Reduced to curtain twitchers? Age, ageism and the careers of four women actors

ABSTRACT

Cultural gerontology has developed critical work around cultural representations of age and aging and their role in the reproduction of ageism. However, the cultural industries as producers and disseminators of representations remain under researched. This paper draws on a focus group with four older women actors to argue that workforce allocation and assumptions about audience demographics intersect with cultural attitudes around women’s aging to impact on older women actors’ career opportunities. We argue that ageism within the cultural industries is limiting our ability to develop diverse and non-ageist cultural representation of women’s aging.

KEYWORDS:

• Ageism
• actors
• cultural industries
• roles

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Adele Jackson for her transcription services. This worked was supported by internal funds from the School of Cultural Studies and Humanities at Leeds Beckett University. The authors would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback.

Disclosure statement

There are no interests to declare

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Leeds Beckett University [internal monies].