Facing exclusion in neoliberal times: technologies of the self of older women in the series Grace and Frankie

ABSTRACT

This study analyzes the representation of temporalities that govern the lives of older women in the series Grace and Frankie . Using the method of semiotic discourse analysis, it explores how the series’ main characters react to neoliberal temporality as it is manifested in old women’s lives. Drawing on Michel Foucault 1988 theoretical framework, we show that the two protagonists, Grace and Frankie, use a variety of technologies of the self that help them cope with power mechanisms that push them to the margins of social time, thus increasing their degrees of freedom vis-à-vis these mechanisms. By unpacking the different technologies of the self that are manifested in each character’s actions as well as in their relationships, we argue that the series identifies contemporary options for old women to deal with the contradictions that neoliberal culture generates between being an autonomous subject and being an old woman.

KEYWORDS:

• Media representation
• foucault
• technologies of the self
• old women
• neoliberal temporality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In the popular media, humor often serves as a means for exposing social cracks and for challenging stereotypes and labeling. The comic frame is a device for drawing attention to marginal or transparent groups like older women (Montemurro Beth and Lisa V. Chewning 2018). Indeed, the use of humor in the series Grace and Frankie gives female aging a central place and is salient in its presentation. In this paper, we do not focus on comedy as a genre or on the use of humor by the protagonists since it is not a distinctively temporal practice.

2. The series invites the viewers to reflect on an additional aspect: the well-known actresses starring in the series are themselves older women who are subject to the neoliberal temporality and operate within it. The fact that the actresses are also older and well-known adds to positive experience of older fans (Anne Anne Jerslev 2018).

3. Grace’s attempts to preserve her abilities in the face of the physical deterioration that accompanies her aging can also be interpreted as an ironic reference to Jane Fonda’s status as a past fitness star in the 1980s.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hela Dalal

Hela Dalal is a research student in the Gender Studies Program at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. E-mail: [email protected]

Miri Rozmarin

Miri Rozmarin is a senior lecturer at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel, a senior research fellow, and the head of the “Contemporary Feminist Political Subjectivity Research Lab” at The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. She is the author of Creating Oneself: Agency, Desire, and Feminist Transformations (Peter Lang, 2011), and Vulnerable Futures, Transformative Pasts: On Vulnerability, Temporality and Ethics (Peter Lang, 2017). And has published numerous articles in the fields of feminist social theory, political subjectivity, maternal subjectivity and psycho-social theory. E-mail: [email protected]