Conclusion: In Hope of Provocation

Abstract

This chapter rehearses conclusions drawn throughout this book derived from its focus on old age as it is variously produced, reproduced and employed in contemporary cinema’s silvering of the audience/stardom/narrative triad. It retraces the dual meanings of silver, profit and meaning, through key objects of study—audiences articulated through box-office returns and gendered industry targets; the cinematic shop window promoting sales of DVD, Blu-ray discs, soundtrack CDs and associated downloads; exploitation by Greek and Indian tourist industries of locations screened by Mamma Mia! and the Marigold Hotel films; silvered fashion as inflected through Diane Keaton, Dame Judi Dench and Clint Eastwood’s film-costume derived late-style and its regulation of gendered dress codes. This line of thinking is extended by accounts of the dynamic between the silver of profits and the silvering of stardom in the economy of celebrity as the play between old age, gender and celebrity endorsements for cosmetics, Brain Age games; Nespresso coffee products; and Synergy Vodka is explored. With the silvering of stardom firmly located in the profit-making mechanisms of celebrity culture, analysis also addresses the imbricated function of stars’ ideological embodiment through the normalisation of silvered beauty, grooming and plastic surgery regimes; the gendering of late parenthood; the legitimation of deferred retirement and hierarchies of homosocial cultures. The economic and ideological function of stars forges a link to on-screen narratives and the dynamics of cultural and generic verisimilitude in romantic comedies, biopics, heist and action movies. Here, analysis identifies a mutually supportive dynamic between on- and off-screen formations of gendered old age, deferred retirement, regimes of beauty, homosociality and homophobia, as well as identifying the problematic reiteration of whiteness and neo-colonialism , gender binaries and the privilege accorded to masculinity. Shifting from a concern with celebrity culture’s hegemonic third age imaginary, articulations of the fourth age imaginary are traced through stories of erectile dysfunction , feminised dementia, and the articulation of the fourth age imaginary through costume, make-up and CGI realised age transformations. Consistently, the line of argument points to a feminised age aversion regulated through a rejuvenation imperative that is counterpointed to a persistent reiteration of youth as the raw material for a privileged vintage masculinity. This conclusion ends with a provocation for debate, interventions and developments of the book’s major concerns and its structuring absences.