2.  After gender and ethnicity, age is the
most obvious category under which we
file people, and there are a whole range
of instant judgements which go along
with that categorisation.
 Age is the easiest way to categorise
someone as "other" than yourself —
everyone you meet will be, to some
extent, older or younger, a different age
than you.

3. Stereotypical
Age Characteristics
Immature, stupid, greedy, lazy, selfish,
unfit, obese, violent, callous, gullible,
Young unreliable, careless, self-entitled, never
going to achieve anything
Grumpy, out-dated, slow, weak,
whining, unable to use technology,
Old unhealthy, miserly, hard-of-hearing,
ugly, never go anywhere

4. Harsh stereotypes cut both
ways, against both the old and
the young. What do these clips
from THE INBETWEENERS say
about teenage boys?

5.  While we've come to understand
that stereotyping someone
according to their gender, or the
colour of their skin, is unfair and
unacceptable, stereotyping
according to age (ageism) is still
widespread

6. Age, like race, is something you can't
change about yourself, but people go to
great lengths to disguise how old they
really are in order to avoid being the
victim of age stereotyping. People dress
in deliberately youthful clothes, dye grey
hair, lie about their age on internet dating
sites, diet, and even subject themselves to
painful, invasive plastic surgery

7. It would be horrifying to think that
someone took such steps in order to
conceal their true race or gender.
Given that aging is inevitable and
happens to everyone, why are we in
such collective denial about the
process?

8.  The problem stems, in part, from a youth-obsessed
media that insists on worshipping beauty (associated
with youth) and devaluing wisdom and experience
(associated with age). There seems to be unspoken
agreement amongst magazine editors (in print and
online) that we prefer to look at images of young,
smooth-skinned models in connection with both
advertising and editorial copy. This establishes youth
as the hegemonic norm

9.  Women seem to be particular victims
when it comes to snap judgments
about age and "age-appropriate"
behaviours, appearance and attitude,
damned if they appear to age, damned
if they don't. We criticise mature
women for going about as mutton
dressed as lamb, and young girls for
tarting themselves up as jail bait

10. Film stars who start to show
signs of aging in their forties are
swooped on with cries of horror
by gossip columnists ("Movie
star gets wrinkles... and her
boobies start to sag" shocker!!)

11. while those who succumb to the
surgeon's knife are written
about with equal distaste
("Movie star can't raise eyebrows
and her boobies DON'T sag"
equal shocker!!!).

12.  Denial brings confusion. How old is old?
When can you be considered a grown up?
How soon should you start wearing make
up? Having sex? When does adolescence
begin and end? At the young end, there's a
heated debate about the increasing
sexualisation of children at a younger and
younger age.

 Vitorias Sectrets Launches Push Up Bra for 'Tweens'

13.  The identity crisis doesn't end when
you leave school or college -
traditionally the transition into the
adult world. Generation X-ers who
refuse to grow up and put away their
Star Wars figurines or PlayStations
have extended adolescence long into
adulthood

14.  Adult women routinely refer to
themselves as "girls". Twilight Moms
trample their tween daughters in the
crowds to get close to Taylor Lautner,
while 'Dad Rock' is a father-son
bonding experience, perhaps revolving
around the GLEE cast covers of Journey
classics.

15.  It gets worse. How old do you have
to be before you refer to yourself as
old? Before you're happy to be
referred to by other people as
"old"? What's the correct word?
Senior? Third Ager? Pensioner?
Geezer? Silver Fox?

16.  An obsession with youth and
novelty also means that we
disregard the lessons of history and
devalue experience. Ageism is just
as harmful as racism or sexism
when it comes to repressing
sections of the population.

17.  In the Harry Potter books, Voldemort's quest for
immortality via horcruxes, unicorn's blood, the
philosopher's stone etc results in his smooth-skinned
appearance.
 However, his desire to remain unmarked by age is
represented as part of his inherent villainy, in direct
contrast to Dumbledore's flowing white beard and
craggy, lined face.
 Dumbledore considers natural death to be a great
adventure, and, like Obi-Wan Kenobi before him, is
able to advise his young protegé from beyond the
grave.
 In the world of witches and wizards at least, wrinkles
confer wisdom and goodness

18.  Yet it seems that the glorification of youth is even
trickling down into fantasy fiction. One of the reasons
why our society seems so attracted to vampires is their
immortality (and attendant marmoreal complexions).
We've evolved the mythology so that vampires are
preternaturally beautiful, and forever young.

19.  Because of this, we seem to have stopped
caring that underneath they are monsters,
we overlook their need for human blood
because they are so photogenic.
 This means that in our culture we value
physical beauty more highly than we value a
human soul - a complete reversal of
centuries of philosophy and religion

20.  As the baby boomers of the 1950s and 1960s move on
towards their 'Third Age', they demand the same
consumer comfort they have always done, and also
demand the right to see themselves fairly represented
on TV and in movies.

21.  The result is a higher visibility of the over-fifties in
traditionally youth-oriented media. Aging movie stars
of that generation (step up Sylvester Stallone and
Bruce Willis) are unwilling to fade away quietly, and
keep pushing for roles. Action movies THE
EXPENDABLES and RED packed multiplexes in 2010,
despite featuring lead men in their fifties and sixties.
The Rolling Stones still strut their stuff on stage. Helen
Mirren and Meryl Streep are regularly nominated for
awards.

22.  TV has always been kinder to older characters: in the
USA CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM is on Season 8, and
David Letterman (born 1947) is still king of late night
talk shows. Betty White became the oldest person ever
to host Saturday Night Live in May 2010 (aged 78) -
and won a Primetime Emmy for her trouble

23.  UK television has always demonstrated an awareness
that older characters are just as interesting as younger
ones, and the over-fifties form the lynchpins of the
major soaps, as well providing the highlights of
sitcoms like Grandpa in OUTNUMBERED. Growing
old was the central strand of the comedy in sitcoms
LAST OF THE SUMMER WINE and ONE FOOT IN
THE GRAVE, and saw the characters railing against
the expectation that they would sink quietly into
oblivion once their working life was done.
One Foot in The Grave - Nippy

24.  As we move further into the twenty-first century, it
would be nice to think that we move towards
increasing acceptance of all ages for what they are, that
we learn to celebrate difference in age as we have
learned to celebrate difference in skin color, and that
we value all human beings equally without using age or
youth as an excuse to dismiss them as irrelevant

25.  Watch the following clip from Monarch of the Glenn- this
clip has been previously used in an exam
 Answer the question below, with detailed reference to
specific examples from the extract only.
Discuss the ways in which the extract constructs
representations of age using the following:
• Camera shots, angles, movement and composition
• Editing
• Sound
• Mise-en-scene
Monarch of The Glenn