Does Age Matter? Aging Masculinities in the Spanish Audiovisual Industry

Abstract

The Spanish star system is witnessing the aging of its most acclaimed and awarded male actors from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and the first two decades of the 21st century: male actors belonging to the silent generation like José Sacristán (86), Emilio Gutiérrez Caba (81), Miguel Rellán (80), José María Pou (78), and Eusebio Poncela (76); actors belonging to the baby boomers such as Antonio Resines (69), Imanol Arias (67), José Coronado (66), Antonio Banderas (63), and Juan Echanove (62), to mention a few. Likewise, out of the 48 million people in Spain, 34.1% are individuals over 55, representing an important segment of Spanish society. Therefore, the aging of the star system mirrors the aging of Spanish moviegoers and TV spectators. Long-lasting TV series such as Cuéntame cómo pasó underscore the identification created across the years of the series between character, actor and viewer, and how they all experience and live time.  This article also examines how aging Spanish male actors play, on the one hand, leading or secondary roles that do not deviate from the fit, tough, attractive, and sexually active profile often associated with the successful aging narrative in the American audiovisual industry of the geriaction subgenre, although in some instances they experience some sort of feminization attributed to aging, as is the case of the TV series Entrevías (2022) and El Príncipe (2014–2017). In these representations, the new roles assumed by aging masculinities when addressing social and family issues, ranging from the materiality of the body to moral obligations, are explored. On the other hand, series like Sentimos las molestias (Spain 2022) follow the path opened by The Kominsky Method (US 2018) by portraying aging as decline through the wide use of stereotypes.

Keywords:

• Aging
• masculinity
• Spanish film
• Spanish TV series
• geriaction

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Ageism and its foregrounding of positive or successful ageing (Rowe & Kahn) has led to a distinction between the Third and the Fourth Ages. Peter Laslett (1996) characterized the Third Age as that of retirement in which leisure, self-fulfillment, health and social engagement are stressed. In this sense, in the Third Age we are “older but not old” (Higgs and McGowan 22) and independence is maintained. In contrast, the Fourth Age means the end of life and is characterized by the lack of autonomy, individuality, decrepitude, and death (Gilleard and Higgs).

Additional information

Funding

The research work leading to the publication of this article was made possible thanks to the financial support of the Spanish Research Agency/Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) through the project “Género y edad” with grant number PCI2019-103512 (2019–2022).