Popular Culture Review Vol. 4, No. 2, June 1993 | Page 21
Lear's Vision of Modern Maturity
19
the kiln that her beauty fires. In Lear's , the present is a period of
consolidation in which individual women over 40 may capitalize on
experience to achieve greater success and (personal satisfaction than is
possible for their younger sisters. Most copy is given to photo
illustrated personal profiles: a never ending string of demonstrations
that women over 40 are beautiful and financially independent and
happy. L ear's, again to use Jameson's phrase, provides a
"transformation of reality into images and the fragmentation of
reality into a series of presents" (125). "A woman for Lear's"
represents not a community but a string of individuals. While there
are occasional exceptions (e.g., the March, 1990, editorial on
"Connectedness”), taken as a whole, the magazine is at pains to
provide a plurality of individual and present models and to avoid
the articulation of change over time and of the collective
consciousness of women of women over 40. While not a pure play,
Lear's in many resp>ects reflects the "disappearance of history" that
Jameson notes as a major trait of postmodernism and contributes to the
function of contemporary media "to help us forget, to serve as the very
agents and mechanisms for our historical amnesia" (125).
Lear's, of course, seeks a fair deal for women over 40, particularly
those thrust by divorce into the culture's social and econonuc markets
at a significant disadvantage compared to their male counterparts.
While there is some attention to a legislative and social agenda to
thwart what might be called "ageism," the major emphasis falls on
developing the knowledge, skills, and consciousness of the woman
over 40 herself. "Ageism," is a term that seldom appears in the
magazine; presumably a woman for Lear's is rendered ageless, her
capitalization of experience and beauty have transformed her into a
woman whose identity is constructed without reference to age. A
woman for Lear's, if you will, is bom again. The commitment to the
notion that society will change following the transformations of
individual women makes Frances Lear the Billy Graham of the cult
of women over 40 as it confronts the youth cult that has prevailed in
America since WWII.
Lear's perhaps most consistent and endearing reflection of
postmodemity is the resolute inconsistency between its declarations
and descriptions of the condition of women over 40. Lear's exhibits a
serious interest in surfaces. Physical beauty is a major concern, as the
magazine seeks to demonstrate that the woman over 40 can be