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How Discourses of Aging and Old Age in Contemporary, Popular Film Both Reinforce and Reimagine the Narrative of Aging As Decline Pamela H

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How Discourses of Aging and Old Age in Contemporary, Popular Film Both Reinforce and Reimagine the Narrative of Aging As Decline Pamela H University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository American Studies ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 7-3-2012 The Becoming of Age: How discourses of aging and old age in contemporary, popular film both reinforce and reimagine the narrative of aging as decline Pamela H. Gravagne Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/amst_etds Recommended Citation Gravagne, Pamela H.. "The Becoming of Age: How discourses of aging and old age in contemporary, popular film both reinforce and reimagine the narrative of aging as decline." (2012). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/amst_etds/17 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in American Studies ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Pamela Gravagne Candidate American Studies Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Gabriel Melendez, Co-Chairperson Vera Norwood, Co-Chairperson Alyosha Goldstein Janet Cramer Margaret Cruikshank THE BECOMING OF AGE: HOW DISCOURSES OF AGING AND OLD AGE IN CONTEMPORARY, POPULAR FILM BOTH REINFORCE AND REIMAGINE THE NARRATIVE OF AGING AS DECLINE By Pamela Gravagne B.A., Spanish, Syracuse University, 1968 M.A., Spanish, Syracuse University, 1969 M.A., American Studies, The University of New Mexico, 2007 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy American Studies The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May 2012 ©2012, Pamela Gravagne iii Dedication for Rob iv Acknowledgements I wish to thank my committee for their patience and support while I worked through many of the ideas contained in this dissertation; Jake Kosek for first encouraging me to take the study of aging seriously; Peg Cruikshank, Leni Marshall, Erin Lamb, and many other friends for keeping me going on what at times seemed like an impossible task; and especially my family, Rob, Ian, Amy, Stephen, and Anthony, who, along with me, have learned to see the world through an age-tinted glass. v THE BECOMING OF AGE: HOW DISCOURSES OF AGING AND OLD AGE IN CONTEMPORARY, POPULAR FILM BOTH REINFORCE AND REIMAGINE THE NARRATIVE OF AGING AS DECLINE By PAMELA GRAVAGNE B.A., Spanish, Syracuse University, 1968 M.A., Spanish, Syracuse University, 1969 M.A., American Studies, The University of New Mexico, 2007 Ph.D., American Studies, The University of New Mexico, 2012 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines how to think critically about the ways in which aging and old age are understood, represented, and problematized in American popular film. Rather than subscribe to the narrative of decline that views growing older as a linear process of chronological and biological deterioration with no possibility of gain, this dissertation reveals the shared meanings, discourses, narratives, and philosophical positions that underlie constructions such as the narrative of decline, and that populate the screen in contemporary film, to be both historical and open to revision. Chapter 2, therefore, explores the ways in which film simultaneously relies on stereotypical depictions of older men to keep them within socially acceptable bounds and challenges these boundaries through the creation of alternate masculinites. Chapter 3 critiques not only the cultural devaluation that older women face due to their changing bodies, but the continuing invisibility of the structural and institutional policies that lead to vi economic and social inequalities that constrain their lives. An examination of the ways in which the cognitive changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease are made comprehensible in movies, chapter 4 asks for a reconsideration of the definitions of memory and self that underlie the way we characterize, accept, or reject the personhood of those with dementia. And chapter 5 considers films that problematize the distinction between representation and reality in order to suggest how particular constructions of time and space on which normative assumptions about aging are based might be revised to better reflect our entanglement in the world at any age. By learning to view popular film as part of a cultural struggle over meanings that are never fixed nor natural, and as part of contested practices of representation and creation intimately connected to the way we understand and live our lives, this critical approach to film can enable not only the recognition of other ways to age, but the creation of alternate narratives that will allow the full diversity and potential of all those who grow old to become both visible and livable. vii Table of Contents Chapter 1: Understanding and Theorizing Aging and Old Age ......................................... 1 From Shared Meaning to Narrative .............................................................................. 4 Shared meanings ............................................................................................... 5 Discourse ........................................................................................................... 9 Narrative ......................................................................................................... 10 Philosophical Positions Underlying the Narrative of Decline .................................... 15 Essentialism .................................................................................................... 15 Social construction .......................................................................................... 19 Combining essentialism and social construction ............................................ 23 Collapsing essentialism and social construction ............................................. 28 Chapter Synopses ........................................................................................................ 36 Notes to Chapter 1 ................................................................................................................ 37 Chapter 2: Masculinities and the Narrative of Decline ..................................................... 38 Ageism ........................................................................................................................ 39 Knowledges of Old Age .............................................................................................. 45 Self-Reinvention ......................................................................................................... 48 Mapping the Life Course ............................................................................................ 55 Counterstories ............................................................................................................. 61 The Choice of Death ................................................................................................... 64 Alternative Masculinities ............................................................................................ 67 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 71 Notes to Chapter 2 ................................................................................................................ 74 viii Chapter 3: The Silence and Invisibility of Older Women ................................................. 76 Death, The Ultimate Silence and Invisibility .............................................................. 76 The Gendered Imagination ......................................................................................... 81 A Utopian Turn ........................................................................................................... 89 The Bodies of Older Women ...................................................................................... 93 The split subject .............................................................................................. 96 The anti-aging industry ................................................................................... 98 Utopian Empowerment ............................................................................................. 102 Fairy-Tale Endings .................................................................................................... 105 Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 109 Notes to Chapter 3 .............................................................................................................. 113 Chapter 4: The Cultural Work of Alzheimers ................................................................ 115 Senility, Dementia, Alzheimers ................................................................................ 119 Finding the Line ........................................................................................................ 124 Picturing the Brain .................................................................................................... 127 Moments of Grace–Memory, Self, Forgetting .......................................................... 131 A Self More Than Memory ....................................................................................... 138 The Commonality of Care ........................................................................................ 142 Conclusion ...............................................................................................................
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