In and out of control: Portraying older women in contemporary Finnish comedy films

Abstract

This article analyzes representations of older women in contemporary Finnish film. It focuses on comedies since traditionally the genre has granted older female characters more visibility and offered a space where stereotypes can be dissolved, alternatives imagined and the conventional contested. The article sets out to investigate what kinds of representational spaces the figures of an elderly mother with dementia, a ‘bag lady’, an older female warrior and a mature woman ‘gone wild’ open up in the films Playing Solo (2007), The Garbage Prince (2011), Off the Map (2014) and Off Key (2014). The article proposes that the cultural legacy of designating Finnish women as ‘strong’ shapes the portrayals of older women in contemporary film, yet asks whether it is possible for an older female character to be transgressive and counterstereotypical without recourse to humor. I will demonstrate that older women who are ‘too’ non-conforming, rebellious or independent need to be somehow regulated and deflated. They are placed at the very margins of cultural womanhood and society, rendered as cognitively impaired, portrayed in a humorous vein and figured as being ‘out of control’. Consequently, these practices support what is understood as being socially and culturally (un)acceptable for older women. By investigating non-Hollywood and non-Anglophone films, this article adds to existing studies on representations of older women by analyzing the ways in which global and local influences conflate in them.