Abstract
Aging studies is a relatively new discipline, and its intersection with feminist film theory can lead to fundamental methodological and theoretical rethinking of the notion of cinema as a powerful technology of age. This essay provides an account of the ageism that permeates Western societies vis-à-vis the place of aging and gender in visual culture. In light of contemporary feminist conceptualizations of aging and aging narratives, this essay aims to propose possible new directions that cinema and feminist film theory can take as part of a new epistemological framework. It also explores new theoretical paradigms from an intersectional perspective aimed at deconstructing ageism in the film industry. Finally, by focusing on female aging narratives in several non-mainstream film productions, this essay advocates moving away from the binary approach of aging as either decline or success, and it suggests new, affirmative ways of looking at aging bodies, and of understanding old age.
Highlights
On the grounds that doing age theory changes theory, as Margaret Gullette has eloquently demonstrated (2004), we argue that like sex and gender, age is the product of social technologies
In this essay we aim to propose new approaches to cinema and to feminist film theory in particular, in light of contemporary feminist conceptualizations of aging and aging narratives
Ageism is even more evident is the field of acting, which is dominated by an alarming age/gender discrepancy
Summary
Among other forms of popular culture, has contributed to Western hegemonic discourses that portray later life as a time of decrepitude, poor health, mental decay, dependency, loss of sexual vigor, social isolation, passivity, vulnerability, lack of physical attractiveness, unproductiveness, and poverty (Cole et al, 1993). While older male actors continue to find parts that depict them as sexually appealing and, in general, their age is made invisible and irrelevant by the plot, their much younger female counterparts are essential instruments to substantiate their desirability. In this context, older women are less visible and erotically uninteresting. In this essay we aim to propose new approaches to cinema and to feminist film theory in particular, in light of contemporary feminist conceptualizations of aging and aging narratives. For Elena, cinema of the South uses “the geopolitical parameter that sets the cultural production of northern countries –the axis of today’s globalized world– against those that are from countries located in the periphery of the system” (Elena, 2014, 10-11). 7 De Lauretis argues that Foucault does not understand sexuality as gendered, that is, “as having a male form and a female form, but is taken to be one and the same for all–and male” (1987, 14). 8 Ageism activist Barbara Macdonald (1986) attacked feminists in the mid-eighties for not acknowledging the relevance of age discrimination for Women’s Studies
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