Ageing, popular culture and contemporary feminism
Subtitle: Harleys and hormones
By: edited by Imelda Whelehan, University of Tasmania, Australia and Joel Gwynne, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2014
Place of publication: Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York, New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 254
ISBN-13: 9781137376527
Subjects: Mass media and older people; Older people in popular culture; Feminism; Ageism; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies
Description: "The past decade has seen an increase in popular cultural representations of ageing, in response to the realities of an ageing Western population and an acknowledgement of the economic significance of consumption by seniors. Yet, while contemporary film often depicts late middle to old age as a time of renewal and acceptance, most popular depictions of ageing focus on images of loss, decline, and the fear of physically ageing 'naturally'. Ageing in popular culture is a battlefield, with an increasing range of euphemisms used to disguise the fact of age.  Feminist discourse has kept forever young, even though some of its most eminent proponents are ageing and dying. In the field of popular cultural studies the emphasis on the discourse of postfeminism and the 'girling' of culture has foregrounded the concerns of young women at the expense of a focus on older women, or what 'gender' means for middle-aged to older people generally. This collection demonstrates how popular culture constructs ageing as a perilous experience for not only women but also for men, while also underscoring the possibilities (and problems) of positive representations of ageing in the wider culture and in feminist criticism.  "--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Notes on Contributors; title: Introduction: Popular Culture's "Silver Tsunami"; Imelda Whelehan and Joel Gwynne; title: 1. Conscientious Objections: Feminism, Fiction and the Phoney War on Ageing; Liz Byrski; title: 2. Fiction or polemic? Transcending the Ageing Body in Popular Women's Fiction; Imelda Whelehan; title: 3. 'Mrs Robinson seeks Benjamin': Cougars, Popular Memoirs and the Quest for Fulfillment in Midlife and Beyond; Joel Gwynne; title: 4. Sexing-up the Midlife Woman: Cultural Representations of Ageing, Femininity, and the Sexy Body; Sharron Hinchliff; title: 5. Paternalizing the Rejuvenation of Later Life Masculinity in Twenty-First Century Film; Hannah Hamad; title: 6. Too Old For This Shit?: On Aging Tough Guys; Dominic Lennard; title: 7. 'The (un-Botoxed) Face of a Hollywood Revolution': Meryl Streep and the 'Greying' of Mainstream Cinema; Deborah Jermyn; title: 8. Grown Up Girls: Newspaper Reviews of Ageing Women in Pop; Lynne Hibberd; title: 9. Mature Meryl and Hot Helen: Hollywood, Gossip and the 'Appropriately' Ageing Actress; Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs; title: 10. Funny Old Girls: Representing Older Women in British Television Comedy; Rosie White; title: 11. Silence Isn't Golden, Girls: The Cross-Generational Comedy of 'America's Grandma' Betty White; Elizabeth Rawitsch; title: 12. The Older Mother in One Born Every Minute; Georgina Ellen O'Brien Hill; title: 13. Women, Travelling and Later Life; Sarah Falcus and Katsura Sako; title: 14. Kane and Edgar: Playing with Age in Film; Dee Michell, Casey Tonkin and Penelope Eate; title: 15. Beyond Wicked Witches And Fairy Godparents: Ageing and Gender in Children's Fantasy on Screen; Rebecca-Anne C. Do Rozario and Deb Waterhouse-Watson; title: Index.