Queering Ageism

Abstract

Queer theory is an effective tool for challenging ageist assumptions concerning the life course. Recent approaches by age studies scholars and queer theorists, such as Barbara Marshall, Linn Sandberg, Elizabeth Freeman, and Dustin B. Goltz, make use of a queer-theoretical lens to expose naturalized essentialist views of old age and the life course as normative constructions. As a significant way to heighten and shape cultural visibility, literary and filmic narratives play a crucial role in queering ageist cultural scripts of growing older and in highlighting the importance of non-heteronormative representations of aging. Leonora Carrington’s novel The Hearing Trumpet (1974) and Bruce LaBruce’s film Gerontophilia (2013) both exemplify, in their own ways, this process of queering as one of questioning, dismantling, and transforming essentialist assumptions about aging.

Ageism in Sports as a Cinematic Motif Based on Films by Charles Stone III

“…It points to the application of the feminist studies tradition in this area, the need to develop a new way of analysing texts, images, discourses, and communicative experiences (Gutierrez et al, 2021). Other times, the importance of queer theory is pointed out as a research tool for ageist assumptions about the life course, primarily enabling the analysis of non-heteronormative representations of ageing (Hess, 2021). One could also point to research on the depiction of elderly sexuality in contemporary comedies using the method of critical discourse analysis.…”