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