Gender and Age/Aging in Popular Culture : Representations in Film, Music, Literature, and Social Media

As social spaces are culturally diverse and digitally networked, the reality of our lives is shaped by processes of globalization and digitization. This leads to the question of whether popular cultures enable or impede (inter-)cultural exchange and global communication. To explore this, the contributors to this volume analyse representations of the intersections of gender and age/ing in cultural and media consumption, such as literature, film, music, and social media. The interconnectedness between gender and aging has been evident since the 1990s and enabled the recognition of age as a cultural category - now is the time to take this intersectional analysis further. As social spaces are culturally diverse and digitally networked, the reality of our lives is shaped by processes of globalization and digitization. This leads to the question of whether popular cultures enable or impede (inter-)cultural exchange and global communication. To explore this, the contributors to this volume analyze representations of the intersections of gender and age/ing in cultural and media consumption, such as literature, film, music, and social media. The interconnectedness between gender and aging has been evident since the 1990s and enabled the recognition of age as a cultural category - now is the time to take this intersectional analysis further. Contents 5 Introduction 7 Introspective Conflict in the Middle of a Moveable Feast 15 Cinema and Glory 35 The Celluloid Hurdles 55 “Be the Captain they remember” 77 Gender, Rage, and Age in Alanis Morissette’s “Reasons I Drink” 97 On Being Silenced and Breaking Cycles 115 Intersectional Ageing 135 ‘WhatsApp Aunts’ 153 Contributors 179 Acknowledgments 185