Ageing, Popular Culture and Contemporary Feminism

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction: Popular Culture’s ‘Silver Tsunami’

   • Imelda Whelehan, Joel Gwynne

   Pages 1-13

3. Conscientious Objections: Feminism, Fiction and the Phoney War on Ageing

   • Liz Byrski

   Pages 14-28

4. Fiction or Polemic? Transcending the Ageing Body in Popular Women’s Fiction

   • Imelda Whelehan

   Pages 29-46

5. ‘Mrs Robinson Seeks Benjamin’: Cougars, Popular Memoirs and the Quest for Fulfilment in Midlife and Beyond

   • Joel Gwynne

   Pages 47-62

6. Sexing Up the Midlife Woman: Cultural Representations of Ageing, Femininity and the Sexy Body

   • Sharron Hinchliff

   Pages 63-77

7. Paternalising the Rejuvenation of Later Life Masculinity in Twenty- First Century Film

   • Hannah Hamad

   Pages 78-92

8. Too Old for This Shit?: On Ageing Tough Guys

   • Dominic Lennard

   Pages 93-107

9. ‘The (un-Botoxed) Face of a Hollywood Revolution’: Meryl Streep and the ‘Greying’ of Mainstream Cinema

   • Deborah Jertnyn

   Pages 108-123

10. Grown Up Girls: Newspaper Reviews of Ageing Women in Pop

    • Lynne Hibberd

    Pages 124-139

11. Mature Meryl and Hot Helen: Hollywood, Gossip and the ‘Appropriately’ Ageing Actress

    • Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs

    Pages 140-155

12. Funny Old Girls: Representing Older Women in British Television Comedy

    • Rosie White

    Pages 155-171

13. Silence Isn’t Golden, Girls: The Cross-Generational Comedy of ‘America’s Grandma’, Betty White

    • Elizabeth Rawitsch

    Pages 172-186

14. The Older Mother in One Born Every Minute

    • Georgina Ellen O’Brien Hill

    Pages 187-202

15. Women, Travelling and Later Life

    • Sarah Falcus, Katsura Sako

    Pages 203-218

16. Kane and Edgar: Playing with Age in Film

    • Dee Michell, Casey Tonkin, Penelope Eate

    Pages 219-232

17. Beyond Wicked Witches and Fairy Godparents: Ageing and Gender in Children’s Fantasy on Screen

    • Rebecca-Anne C. Do Rozario, Deb Waterhouse-Watson

    Pages 233-247

18. Back Matter

    Pages 249-254

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How has popular film, television and fiction responded to the realities of an ageing Western population? This volume analyses this field of representation to argue that, while celebrations of ageing as an inspirational journey are increasing, most depictions still focus on decline and deterioration.

• ageing
• gender
• feminism
• postfeminism
• film
• television
• fiction
• femininity
• masculinity
• comedy
• genre
• action
• ageing and gender
• culture
• women

• University of Tasmania, Australia

  Imelda Whelehan

• National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

  Joel Gwynne

Imelda Whelehan is Professor of English and Gender Studies and Pro Vice Chancellor (Research Training) at the University of Tasmania, Australia. Her research focuses on feminist thought, popular fiction and film, and adaptation studies. Recent books include Screen Adaptation (with D. Cartmell, 2010), The Cambridge Companion to Literature on Screen (ed. with D. Cartmell, 2007) and The Feminist Bestseller (2005). She is also Co-Editor of the journal Adaptation and Associate Editor of Contemporary Women's Writing (OUP). She is currently writing on bras and post-war Hollywood. 


Joel Gwynne is Assistant Professor of English at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is the author/co-editor of several books on contemporary literature and visual culture, including Sexuality and Contemporary Literature (2012), Erotic Memoirs and Postfeminism: The Politics of Pleasure (2013) and Postfeminism and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema (2013). His essays have appeared in journals such as Journal of Gender Studies, Women’s Studies International Forum, Journal of Contemporary Asia and Feminist Theory. 

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