction to Madonna’s multi-hit, all singing, all dancing, basque bearing, five-star new show. It made me sad.

No one tells Mick Jagger and the rest of The Rolling Stones to “grow up”, when in their eighties they are still writhing around in skin-tight leather and pouting at nubile, 20-something blondes (as in the latest video for their new single, “Angry”).

And Madonna’s only 65, a whole generation younger than rock’s oldest evergreen wrinklies. Why should the Queen of Pop have to “grow up” at all? She’s an anarchist, an artist, there to rattle the cages of society. If she’s still got the chutzpah and the stamina to raise the roof at 65 – well, go her! She’s a symbol of what older women are capable of. Don’t you dare write us off as knitting old grannies – we’ve still got it!