Gillian Anderson Just Tore Apart the Tabloid That Age-Shamed Her

X-Files star Gillian Anderson had some fighting words Thursday night for the Daily Mail, which had run an article the previous day accusing her for aging too well, titled "Ageless Gillian and the BotoX Files."

The article offers a plethora of sexism and double standards and cites "expert" opinion to scrutinize Anderson's face and guess at all the procedures she might have undergone in order to maintain her beauty. Because, when you're a woman, being old and looking old is ugly and being old and looking young is freakish.

"Reprising the role you played 15 years ago is enough to strike fear into the heart of even the most confident actress," the article begins. 

"Unusually for a woman in her 40s, she bears no deep frown lines and there is no sign her skin is sagging at the hairline. The light reflected off the right-hand side of her forehead suggests the skin is stretched very tightly across her temple — which is often a tell-tale sign of muscle-freezing Botox injections," the Daily Mail says of a photograph that could well have been airbrushed. 

Carrie Fisher, another actress to reprise a role decades later, has faced similar shaming both for her aging (how dare she!) and her body. But she was having none of it either. 

In December, shortly after the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Fisher got feisty on Twitter, putting the trolls in their place. 

Hollywood's fictional (and real life) heroes are making it harder than ever to get away with what has become a remarkably common practice. 

And that, at least, is to be celebrated. 

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