Madonna turned 50 on Aug. 16. The milestone was marked by a predictable barrage of commentary about "50 being the new 40" and how women no longer dread the half-century mark. Everybody is trying to eat better and exercise more, and cosmetic surgery isn't the big taboo it once was. But since the subject was Madonna, there was also a lot of talk about her impact on pop culture. Ms. Ciccone, after all, still has a career — albums to push, concert tours to carry out.

The lesson Madonna teaches is not that everyone can still be gorgeous at 50 but rather that everyone can't be Madonna. Last week, CNN ran a lifestyle feature about former idol singer Keiko Masuda releasing a solo album just as she turns 50. The reporter gushed over Masuda's "all-natural" beauty, and Japanese fans who were interviewed said she looks even better now than she did in her 20s, when she was half of the hugely popular J-Pop act Pink Lady. Nobody said anything about her new music, which displays all the earmarks of record-company calculation: Bland cheese highlighted by a bossa nova version of "UFO," one of Pink Lady's biggest hits. How middle-aged can you get?

CNN only referred to surfaces, generalizing that Japanese women age remarkably well owing to their obsessive avoidance of the sun and "Japan's famously healthy diet." "Plastic surgery remains uncommon," the reporter said, suggesting that older women don't need or seek it, but she missed the point. In Japan, plastic surgery isn't undergone to reverse aging but rather to correct perceived flaws, often at a younger age.