I’ve always sort of liked Jacqueline Bisset, but after reading this interview with her… I think it’s comparable to how I feel about Helen Mirren. Helen Mirren is fabulous, strong, beautiful… and she says wacky and sometimes offensive things in interviews. Maybe it’s that women of a certain age have difficulty explaining their complicated views on sexuality and equality and such? Perhaps. Anyway, Bisset is 70 years old and she has some thoughts about feminism and ladies’ issues.

Bisset on aging: “Shine a light on an oil painting from the front and it looks wonderful. Shine a light on it from the side and it looks really craggy and peculiar. That’s the way I feel about my face now. It is craggy, and I’m both proud of that and scared by it. As an actress you can try and hang on to your image by being lit very carefully – and end up looking amazingly young. But obviously I’m never going to ask for that. In life. I suppose I’m afraid of being discounted. And there are times now when I feel completely invisible in the street.”

On feminism: “Women are becoming so tough. I have never fully embraced feminism. I certainly thought it had some good points, but…” But women whinge too much nowadays? “Well I don’t know, but I think they probably do. Then again, women take on too much so of course they whinge, because they’re absolutely exhausted. That’s our mistake, always wanting to be perfect.”

She’s “rebellious”? “When I met the first man I had a real relationship with, other women would ask: ‘Why do you do everything for him when you’re not married?’ When I explained that I liked to take care of him, they would say: ‘Marry someone rich, then you won’t have to do that.’ What a peculiar idea! Never for one second was that my goal. But maybe that’s because I’m a rebellious type.”

Beauty, attraction, romance: ” Girls today are so attractive and sexy, and they show themselves off in such an obvious way, so men feel that they are in a sweet shop. The flip side of that is that women see themselves as interchangeable. I feel that this obsession to be ‘hot’ is more prevalent than it ever was in my youth. It’s not ‘I want to be charming and magical and romantic and beautiful’. It’s ‘I want to be hot’. In other words: ‘I want men to want to screw me.’ Desperation, isn’t it? Because they don’t really want to deal with the results and often end up feeling used. I went through a period like that. When I dressed and behaved in a certain way, I couldn’t handle the results: it didn’t take me where I wanted to be. So I started to be more low-key and I got better relationships as a consequence.”

[From The Irish Independent]

Well… that’s interesting. I guess. It should be noted that she didn’t start to use the word “whinge” (in America, we would say “whine”) until the interviewer provided her with that opening. She’s right about some things, like women wanting to be perfect and women wanting it all, etc. But she’s also giving us some Get Off My Lawn Realness when she’s talking about ladies today wanting to be “hot” and that leading to men using them or whatever that argument is. Maybe she should have thought harder about becoming a feminist?

PS… Fun fact: Bisset is Angelina Jolie’s godmother. Bisset was close friends with Angie’s mom Marcheline Bertrand. Bisset and Jolie are reportedly still close.

Photos courtesy of WENN.