Feminist Media Studies

ISSN: 1468-0777 (Print) 1471-5902 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rfms20

Gendered ageing bodies in popular media culture

Iolanda Tortajada, Frederik Dhaenens & Cilia Willem

To cite this article: Iolanda Tortajada, Frederik Dhaenens & Cilia Willem (2018)
Gendered ageing bodies in popular media culture, Feminist Media Studies, 18:1, 1-6, DOI:
10.1080/14680777.2018.1410313

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2018.1410313

Published online: 08 Jan 2018.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 67

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rfms20

Download by: [University of New England] Date: 14 January 2018, At: 02:03
 Feminist Media Studies, 2018
VOL. 18, NO. 1, 1–6
https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2018.1410313

Gendered ageing bodies in popular media culture

Iolanda Tortajadaa, Frederik Dhaenensb and Cilia Willema
a
Department of Communication Studies, Rovira and Virgili University, Tarragona, Spain; bDepartment of
Communication Studies, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

KEYWORDS  Popular media; gendered ageing; ageing bodies; postfeminism; heteronormativity

Downloaded by [University of New England] at 02:03 14 January 2018

Introduction
Grace and Frankie: resistance to post-feminist ageing
Grace and Frankie (2015 to present), the Netflix original about two 70-year-old women who
become unlikely friends after their respective husbands confess they have been in love with
each other for the last 20 years, was released just a few months before this special issue on
ageing and popular media culture was conceived. In its third season now, the series portrays
two women who are interested in affective relationships, do not hide their sexual desires,
propose new businesses, overcome the difficulties of marriage breakup, and eventually
become good friends. The series particularly succeeds in breaking with some of the main-
stream ageist representations of women as youthful, sexy and desirable (Kathleen Woodward
2006) and challenges the idea that all women are obsessed with trying to look and act young
while being anxious over growing old (Imelda Whelehan 2010; Imelda Whelehan and Joel
Gwynne 2014). In the second season, for instance, Grace and Frankie try to market a lubricant
that Frankie has created, and later they set up their own company to sell vibrators designed
by and for women their age. These subversive images invite audiences not only to look
beyond rigid and unquestioned ideas about gender and sexuality but also, most of all, to
question ageist assumptions.
As in other post-feminist cultural products, contradictions are abundant (Fien Adriaens
and Sofie Van Bauwel 2011; Antonio Caballero, Iolanda Tortajada and Cilia Willem, forthcom-
ing), in Grace and Frankie. Still, we see the two protagonists laughing at themselves, for
example when Frankie jokes about the fact that Grace tells the doctor that she has never
had surgery—thus implying that Grace has undergone cosmetic surgery on numerous occa-
sions—or in the way in which both are aware of their fears and express these in a playful
and humorous way. Although there have been other television shows featuring 70-plus
women, these positive representations are rare. Grace and Frankie’s characters, despite some
stereotyped portrayals (the hippy and the posh lady) and certain conventions (not showing
the naked mature female body), somehow question post-feminist popular culture. By putting
their finger on the complexities of ageing, the show implicitly makes a point against gen-
dered ageism.

CONTACT  Frederik Dhaenens  frederik.dhaenens@ugent.be

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 2   I. TORTAJADA ET AL.

Why this issue now?

Becoming old is a process we all go through and is embedded in our daily experiences. There
is hardly a better compliment than being told “you don’t look your age.” Even if always
intended as an expression of praise, this remark reveals how the fear of ageing is pervading
our culture and its manifestations. It also painfully shows the pressure both men and women
experience to constantly conform to an unattainable model of “successful” ageing.
This special issue of Feminist Media Studies, “Gendered Ageing Bodies in Popular Media
Culture,” explores the interconnections between gender, ageing bodies and popular (media)
culture. It was conceived to look at how ageing is addressed by cultural expressions world-
wide in terms of gender displays and heteronormative frames, what kind of consumerist
imperatives are connected to these practices, and how images of the ageing body are nego-
tiated in terms of gender. Age and gender structure each other in a complex back-and-forth
Downloaded by [University of New England] at 02:03 14 January 2018

feedback loop: the body becomes a site of struggle, a battlefield of sorts, where ageism and
heteronormativity shape ageing experiences (Judith Halberstam 2005; Kathleen F. Slevin
2006). The female body is the one enduring the most opprobrium in that regard: “[t]he
youthful structure of the look [...] exhorts women to pass for younger once they are a certain
age” (Kathleen Woodward 2006, 162).
Indeed, the dominant cultural imperative for women is to “stay young” as long as possible.
When looking young becomes a model of success, both age denial and ‘age-shaming’ emerge
as widespread responses. An inevitable attitude of resistance to ageing ends up pervading
the ways in which age is generally conceived. Therefore, however paradoxical, the ageing
process is turned on its head and becomes an anti-ageing or “successful ageing” enterprise
that is but an attempt to slow down or even reverse ageing. Embodiments of the successful
ageing model show up in many western media representations (see, among others, Josephine
Dolan 2014; Whelehan and Gwynne 2014; Virpi Ylänne 2012). Mature female bodies are only
interesting to media and popular culture insofar as they can be used as a visible proof of a
deferred ageing process; otherwise, they remain hidden from the public eye, as they are
considered to be abject bodies that do not fit the aforementioned model of successful
ageing.
However, it is the global circulation of the neoliberal consumerist ethos that ultimately
drives the representation and performance of female ageing. Displays of anxiety about age-
ing, accompanied by a persistent obsession with youth, are a core feature of post-feminism
(Whelehan 2010; Whelehan and Gwynne 2014). Post-feminist portrayals of ageing female
bodies locate women in a place where they apparently are empowered to “choose” their
appearance—through consumerist strategies such as cosmetics or plastic surgery, respond-
ing to global successful ageing models, but making invisible those bodies that fail or reject
these models (Kirsty Fairclough 2012; Sadie Wearing 2007). In this sense, the “girling” of older
women (Deborah Jermyn 2016) and using age to deny their sexual agency (Phoebe Pua,
this volume) are other post-feminist, patriarchal strategies to shift powerful women into
heteronormative frameworks.
The study of the ageing female body in popular media culture is a timely subject of study,
as there is an inchoate field of work focusing on these themes; some of the studies are looking
at media representations more specifically as they approach the body from a cultural per-
spective. Academic feminism has paid little attention to this issue, and there is still much
room left for debate (Josephine Dolan and Estella Tincknell 2012; Whelehan 2010; Kathleen
 FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES   3

Woodward 2006; Barbara Zecchi 2014). With this special issue, we hope to have contributed
to studying and challenging the invisibility of mature female bodies, both in the media and
in academia.
Notwithstanding the fact that gendered ageism especially affects women, we do regret
not being able to include manuscripts on how masculinity and ageing are articulated and
mediated. Even though a few authors are exploring these issues (e.g., Laura Hurd, Erica V.
Bennett, and Chris Liu 2014), we encourage future scholars to address the mediation of men
and masculinities, particularly from an intersectional perspective. Similarly, even though our
scope was global—welcoming site-specific, regional and national negotiations of ageing—
we are painfully aware that our special issue does not include non-Western perspectives on
gender, ageing and media.
Downloaded by [University of New England] at 02:03 14 January 2018

Articles in this issue

Dafna Burema’s article demonstrates that a black-and-white approach to understanding
how ageing is dealt with in media is no longer feasible nor able to grasp fully what is going
on. She demonstrates how Dutch gossip magazines represent “cougars” (i.e., women who
date younger men) in a nuanced way. Even though the magazines fail to see differences in
age as something else than a source for hierarchy and power in a relationship, they do rep-
resent the women as financially and sexually empowered and thereby challenge a few long-
standing clichés of representations of (ageing) women.
Equally nuanced is the study by Sofie Van Bauwel. In examining the representation of
ageing women in three popular television series (i.e., Desperate Housewives, Girls, and Sex
and the City), she noted that these series, on the one hand, explore issues and themes that
revolve around ageing and sometimes facilitate looking at ageing from the subject position
of ageing women. On the other hand, the series reiterate certain stereotypical tropes (e.g.,
losing femininity in the ageing process) and they fail to truly represent ageing female
bodies.
Sarah Little’s work delves into the obstacles that ageing poses to women in Hip Hop and
looks at the songs and music videos and of Missy Elliot and Jean Grae as illustrations of artists
who deal with ageing in quite different ways. Little notes that Missy Elliot has carved out an
artist persona that emphasizes tropes of ageing considered positive by society (e.g., maturity
and experience) while de-emphasizing those considered negative (e.g., the decaying body).
Yet, whereas Missy Elliot downplays the consequences of the ageing body, Jean Grae
addresses them in her work while, at the same time, challenging the stereotypical tropes
that revolve around ageing women.
Geniece Crawford Mondé further explores the representation of ageing women but
focuses her attention on the role social media assume in presenting counter-narratives of
Black womanhood. In particular, she demonstrates how complex the negotiations are when
managing the impression of Black womanhood through the production of content on
Tumblr. In analysing the images of Black women that were tagged with the hashtag
#Blackdontcrack, she argues that even though the implied essentializing of Black women
as ageless is problematic, these positive portrayals of Black women defy the historically
negative stereotypes of Black women.
Katrin Tiidenberg reviews a series of selfies and discourses hashtagged #over40 and
#over50 in 36 women’s Instagram accounts. Her work shows that reproductive discourses
 4   I. TORTAJADA ET AL.

on one’s appearance self-surveillance go along with subversive comments questioning the

unphotographability of ageing female bodies. These posts, Tiidenberg points out, revolve
around fitness, fashion, motherhood, and self-sufficiency, and reinforce both post-feminist
and reparative readings on women’s ageing bodies.
Maria Edström’s contribution on gendered ageism is located in what she calls the “media
buzz” or all images in which we passively or actively take part. She analyses how age and
gender are represented in Sweden during the last two decades with a mixed approach of
quantitative data and qualitative content analysis. Her main conclusions suggest that the
structures of visibility—the lack of voice and visibility of older people—and the clusters of
gender–age representation in the media foster stereotyping and gendered ageism. This
problem, according to the author, should be urgently addressed, as it is a clear democratic
deficit in a country with a large population of 60-plus and 80-plus-year-old individuals.
Phoebe Pua makes an insightful contribution to the post-feminist portrayals of ageing
Downloaded by [University of New England] at 02:03 14 January 2018

by arguing that James Bond’s character “M” is neutered from Iron Lady or ma’am to Old Lady
or mom, thereby denying sexual agency anywhere down the line. The author touches on
themes such as “domestication” of the powerful woman as she ages, and maternity as a form
of sacrifice and martyrdom. The article concludes that age has become a post-feminist strat-
egy to return powerful women to heteronormative frameworks.
Heather Suzanne Woods and Emily Winderman close-read an episode of the TV-show 19
Kids and Counting where an aged mom tied to the Quiverfull Movement suffers a miscarriage.
The article attends to a mediated representation of what contemporary biomedicine refers
to as pregnancy in “advanced maternal age” and shows the ways gender influences rendering
advanced age pregnancy loss public. The analysis suggests that representations of advanced
age pregnancy are essential to the process of formulating powerful trans-ideological affili-
ations that can undermine progressive reproductive politics.
In the final article in this special issue, Aagje Swinnen draws our attention to Mumbling
Beauty, a photo book by Van Gelder in which he portraits Louise Bourgeois, a female artist
in her late eighties who both incarnates herself and performs herself as a “much older
woman.” Her analysis of Bourgeois’s loaded portraits shows some of the strategies the artist
deploys so as to vindicate the so-called “fourth age” while undermining conventional “suc-
cessful ageing” representations. Combining sexual ambiguity and erotic pleasure while
simultaneously challenging abjection through a process of revelation-cum-destruction of
her aged self, the artist, as Swinnen concludes, makes herself visible as an impudent nona-
genarian who is creatively resisting mainstream discourses of ageing.

Acknowledgements
We are pleased with the outcome of this call for papers around women, media and ageing, and would
like to thank the editors of Feminist Media Studies for the opportunity, the authors who submitted
manuscripts, and the peer-reviewers, without whom the issue would not have been possible.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
 FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES   5

Notes on contributors
Iolanda Tortajada is a senior lecturer in Communication Studies at the Rovira i Virgili University,
Tarragona, Spain, and a member of  Asterisc Communication Research Group. Drawing mainly on
Symbolic Interactionism, Cultural Studies and Feminist Media Studies, her research deals with the
mediatization of gender and sexual identities, gender violence and media, and women’s appropriation
of new technologies. She has coordinated basic and applied research projects funded alternatively by
the Spanish Government, Catalonia’s Women’s Institute and the Catalan Audiovisual Council. She is also
an associate editor with the Catalan Journal of Communication and Cultural Studies. E-mail: yolanda.
tortajada@urv.cat
Frederik Dhaenens is a member of CIMS—Centre for Cinema and Media Studies at the Department of
Communication Studies, Ghent University, Belgium. Currently, he is working as an assistant professor
at Ghent University, where he teaches courses that deal with media, (popular) culture and diversity. His
research is situated within the field of critical media studies and cultural studies while focusing on
queer theory, LGBT representation, sex and sexuality, and masculinities in relation to popular culture,
Downloaded by [University of New England] at 02:03 14 January 2018

with a particular interest in television studies, popular music studies, and fan studies. E-mail: frederik.
dhaenens@ugent.be
Cilia Willem is a visiting scholar in the Department of Communication Studies at the Rovira and Virgili
University, Tarragona, Spain, where she teaches media and communication. She has coordinated sev-
eral European research projects on media literacy and the representation of minorities in mainstream
media. Drawing on feminist media studies and cultural studies, she has researched the topic of young
people, gender relationships, and social media for the last 10 years. Dr Willem is currently the main
editor of the Catalan Journal of Communication and Cultural Studies. E-mail: cilia.willem@urv.cat

References
Adriaens, Fien, and Sofie Van Bauwel. 2011. “Sex and the City: A Postfeminist Point of View? Or How
Popular Culture Functions as a Channel for Feminist Discourse.” The Journal of Popular Culture 47
(1): 174–195.
Caballero, Antonio, Iolanda Tortajada, and Cilia Willem. forthcoming. “Autenticidad, marca personal y
agencia sexual: el posfeminismo lésbico en Youtube” [Authenticity, Personal Branding and Sexual
Agency: Lesbian Post-Feminism on Youtube.] Investigaciones Feministas 8(2).
Dolan, Josephine. 2014. “Smoothing the Wrinkles: Hollywood, ‘Successful Aging’ and the New Visibility
of Older Female Stars.” In The Routledge Companion to Media and Gender, edited by Cynthia Carter,
Linda Steiner and Lisa McLaughlin, 342–351. London: Routledge.
Dolan, Josephine, and Estella Tincknell, eds. 2012. Aging Femininities: Troubling Representations.
Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Fairclough, Kirsty. 2012. “Nothing Less than Perfect: Female Celebrity, Ageing and Hyper-Scrutiny in
the Gossip Industry.” Celebrity Studies 3 (1): 90–103.
Halberstam, Judith. 2005. In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York:
NYU Press.
Hurd, Laura, Erica V. Bennett, and Chris Liu. 2014. “Aging and Masculinity: Portrayals in Men’s Magazines.”
Journal of Aging Studies 31: 26–33.
Jermyn, Deborah. 2016. “Pretty past It? Interrogating the Post-Feminist Makeover of Ageing, Style, and
Fashion.” Feminist Media Studies 16 (4): 573–589.
Slevin, Kathleen F. 2006. “The Embodied Experiences of Old Lesbians.” In Age Matters: Realigning Feminist
Thinking, edited by Toni M. Calasanti and Kathleen F. Slevin, 247–268. New York: Routledge.
Wearing, Sadie. 2007. “Subjects of Rejuvenation.” In Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of
Popular Culture, edited by Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra, 249–276. Durham: Duke University Press.
Whelehan, Imelda. 2010. “Remaking Feminism: Or Why is Postfeminism So Boring?” Nordic Journal of
English Studies 9 (3): 155–172.
 6   I. TORTAJADA ET AL.

Whelehan, Imelda, and Joel Gwynne. 2014. “Introduction: Popular Culture’s ‘Silver Tsunami’”. In Ageing,
Popular Culture and Contemporary Feminism. Harleys and Hormones, edited by Imelda Whelehan, and
Joel Gwynne, 1–13. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Woodward, Kathleen. 2006. “Performing Age, Performing Gender.” NWSA Journal 18 (1): 162–189.
Ylänne, Virpi, ed. 2012. Representing Ageing: Images and Identities. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Zecchi, Barbara. 2014. La pantalla sexuada [The Gendered Screen.] Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra.
Downloaded by [University of New England] at 02:03 14 January 2018