More authentic over 50 women

The depiction of ageing and post-menopausal women in popular culture bears little relationship to real life but it is changing, according to Professor Imelda Whelehan.

In Hollywood movies especially, she says, “real” ageing is constantly under erasure and it has become increasingly difficult for older female actors to avoid being typecast as “mums, sexless crones or cougars”.

But the roles played by high-profile and influential older actors such as Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon, Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn are in demand by female movie-goers; potential box-office success is paving the way for further and more challenging depictions of the ageing woman.

In addition, Prof Whelehan says, Australian fiction author Liz Byrski’s mission to more authentically represent women of her own age (50-plus) is remodelling this part of a woman’s life as one of choice, adventure and sometimes reconciliation and forgiveness.

In editing and researching a piece for her collection on ageing and popular culture to be published in 2014, Prof Whelehan focuses on the depiction of post-menopausal rather than merely ageing women – and has found substantial contradictions between depiction and actuality.

“From movies you get the idea that there is no way to represent women after menopause; they have no function because they don’t reproduce – they’re seemingly invisible,” she said.

“But in real life there is a growing population of healthy, ageing women who want to participate actively in every part of our culture.

“It seems that as a society we’re frightened of ageing to the extent that older bodies are portrayed as disgusting – but we’re just denying our own futures.”

Prof Whelehan finds examples of Hollywood’s disdainful attitude in the portrayal of Samantha Jones in the movie Sex and the City 2, paralleled in the popular music industry by recent responses to Madonna’s performance style.

Madonna is still doing the same things that made her successful, but because of her age there is suddenly a sense that she should grow up, put her clothes back on.

“Her performances have always been overtly sexual yet mature sexuality must remain within set parameters. Sexualised performances that were once seen as empowering and still inspire a new generation of fans are now deemed grotesque, and this repulsion seems to lie in the knowledge of Madonna’s real age rather than in the body she displays.

“Ageing stars are implicitly exhorted to leave their ‘sexiness’ at the door of menopause or face ageist slurs.”

Menopausal Samantha becomes a caricature in Sex and the City 2 says Prof Whelehan; her menopause is “played for laughs throughout the film and undermines her role as a sexual radical in the TV series once and for all”.

Significantly, Samantha’s ageing body is seen as a problem, echoing another recurring theme of medicalising menopause, suggesting, according to Prof Whelehan, that “women anticipating later midlife should anticipate decline, pharmaceutically-assisted support and sudden life changes”.

Only medical aid in the form of hormone replacement therapy, it is suggested, can “cure” menopause and promise prolonged femininity.

That the cult of youthfulness in popular culture is becoming more firmly entrenched just as the majority of the population is ageing is a troubling contradiction.

In the media, older people, baby boomers especially, are often depicted as a cost to the state; they take away jobs and housing to which young people are assumed to be entitled.

“In reality the financial and social contributions of older people are not adequately recognised,” Prof Whelehan said.

“Should older people just go away and die, or should society adjust its attitudes to our demographic realities?”

Thankfully, the writing of Liz Byrski is moving to fill the gaping void in literature, depicting the issues facing women in their 50s and 60s whether they’re widowed, divorced, gay or about to find out something about their pasts that needs to be re-evaluated.

“These women are represented through their minds rather than their looks, without being described as over-the-hill or past it. They are individuals with a past and a future who are dealing with their lives,” Prof Whelehan said.

“There may be romance in the Byrski books but they also celebrate friendship and autonomy in equal measures.”

Byrski deals head-on with a generalised disgust for the elderly by having her characters grieve and feel guilt over their own ageing or senile parents.

“What reading Byrski reminds us is that few people are challenging dominant discourses about ageing,” Prof Whelehan said.

“While much is said in the West about the bulging baby boomer population and the ‘problem’ they represent for the next generation in social and economic terms, dominant images in popular culture of our ageing population remain decades out of touch and rarely extend beyond well-worn stereotypes.”

This article was first published on Research to Reality, http://www.utas.edu.au/research-to-reality and has been published here with their permission. The author of the article is University Communications Adviser, Sharon Webb.