There is something about Tracee Ellis Ross that unnerves the male spirit, be it her irresistibility or her refusal to be irresistible, the force of nature always knows how to shake it up while destroying everything in her path and being a blessing to it, at the same time. She is the storm that bends trees and breaks droughts. Ellis Ross’s body is rare, equipped with all its original parts and formed when after-market Miami add-ons were rarely the standard.
At the tender age of 51, her body still seems to have it all figured out, and it drives men wild.
Ellis Ross has star power; maybe it’s nepotism, as she is the daughter of Diana Ross, and maybe it’s just in her genes. Even though she had film credits before, the first bite of her comedic chops was seen on the short-lived yet impactful The Lyricist Lounge Show on MTV, which fused hip-hop and comedy in a way that only the best “yo mama” joke could. Her true breakout role came the same year as The Lyricist Lounge Show ended when she became Joan Clayton, one of the main characters, and whose character the show was based, for eight seasons of Girlfriends. Her other career heights have been playing Dr. Rainbow Johnson on Black-ish and Grown-ish. Ellis Ross’ well-roundedness is not just something she looks back at in a mirror. She is smart, extremely funny, nice, unapologetic, unproblematic—and single with no kids—and every time she posts a picture of herself, an army of men who couldn’t get her on their best and on her worst are plagued by the thought of her freedom.
Ellis Ross is no stranger to ‘thirst traps,’ and honestly, who is? Thirsts traps been trapping.
She begs the question, at what age do you have to hang up your phone tripod and stop liking what you see enough to show others? The internet is the best and worst indication of the great equalizer, people have essentially the same access to each other, while having different amounts of reach. The same men who get on the internet with lackluster looks, tasteless takes and illogical ideas jump to the internet to spread their sentiments without ever questioning if someone wants to view them, have no problem telling a beautiful woman to tone it down, simply because she and her body have refused to succumb to the pressures of time, kids and husbands. Men, who have better access to partners, just by numbers alone, are not seen as failures when they reach a certain age without a family.
Hell, nobody is telling Shemar Moore to put a shirt on whenever he is witnessed bouncing his toned teets in the internet streets. Still, a woman who has several Golden Globe, SAG, Primetime Emmy, NAACP Image and BET awards, each, is somehow unsuccessful because she has her parents’ last name and no kids to whom she has given a first? If that sounds stupid, that’s because it is stupid.
The same demographic that expresses disappointment with changes that happen to women’s bodies as we age is the same demographic that complains about her showing off her body, a body that is not just holding up well for her age but for women half her age, too. However, a woman has to discontinue being sexy, even when she is still sexy, because in an arbitrary time limit, she did not find someone suitable, or that someone suitable did not find her. So as a punishment, she must mute herself, she must be unhappy and miserable, because she chose to wait for what was best for her, rather than just settling for any old body.
Ellis Ross could be the quiet queen, minding her own 50-something-year-old business, posting the things that SHE likes, but people won’t let her have that, people find their misery in the fact that she isn’t miserable, despite what society says about childless single women, as if married women with children are experiencing happiness from their situations across the board. As if most marriages don’t end in divorce and most divorces are not initiated by the woman. God forbid a woman of color continue to be sexy in a world that picks her vision of pretty apart.
Here’s to you, Tracee Ellis Ross, for making sexy look so good at any age.
