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

Jayne Raisborough; Susan  Watkins; Rachel  Connor; Natalie Pitimson

doi:10.1080/08952841.2021.1910464

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

Jayne Raisborough, Susan Watkins, Rachel Connor, Natalie Pitimson

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	246-257
Number of pages	12
Journal	Journal of Women and Aging
Volume	34
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/08952841.2021.1910464
Publication status	Published - 9 Apr 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
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.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Taylor & Francis.

Keywords

Ageism
Actors
Cultural Industries
Roles
actors
roles
cultural industries

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10.1080/08952841.2021.1910464Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Reduced to curtain twitchers Age ageism and the careers of four women actorsFinal published version, 625 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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