Betty White: Octophenom

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Pop culture has always been unpredictable, and no one knows this better than Betty White, who's been a part of it since the 1940s. So when her career train left the station recently, she started shovelling coal as fast as she could. The result is that a woman born in 1922 has become the hottest star of 2010.

"She is a representative of vitality and enduring quality," posits Moses Znaimer, the pop-culture impresario who went from founding CityTV and MuchMusic to serving the over-50 crowd with Zoomer magazine and specialty radio and TV stations (he also runs the Canadian Association of Retired Persons). "It may have even started as a bit of a lark," he says of White's comeback, "but the fact that it took root and became such a phenomenon is an indicator of something much more serious going on in society."

Since appearing alongside Sandra Bullock in last summer's hit The Proposal (and going viral with a hilariously outrageous faux behind-the-scenes video on FunnyOrDie.com), White has become inescapable.

It's not like she was unemployed in the early part of the decade, but mostly she'd had small guest TV spots ( My Name is Earl, That '70s Show) and recurring roles ( Boston Legal, The Bold and the Beautiful). Things took off once she started contrasting her sweet old lady appearance with a mean and/or saucy attitude. White landed cameos on Ugly Betty and 30 Rock - Alec Baldwin told Access Hollywood at the time, "We took a vote: If you could have one guest star for the whole season, who would it be? And Betty White was the winner." She roasted William Shatner and appeared in a long-running series of outré skits on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

But White really took over water coolers this winter with an instantly iconic Snickers ad that appeared during the Superbowl telecast (she gets tackled and engages in trash-talk during a pickup football game) and a shower scene with Hugh Jackman to relaunch Jay Leno's Tonight Show. These coincided with a January lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild and a successful half-million-strong Facebook campaign that helped her get hired as host of Saturday Night Live (on May 8). This was quickly followed by news she'll once again be shacking-up with three female friends in the new TV-land sitcom Hot in Cleveland, alongside Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves and Wendie Malick.

The fact that a woman who earned her first of six Emmys back in 1952 has become such a hot cultural commodity today is unusual because advertisers want young actors to attract young audiences. "If you take the cliché of the ad business, Moses Znaimer is at home in his rocking chair, chewing his gums and waiting for his pension cheque so he can go buy dog food," says Znaimer, now in his late 60s.

Widespread affection for White has also helped supersede pop-culture's usual youth bias. Saturday Night Live's executive-producer Lorne Michaels told the New York Times, "The depth of feeling for her at the show and particularly among the women who are coming back was very deep," referring to alums Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph and others who will appear alongside White.

But not everyone believes the grassroots movement behind her comeback is entirely without irony. "I don't want to be the contrary voice, but I really am flummoxed by this Betty White thing. I don't understand why this is her moment," expat Toronto blogger and author Tara Ariano, managing editor for Sling.com's blog and co-founder of website Television Without Pity, says over the phone from Manhattan. "Obviously, I think she's cooler than a rapping Granny, but most of the joke of what she does now is that she's an old lady being outrageous. There's something to me that seems a little condescending about it."

Ariano, who enjoys watching White's old stints on The Golden Girls and game-show reruns, seems most disappointed that a comedy legend like White is being laughed at, rather than with. "I just wish she were doing cooler stuff. Her role in The Proposal was embarrassing; I was embarrassed for her." Ariano adds: "For me to second-guess her career path would be the most condescending thing of all, but Bea Arthur never got into the territory that makes me feel weird about the Betty White comeback. [Arthur]would do things like play Larry David's mom on Curb Your Enthusiasm as a later-in-life role. To me, [this]is a waste of a Betty White."

Znaimer doesn't necessarily disagree with Ariano's interpretation that White's ascendance may have started as a joke or stunt, but he still believes the actress's popularity speaks to a "deeper truth" and is, in fact, the shape of things to come. "What we can project into the future is more and more Zoomer protagonists taking central, heroic roles in popular culture," Znaimer says. "We are at the turn of this bit of history, the hinge, so it's in some ways remarkable and noticeable. But as this inevitable wave rolls on, you'll see it play out in a million different ways. It is a tsunami, just not a negative one."

"Maybe the Betty White comeback is the canary in the coal mine of older people being relevant as pop-culture consumers again," Ariano suggests. "Maybe two TV seasons from now that's all we'll see. It'll be Matlock all over again."

Snarkiness aside, things are already moving in that direction. Ted Danson (born in 1947) has been enjoying a late-career revival on Curb Your Enthusiasm and Bored to Death, and starred in the acclaimed series Damages with Glenn Close (another 1947 baby) and Lily Tomlin (born 1939). Meanwhile, Buzz Aldrin (born 1930) has been hoofing it on Dancing with the Stars and Leonard Nimoy (born 1931) enjoys a pivotal role on Fringe.

Znaimer believes seeing aged actors on TV is vital because pop culture also has an impact on the broader culture.

"It's a very important as a method of socializing young people to their own future," he claims. "It's true, young people don't feel very deeply about these things. The decline of your body - the decline of your pulchritude and eventually your unavoidable death - is not a subject most people gravitate to. But the sooner they can see the beauty of [aging]and can see that they will be spending more years over 50 than they did under 30, the better for all of us."

Special to The Globe and Mail