This morning, Hilary Duff was trending on Google. The 34-year-old actor has taken part in a nude photoshoot for her latest magazine cover, getting candid about body image and the pressures to be a certain size as a young Hollywood starlet. Naturally, everyone is now searching ‘Hilary Duff nude photoshoot’ to get a glimpse of her incredible body.
And she does look incredible, that’s hardly up for debate. What does seem to be dividing the internet though is how good she looks… for her age. Yes, you read that right. Hilary Duff, at the grand age of 34, is being lauded for looking SO good in her… mid 30s.
It started, as so many chronically online debates do, with a tweet. ‘Hilary Duff has aged like fine wine,’ a Lizzie McGuire fan account posted alongside pictures of her new photoshoot. Over 1000 quote tweets later, it’s fair to say women had a strong reaction to the post.
And who can blame us? It’s a narrative that has cropped up time and time again not just on Twitter but TikTok too. Edits are made of adult celebrities that show them as a child star compared to now, the captions often featuring dumbfounded comments about how one can look so good with the passing of time. But as that time will likely be one or two decades, the assumption is that one can’t possibly look young, beautiful or glamorous over the age of 30.
Now, a lot of the people making these edits are probably teens themselves so perhaps we should give them a break. After all, didn’t everyone over 25 seem ancient when we were 16? That being said, however, with the power of TikTok, you can influence millions with one misguided video through the click of a button. All these kinds of posts and videos do is perpetuate ridiculous beauty standards that not only condemn women for developing one singular wrinkle but imply that being in your mid-30s is the cut-off point for ‘beautiful’. It cements the stereotypes that women over a certain age are no longer worthy of admiration or love.
Alongside that is the notion that when you get to 34 – perhaps unsure of your goalposts or where you should be in life – you SHOULD have everything figured out by now because frankly love, you are OLD. You are old and decrepit and off the market, so if you’re not married with kids and a flourishing career you should probably give up the ghost. This is what it feels like these posts are saying.
Tell us 34 is old all you like, but we will never concede – Hilary Duff looks incredible because she is still young, hot and glamorous, just like the rest of us in our mid-30s.