Hi, Excuse Me, But Has Any Human Ever Aged Better Than Marisa Tomei?

By Petr Navovy | Think Pieces | November 30, 2017 |

By Petr Navovy | Think Pieces | November 30, 2017 |

Don’t be stupid. You know the answer is ‘Fucking no!’

How’s it feel to be rhetorical-question-slapped that hard in the face?

Stings, don’t it?

Don’t worry about it though because you know what’ll take the edge off?

Whisky, you say?

Yeah, sure, that is technically a correct answer. Especially if you’re talking about some fine, aged whisky. But it’s not actually the correct answer.

What’ll really take the edge off is something that has aged better than any whisky and indeed better than any human—Marisa goddamn Tomei. She hasn’t so much aged, as evolved.

But before considering this strange, aberrant matter I do feel the need to take a quick detour to first address two little things. So, in order:

Is this just an exercise in objectification? No. Marisa Tomei is a damn fine actress, and from most impressions I’ve had she seems like a damn fine human being too. A few years back she said: ‘I’m not that big a fan of marriage as an institution, and I don’t know why women need to have children to be seen as complete human beings.’ I like the cut of her jib. I admire her as a performer and I think overall she’s doing the ‘being human’ thing pretty well. That being said, there’s literally nothing wrong with admiring a person’s looks. Especially when you consider it in context, and when that person isn’t being exploited for your gaze. Tomei can’t have escaped all exploitation—she is a woman, and an actress at that—but the type of gaze being levelled here is not a predatory or exploitative one by any means. It’s more what one might call ‘The Pajiba Gaze.’

Also a matter for some quick discussion is the issue of ageing. Especially as it pertains to a) actors, b) women, and c) women actors. It’s an exponentially sliding scale of horror that a) b) and c) have to deal with when they dare to age; with a world treating them with attitudes that run from from ‘Meh, I guess we’ll adapt to this,’ for a), to ‘I CAST THEE OUT!’ for c). So the last thing I’d want is for a fun, fluff piece ultra-serious think piece like this to be reinforcing any systemic, age-related, gender-skewed violence. I hope it’s not.

That out of the way I hope we can now all skip to the unanimous agreement with this central thesis: No Human Being Has Ever Aged Better Than Marisa Tomei.

Ah, you know what? Fuck you. I see that raised hand at the back of the class. There’s always one isn’t there? I usually wouldn’t even indulge this. But you know what, go on, we all know what you’re gonna say anyway.

Actually, no, wait, no, in fact, don’t bother. Let me save you the time, Ms. ‘What about Pharrell Stefani Keanu Bassett Rudd’. These are all obviously damn attractive people who have kept their looks quite remarkably, and in some cases have even gotten a little bit hotter.

But there ain’t no-one operating on the kinda chronomagic shenanigans levels that Marisa Tomei is operating on!

via GIPHY

Because this is a woman for whom a whole new scale of measuring time needs to be invented. A woman who—quite obviously—started out very pretty.

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

But who with the passage of years became something else entirely. Something which people with far greater skill with the form than me have struggled to find words for. Something that makes old toga-swaddled poetry twats say things like, ‘Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium?’

via GIPHY

Now I’m not saying that Marisa Tomei is something akin to the Hyperion Shrike, that she moves independently of the normal passage of time and it was her who made Agamemnon and his bare chest brigade go on their dick-measuring bro-crusade all those thousands of years ago. But then also how do you explain this?!

Scientists once did a full gene sequencing of Ozzy Osbourne. They found several gene variants that hey had ‘never seen before’. These gene variants basically explained why probably the hardest partier in an industry and an era of hard partiers could still be alive. They discovered that Ozzy was, for want of a better term, a mutant whose superpower was getting wrecked.

Well I’m calling it now: If a similar thing, albeit for ageing and time, doesn’t apply to Marisa Tomei then I’ll eat my hat. I’ll eat everyone’s fucking hats.

Because it’s either that or she’s doing a Dorian Gray. But not with just one painting. With, like, a Loeuvre-worth sized attic and a corresponding amount of magical scribbles.

via GIPHY

——-
Petr Knava lives in London and plays music