On this episode, we bring you a story by our own Andrea Askowitz. A version of this essay was published April 2023 on CNN and titled What Justine Bateman Gets Exactly Right About Beauty. You’ll hear tips on how to bring in outside evidence for a more effective opinion piece and how to use the news stories, popular in the media, to create a personal essay.

Andrea Askowitz has been published in The New York Times, Salon, The Rumpus, Huffington Post, Glamour, AEON, The Writer, Manifest-Station, Mutha, Washington Post, CNN, NPR, PBS, and the anthologies, Looking Queer, All that Glitters, and forthcoming, Stained: An Anthology of Writing About Menstruation. She is the author of the memoir My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy and the Editor of Badass: True Stories, The Double Album. Andrea is the Executive Producer and Host of Writing Class Radio, a podcast that airs true, personal stories and gives tips on how to write stories.

Writing Class Radio is hosted by Allison Langer and Andrea Askowitz. Audio production by Matt Cundill, Evan Surminski, Chloe Emond-Lane, and Aiden Glassey at the Sound Off Media Company. Theme music is by Justina Shandler

There’s more writing class on our website including stories we study, editing resources, video classes, writing retreats, and live online classes. Join our writing community by following us on Patreon.

If you want to write with us every week, you can join our First Draft weekly writers groups. You have the option to join me on Tuesdays 12-1 ET and/or Thursdays with Eduardo Winck 8-9pm ET. You’ll write to a prompt and share what you wrote. Or Second Draft on Thursday 12-1 ET where students bring in an edited draft for feedback and help getting published. If you’re a business owner, community activist, group that needs healing, entrepreneur and you want to help your team write better, check out all the classes we offer on our website, writingclassradio.com.

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Transcript

Allison Langer 0:00
I'm Alison Langer.

Andrea Askowitz 0:16
I'm Andrea Askowitz and this is Writing Class Radio. You'll hear true personal stories and learn how to write your own stories. Together, we produce this podcast, which has equal parts heart and art. By heart, we mean the truth in a story. By art, we mean the craft of writing. No matter what's going on in our lives, writing class is where we tell the truth. It's where we work out our shit. There's no place in the world like writing class and we want to bring you in.

Allison Langer 0:45
Today on our show, we bring you a story by our very own delightful, intelligent -

Andrea Askowitz 0:53
Go on.

Allison Langer 0:53
Very productive, Andrea Askowitz. A version of this story was published in April of this year 2023 on CNN. We're going to talk about how to bring in outside evidence, you know, like using, like some other information other than what's in our own brains about our own selves, like actual research and we'll also talk about using the news to create a story.

Andrea Askowitz 1:19
And I'll just say that this was really hard for me, because the best research I ever do is just like reading back in my own journals.

Allison Langer 1:25
Well, that's kind of more than what I do. So you're a step ahead of me.

Andrea Askowitz 1:29
You don't even read back on your own journals?

Allison Langer 1:31
No. Why? Old news by by moving forward, I guess unless, like, I'm pressed to have to read something for class or, you know, bring something to a retreat that I'm like, 'Oh, God, what do I have?' Because please don't make me dig into my brain and start all over.

Andrea Askowitz 1:45
Really?

Allison Langer 1:46
Yeah.

Andrea Askowitz 1:46
Like sometimes when I'm looking at a story, I consult my old journals to see how I felt, you don't, do that?

Allison Langer 1:51
I haven't.

Andrea Askowitz 1:52
Wow.

Allison Langer 1:54
No. No and I think it's because if it's been five years, 10 years, I'm looking at it from a different perspective. So actually, maybe that's why you do do it. Because then you can go back to the moment things like the shit hit the fan. And then you can see wow, this is how I've evolved. I can look back on it with the perspective. So actually, okay, maybe you're right. Maybe it's good idea. All right back with Andrea's story. After the break. We're back. This is Alison Langer, and you're listening to Writing Class Radio. Up next is Andrea Askowitz reading her story, titled by CNN. It's called 'What Justine Bateman Gets Exactly Right About Beauty'. Or we can use Andrea's title which is 'You Look Great Because You've Aged'. I can see why CNN gets the big bucks.

Alright, Andrea hit it.

Andrea Askowitz 2:51
Justine Bateman, a star whose age I’m approaching, played Mallory Keaton on “Family Ties” in the 1980s as a teenager. In her early 40s, she says, she typed her name into Google for research, and the search engine auto-populated “looks old.” Bateman, now 57, said she was incredulous. “I couldn’t see what they were talking about,” she recently told “60 Minutes Australia,” adding that the way her face has changed represents authority. She said she likes seeing herself as a different person than the teen she played on “Family Ties.” But Bateman didn’t come to terms with the public’s negative perception of her aging face overnight. I recently searched my own name online. No one is out there calling me old, but not because I don’t look old. At 54, I do. Apparently, for too many in American society, that’s not OK. At a party recently, I ran into a friend I knew in college. Thirty-five years ago, she was adorable — full cheeks and a giant smile. I had full cheeks back then, too. “You look great,” my friend said to me. “You haven’t aged.” I took it in. I said thank you and felt good for a second. But here’s the thing: I have aged. Thirty-five years. I weigh about the same as I did in college, but that weight is distributed differently now. I no longer have the baby-fat cheeks. My smile lines never go away. My hair, once black, is now more gray than black. My hair used to curl in perfect ringlets. Now, it’s a frayed mop. Everyone — and I mean everyone I know or even meet once — is quick to suggest a hair product. My mom has loosened up on her hair-dye campaign because she knows it’s a lost cause. She went hard about five years ago, when I was nearing 50. Back then she thought I’d want to try to stay young-looking. She said, “Dye that mop. You look like an aging hippie.” The truth is, I look older since the last time my friend and I saw each other. The other truth is, I look better, at least to me. I never felt beautiful growing up. I felt bulky and awkward in my clothes. I relied on other charms. I feel cheated because now that I feel beautiful, most people can’t see how beautiful I am. They can only see my age. I’m not just talking about the beauty that comes with confidence. Frankly, I look better physically. Now, I like looking like an aging hippie, and tight jeans and a T-shirt just fit. My friend looks better now, too. She has the same big smile and friendly demeanor, but there is something about her face that I like more. I didn’t stare. I don’t know exactly what about her face is more pleasing, but it is. What wasn’t pleasing to me is what happened in February after Madonna appeared at the 2023 Grammy Awards. The internet went crazy over the work Madonna had done to her face. Madonna tried to defend her position in an Instagram post, writing, “I am happy to do the trailblazing so that all the women behind me can have an easier time in the years to come.” I consider Madonna one of the most influential leaders of my generation, a cohort including my friend — and Bateman. When Madonna’s book “Sex” was published in 1992, I was 24. I had just come out as a lesbian. The book was scandalous — pictures of Madonna fully naked, explicit sex shots, homosexuality across the pages. Whatever you thought about the book then, Madonna changed cultural perceptions of sex and all kinds of sexual expression. She helped paved the way for queer people, including me. Madonna clearly sees herself in a leadership role, too. Madonna’s fake face, though, is bad leadership. But I don’t expect Madonna to carry the burden of influencing society’s views on age and beauty alone. During her acceptance speech at the 95th Academy Awards in March, Oscar best actress winner Michelle Yeoh, 60, said, “Ladies, don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime.” And best supporting actress winner Jamie Lee Curtis, 64, called herself “an old lady” in an E! News interview on the red carpet ahead of the Oscars event. She said her goal in life was simply to say, “Relax, you are enough.” Bateman also told “60 Minutes Australia” she wanted women to stop being consumed with how they look and to get out there and live their lives. “Forget about your face,” she said. Attitudes are changing because of Hollywood stars like Yeoh, Curtis and Bateman. But we non-celebrities also play a part, too. If we can’t stop talking about looks altogether, let’s at least stop saying, “You look great — you haven’t aged.” I tried a similar approach with my friend at the party — something radical. “You look great because you’ve aged,” I told her. And like that, we changed the dynamic around aging, at least in that moment. Because she agreed with me.

Allison Langer 8:14
This Narrator really does walk the walk I'm sure I'm one of those people who have said dye that mop and a suggested products and all that kind of stuff, but this narrator doesn't care. She's really happy with who she is and it's really nice. It's really nice to be around and I'll tell you why also, is because when you're around somebody who's happy with themselves, they're not judging you. But when you're around somebody with the Botox and the fake everything, it's just like, 'Oh, God, what are they thinking of me?' If I don't have all that, and so it's difficult. It's difficult to associate all the time with with people who are trying so hard to grasp on to their their youth. So it's if more more people were like this narrator then more of us would be okay with how we look. So okay, that's not about the writing that's about the story. What we love to do is talk about the writing. This narrator did a perfect job of bringing in the news and it's examples and all that kind of stuff. So and very great research. So I just kind of want to ask her like, well, what went into all that research? And how did it come about? And I want to learn more about the process.

Andrea Askowitz 9:27
When I see someone who has worked on on their face or something or someone who's like really trying to fight against age. I don't think 'oh are they judging me?' But I do judge them. I do. It's not nice. I do. I mean, I wondered though, I wanted to ask you if the way that I described Madonna in this story, did you understand? Like, I wonder if if someone who didn't see the whole like I just saw tons of pictures of her in the news and and the on Instagram.

Allison Langer 9:59
I haven't seen her face. I haven't Googled her or anything, not even through this piece and seeing it and looking at it and all that kind of stuff. I already know.

Andrea Askowitz 10:08
So did you get a sense of what she looked like?

Allison Langer 10:10
We live in Miami. We already see these people everywhere. It's like overdone and I without even seeing it I know how she's fucked herself up.

Andrea Askowitz 10:19
Okay. Because I wondered if that came through. For someone who maybe doesn't live in Miami or didn't look didn't like research what Madonna's looking like or didn't see her in the news. But anyway, I guess it's not important. Basically, she had a lot of work done on her face. But you asked me about the process. I want to tell you two things about the process of getting the story published in CNN. When Madonna first showed her face, I was so like, Oh my God and I wrote a story just about Madonna. And I sent the story to an editor at CNN Katya Header. And I took a few days like because it takes me a while to write a story. Like some people can write a story like, overnight, but I probably it probably took me three days. And Katya read the story, she liked it in the morning when I sent it to her she was like I really like the story, but then a few hours later, she was like it's too late for this story. So I missed the news cycle. If something happens in the news that touches you personally, you have to jump on it like that day or the next day. So three days was too many days. So then what happen is Justine Bateman came out she spoke to 60 Minutes Australia about her own like that this whole part that I talked about about the aging. And Katya header emailed me, the editor from CNN was like, 'Listen, this idea is coming back around in the news, maybe you could add stuff to it, use some of your Madonna material and talk about yourself and write a story around the Justine Bateman moment', which was the coolest thing.

Allison Langer 12:00
Yeah, I want to jump in because I just want to tell our listeners that this request came in while we were sitting at lunch, on the way from Sedona back to Flagstaff when we were teaching the scientists how to write their stories and this and that and we drove Andrea jumped in the back of the van and-

Andrea Askowitz 12:22
Wait weren't we like at the Grand Canyon?

Allison Langer 12:24
Because I remember at that one restaurant, you're like, 'Oh, I gotta sit off to the side. And I've got to start this thing.' So we're on a road trip and then we got to Sedona and you and I sat in in a coffee shop going over this and rereading it and putting in stuff and editing it and before you push send.

Andrea Askowitz 12:41
Right because I knew I had one day to turn it around. I knew that the news was that minute, I had to watch 60 Minutes Australia, Justine Bateman, she she also wrote in now I can't remember, but there was another article about her where she was quoted. I had to do the research very quickly and turn it around very, very quickly. It was exciting and scary.

Allison Langer 13:03
But what's really cool is that the first rejection turned into an acceptance. So you know, it's just great to hear, I'm sure for people out there who have getting rejected.

Andrea Askowitz 13:12
Writing is a long game. It's like you really have to make connections with editors, you have to pitch a lot, you get rejected a lot. But sometimes an editor will remember you and sometimes they'll remember you and then and then reach out to you that's so rare that I think it's the first time it's ever happened. But I can now reach out to her again. So now we have a connection. Y

Allison Langer 13:33
yeah, no, it's really cool. And your hard assworker. I would have been like I'm on vacation. You know. But I remember you're like should I try to do this? Should I try to do this and your wife Vicki and I were like, 'yes, just do it. Just do it.'

Andrea Askowitz 13:48
I mean, I do have something to say about aging and beauty. I do, I've written about it in other places, too. When I turned 50 I wrote a story and glamour about how I think I look better than ever. So this is like a recurring theme for me. Did you see the Barbie movie?

Allison Langer 14:04
No, did you?

Andrea Askowitz 14:05
I really liked the Barbie movie, but the one one, I have two problems with it, but one of the problems is they don't contradict the idea of traditional beauty enough, not for me. And I was having this conversation with my wife and Tashi, who's my daughter who's 19 and Tashi has a really interesting experience with beauty because she's young and fucking gorgeous. And it kind of pisses her off. That that's the thing people notice about her first and Vicki said something really smart, which was, you know, we look to art, we look to music, like we as a people were drawn to what's beautiful. And that kind of made me think a little bit differently about I just I think that beauty is is wonderful, but we have to what I think we have to do is see beauty in different ways, especially on women at different ages.

Allison Langer 15:00
Yeah, I don't have anything to say about Barbie. I've heard I've only heard a critique from two people, one, my son who hated it, they're men, and another man who was like, I didn't like it. So I didn't get into it too much. But my daughter saw it last night, but I haven't talked to her about it.

Andrea Askowitz 15:15
Well, it was really fun. And beauty was one of the themes. So that's why I mentioned it.

Allison Langer 15:20
Can you maybe give us all a little bit of insight of how you came to the fact of that you're aging and you're feeling more beautiful? Why is that you think?

Andrea Askowitz 15:28
I mean, what I've said in the piece is that I really didn't feel that pretty as a high school and college kid. Like, I felt bulky, like, I wasn't the stereotypical beauty. You know, I'm muscular. I'm like, I think I'm cute. Like, I think my face is okay. I do. I mean, it's okay, I don't think I'm dropped dead gorgeous.

Like,

Allison Langer 15:51
I think there's something to be said for that, like losing beauty has to be harder than never having felt beautiful, right. So, I mean, I was kind of cute in high school.

Andrea Askowitz 16:04
And you're kind of cute now.

Allison Langer 16:06
If you compare, which we should never, never, never do, then I don't feel so much. But I'm doing all the things I'm dyeing my hair. In fact, I'm going to get a blow dryer tomorrow, just because I want to look cute for New York. And, you know, I don't know, but at the end of the day, it's, it's for me, I just want to feel pretty. And I think that's important for everybody. So no matter what people do, in my opinion, if it makes them feel beautiful, if it's writing, if it's playing pickleball if it's doing your hair, you know, getting some Botox, I'm fine with it. I know that you don't necessarily feel that way. But I just want people just feel good and that's it. But please don't overdo it.

Andrea Askowitz 16:45
I want people to feel good, too. I just it makes me feel sad when someone has to kind of mutilate their face and spend money and that makes me feel sad if they feel like they have to do that. And I actually also think it brings down it brings down our sisters, and that's why I'm committed to being as natural as possible.

Allison Langer 17:07
Amen.

Andrea Askowitz 17:08
But I'll try not to judge though I can't say I don't, I do.

Allison Langer 17:14
Well, thank you guys for listening and thank you, Andrea, for sharing your story and your opinions. Always a good thing. We love that here at Writing Class Radio.

Andrea Askowitz 17:22
Well, this was an opinion piece.

Allison Langer 17:24
Exactly. Bam.

Andrea Askowitz 17:32
So

Allison Langer 17:35
Writing Class Radio is hosted by me, Allison Langer.

Andrea Askowitz 17:39
And me Andrea Askowitz.

Allison Langer 17:41
Audio production is by Matt Cundill, Evan Surminsky, Chloe Emond-Lane and Aidan Glassey at the Sound Off Media Company. Theme music is by Justina Shambler. There's more Writing Class on our website writingclassradio.com, including stories we study editing resources, video classes, writing retreats, and live online classes. Join our community by following us on Patreon and if you want to write with us every week, we hope you do you can join our first draft weekly writers group. You have the option to join me on Tuesdays 12 to 1pm, Eastern Time and or Eduardo Wink, Thursdays 8 to 9pm, Eastern Time. You'll write to a prompt and share what you wrote. If you're a business owner, entrepreneur, community activist, and group that needs healing and want to help your team write better, we can help. Check out all the classes we offer on our website writingclassradio.com Join the community that comes together for instruction, an excuse to write and the support from other writers. A new episode will drop every other Wednesday.

Andrea Askowitz 18:51
There is no better way to understand ourselves and each other than by writing and sharing our stories. Everyone has a story. What's yours?

Tara Sands (Voiceover) 19:03
Produced and distributed by the Sound Off Media Company.