Demi Moore: Evolving Woman 2.0 and Counting

Updated 11-20-09 with cover Photoshop comments at end of article.

I don’t consider that writer Kevin West interviews women of substance very well.

The words in the Demi Moore interview don’t do her justice. They capture none of her depth or daring, determined personality. Yes, there is the ongoing debate about whether or not she can act. Fine.

Dig another well then, because we all know that Demi Moore is a gusher, even when hiding from acting life, critics, and disappointing box offics sales under the guise of being super mom.

Demi Moore is human and admits it.

We explore her current physicality — more gaunt than expected. Demi Moore was never an’ it girl’ in an America loves Jennifer Aniston world.

Demi Moore was always a woman.

Demi doesn’t rate eight figures any more. Demi struggles for roles that she wants; yes, age may be a problem. At 47 she looks changed . . her age, although hers is an undeniably striking version of midlife.

Don’t trust any writer who feels compelled to point out that some moisture is gone from a woman’s skin. This is a Gawker interview, written with restraint.

In a separate West-talk, the writer relays the fact that Demi was more reflective and serious than he was expecting. “Call time for the shoot was 10 am, we didn’t sit down for the interview until 7:30 that evening. One of the things that was striking about her is that she’s a real pro,” says West. “I was worried that she would be exhausted — she and Ashton had just gotten back from Africa, where they had gone on safari to celebrate their 4th anniversary. I wondered if she would really have the energy to do it, but she really pulled it together.”

Moore has good timing when it comes to tapping into the cultural trendmap. She and Kutcher are legendary Twitter aces. Her new indy film “The Joneses” features a seemingly perfect family who are in fact pitchmen hired by a guerrilla marketing firm to promote pricey consumer goods.

“It deals with people leveraging their lives for stuff.” Moore seems to relish the self-referential quality of working on a film that pokes fun at materialism and marketing. “In a weird way, I was already participating in that dynamic,” she notes in reference to her implicit red-carpet endorsements of this bag or that dress.

There’s no sense of the sizzling woman she still is — the energetic trailblazer for women. No sense of her spiritual side, although we reference her Kabbalah relationship and a bit about her marriage, always taken seriously by the media.

Ashton Kutcher is fully integrated into Moore’s family from her marriage to Bruce Willis. “The love he has for me makes me a better person by giving me the courage to take risks. I can fail and have someone who loves me just the same. I never knew it was quite possible.”

Moore openly acknowledges that the (Twitter) platform enables her to bypass the meddling media, which, in the past, came between her and the world at large. “People are much more interested in what I have to say directly,” she says, “and that really changed the whole dynamic I have with fans.”

Amen to that statement, Demi.

Read the interview if you wish: Demi Goddess. For certain take a look at photos of this still-evolving, 47-year-old woman whose sincerely hot young husband and the future of digital media will keep her going long after the media interviews end. 

Update: (Then) One of the comments at W Magazine says that they’re photoshopped to an extreme. (Now) Frankly, I was so disgusted with the interview that I didn’t focus on the cover photo. Yes, facing us, Demi’s right hip (her left in reality) is gone.

To me, this W cover is only an example of Photoshop badly done and an editor’s lack of concern that women be portrayed with any sense of reality. This botched Photoshop job is small potatoes, compared to the Ralph Lauren firing of Filippa Hamilton and total restructuring of the model’s image in a grand distortion of reality that’s supposed to inspire women.   Anne

PS: I just found the earlier in 2009 W Magazine interview with Bruce and Emma Willis. It sizzles by comparison and so do the photos. Remember, Sexy Futures is just that.