Table Of ContentAgeing, Popular Culture and Contemporary Feminism
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Ageing, Popular Culture
and Contemporary
Feminism
Harleys and Hormones
Edited by
Imelda Whelehan
University of Tasmania, Australia
and
Joel Gwynne
National Institute of Education,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Introduction, selection and editorial matter © Imelda Whelehan and
Joel Gwynne 2014
Individual chapters © Contributors 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-37652-7
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
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in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2014 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-47771-5 ISBN 978-1-137-37653-4 (eBook)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ageing, popular culture and contemporary feminism : Harleys and
hormones / edited by Imelda Whelehan, University of Tasmania, Australia ;
Joel Gwynne, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-349-47771-5
1. Mass media and older people. 2. Older people in popular culture.
3. Feminism. 4. Ageism. I. Whelehan, Imelda, 1960– editor. II. Gwynne,
Joel, editor.
P94.5.A38A34 2014
305.26—dc23 2014028985
Contents
Notes on Contributors vii
Introduction: Popular Culture’s ‘Silver Tsunami’ 1
Imelda Whelehan and Joel Gwynne
1 C onscientious Objections: Feminism, Fiction and
the Phoney War on Ageing 1 4
L iz Byrski
2 F iction or Polemic? Transcending the Ageing Body in
Popular Women’s Fiction 2 9
I melda Whelehan
3 ‘ Mrs Robinson Seeks Benjamin’: Cougars, Popular
Memoirs and the Quest for Fulfilment in Midlife and
Beyond 4 7
J oel Gwynne
4 S exing Up the Midlife Woman: Cultural Representations of
Ageing, Femininity and the Sexy Body 6 3
S harron Hinchliff
5 P aternalising the Rejuvenation of Later Life Masculinity in
Twenty-First Century Film 7 8
H annah Hamad
6 T oo Old for This Shit?: On Ageing Tough Guys 93
D ominic Lennard
7 ‘ The (un-Botoxed) Face of a Hollywood Revolution’:
Meryl Streep and the ‘Greying’ of Mainstream Cinema 1 08
D eborah Jermyn
8 G rown Up Girls: Newspaper Reviews of Ageing
Women in Pop 1 24
L ynne Hibberd
9 M ature Meryl and Hot Helen: Hollywood, Gossip and the
‘Appropriately’ Ageing Actress 1 40
K irsty Fairclough-Isaacs
v
vi Contents
10 F unny Old Girls: Representing Older Women in
British Television Comedy 1 55
R osie White
11 S ilence Isn’t Golden, Girls: The Cross-Generational
Comedy of ‘America’s Grandma,’ Betty White 1 72
E lizabeth Rawitsch
12 T he Older Mother in O ne Born Every Minute 187
G eorgina Ellen O’Brien Hill
13 W omen, Travelling and Later Life 2 03
S arah Falcus and Katsura Sako
14 K ane and Edgar: Playing with Age in Film 219
D ee Michell, Casey Tonkin and Penelope Eate
15 B eyond Wicked Witches and Fairy Godparents:
Ageing and Gender in Children’s Fantasy on Screen 2 33
R ebecca-Anne C. Do Rozario and Deb Waterhouse-Watson
Index 2 49
Notes on Contributors
Liz Byrski is Senior Lecturer in the School of Media, Culture and Creative
Arts at Curtin University, and the co-ordinator of the Curtin Writing
Network. She is the author of a dozen nonfiction books and eight novels.
She is a former print and radio journalist and columnist with more
than 30 years’ experience in the British and Australian media. She was
a broadcaster and executive producer with the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation in Perth and has worked as an advisor to a minister in the
WA Government.
Penelope E ate is Lecturer and Research Assistant in the Gender Studies
and Social Analysis (formerly Gender, Work and Social Inquiry) and
Asian Studies faculty at the University of Adelaide, South Australia.
She lectures and tutors in courses on gender, race, postcolonial theory
and media studies. She has research interests in the area of masculini-
ties, particularly in film and hip hop. Journals in which her work has
appeared include Outskirts , The Journal of African American Studies and
Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture.
Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs is Lecturer in Media and Performance in the
School of Arts and Media at the University of Salford, UK, where she
teaches courses on feminism, celebrity, comedy and film studies. She
is the co-editor of The Music Documentary and co-editor of The Arena
Concert: Music, Mediation and Mass Entertainment. Journals in which her
work has appeared include Celebrity Studies and Genders.
Sarah Falcus is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University
of Huddersfield, UK. Her teaching specialisms are in contemporary
women’s writing and writing the twenty-first century. She is the author
of Michèle Roberts: Myths, Mothers and Memories. Her work has appeared in
a number of edited collections and in journals such as Critique: Studies in
Contemporary Fiction , Contemporary Women’s Writing , Ageing and Society ,
and Journal of Gender Studies.
Joel G wynne is Assistant Professor of English at the National Institute
of Education, Singapore, where he teaches courses on contempo-
rary literature and feminism. He is the author of Erotic Memoirs and
Postfeminism: The Politics of Pleasure , and co-editor of two books:
Sexuality and Contemporary Literature and P ostfeminism and Contemporary
vii
viii Notes on Contributors
Hollywood Cinema . His essays have appeared in the J ournal of Literary
Studies , Women’s Studies International Forum , Journal of Gender Studies ,
the Journal of Contemporary Asia , Feminist Theory and F ilm, Fashion and
Consumption .
Hannah H amad is Lecturer in Film Studies at King’s College London,
where she teaches in the areas of film history, Hollywood cinema, and
fathers in film, among others. She is the author of P ostfeminism and
Paternity in Contemporary U.S. Film (2014), as well as numerous chapters
and articles on Hollywood stardom, contemporary Hollywood cinema,
postfeminist media culture, contemporary celebrity culture and UK
reality TV. Her work has appeared in the journals Celebrity Studies and
Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies as well as in a range of
edited collections.
Lynne Hibberd is Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at Leeds
Metropolitan University, UK, where she teaches courses on popular
film and television. She has written chapters in R eframing Disability?
Media, (Dis)empowerment and Voice in the London Paralympics (ed. Richard
Scullion et al.) and T he Handbook of Gender, Sex, and Media (ed. Karen
Ross). Journals in which her work has appeared include F eminist Media
Studies and Critical Studies in Television.
Georgina Ellen O’Brien Hill is Visiting Lecturer at the University of
Chester, where she teaches courses on Victorian literature and literary
theory. She has published chapters in Women and the Victorian Occult
and A cts of Memory: The Victorians and Beyond and articles on the work
of Florence Marryat, Charlotte M. Yonge and Charles Reade. Georgina
has co-edited a special issue of W omen’s Writing journal on the work of
Ella Hepworth Dixon and has reviewed for J ournal of Victorian Culture
and Victorian Studies .
Sharron H inchliff is Lecturer at the School of Nursing and Midwifery,
University of Sheffield, UK, where she teaches courses on sexuality and
sexual health, critical health psychology, health promotion, and qual-
itative research methods. Sharron is a critical social/health psychol-
ogist. For over 15 years she has carried out research and published
widely in the overlapping areas of sexuality, sexual health, gender
and aging. Her work has been published in the J ournal of Women and
Aging , C ulture, Health and Sexuality , the Journal of Sex Research , A rchives
of Sexual Behavior and the J ournal of Health Psychology . She also writes
about women’s sexuality, ageing, and body image on her website (www.
sharronhinchliff.com) where she aims to produce a counter-discourse
Notes on Contributors ix
by challenging negative representations of older women as unattrac-
tive and asexual.
Deborah J ermyn is Reader in Film and Television at the University of
Roehampton where she teaches Hollywood cinemas, feminism, and
visual aesthetics. She is the author of several books including Sex and
the City (2009) and P rime Suspect (2010) and co-editor of several collec-
tions including F alling in Love Again: Romantic Comedy in Contemporary
Cinema (2009). Much of her recent research has focussed on represen-
tations of ageing and older women in the media, including articles
in C ritical Studies in Television , C elebrity Studies and CineAction , and
she is the editor of F emale Celebrity and Ageing: Back in the Spotlight
(2013). She is currently working on a book about the director Nancy
Meyers.
Dominic L ennard is Associate Lecturer in the Centre for University
Pathways and Partnerships at the University of Tasmania, Australia,
where he teaches academic writing, research, and study skills. He is the
author of Bad Seeds and Holy Terrors: The Child Villains of Horror Film
(2014) as well as book chapters and articles on topics including film
stars, Tim Burton, the ‘bromance’ phenomenon, Batman on film, and
representations of children’s culture in horror cinema.
Dee Michell is Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies & Social Analysis
(GSSA) at the University of Adelaide, South Australia where she teaches
courses on Social Research. Dee is the author of Christian Science: Women,
Healing & the Church and W ays of the Wicked Witch, and co-editor of
Universities in Transition: Foregrounding Social Contexts of Knowledge in
the First Year Experience , Recipes for Survival: Stories of Hope & Healing by
Survivors of the State ‘Care’ System in Australia and Women Journeying with
Spirit . Journals in which Dee’s work appears include Feminist Theology ,
Ergo: The Journal of the Higher Education Research Group of Adelaide ,
Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, Developing Practice ,
Australian Universities Review , A ustralian Social Work and Women-Church:
An Australian Journal of Feminist Studies .
Elizabeth R awitsch received her PhD in Film, Television and Media
Studies from the University of East Anglia. Her research on American
popular culture and national identity has appeared in T he Journal of
Popular Film and Television and In Media Res . She is the author of Frank
Capra’s Eastern Horizons: National Identity and the Cinema of International
Relations, 1922–1961 (I.B. Tauris, forthcoming) and is preparing a book
on cinematic representations of Territorial Hawaii.
