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[Please to not be spoiling me, or I will have Chief knock out your FTL. I've seen through "Blood on the Scales." End so close! I simultaneously want to do nothing but watch it until it's over and drag it the frak out so it's not over. *sniffle*]
I think that most of us agree that we live in a youth culture. The bodies of the young are used in advertisements to sell everything from salad dressing to underwear to beer to novels. Youth is celebrated. Although this is another essay, I think the ways in which we strive to hold on to its emphemerality has granted youth a kind of cult status in modern society.
Actors are expected to retain their youth forever, and when they fail to do so, especially the women, they must stop working or else begin playing benign grandparents who peck each other on the cheek or magical wise people who help the younger protagonists find the life answers they're seeking or the hags, crones and misanthropes that either terrorize or teach the, yet again, younger protagonists. (Again, this feels like another post, but how many actors consistently portray characters significantly younger than they really are, and what does that mean in terms of the way we market and understand youth?)
Older characters in film certainly don't have sex. Maybe they cuddle on the couch or kiss each other on the cheek or hold hands. They've had sex in the past, but they're not having it now. It's as if Hollywood wants us to believe that age neuters us, that it strips from us that which makes us want to connect with other people on a visceral and physical and erotic level. It's as if Hollywood believes that we would recoil in horror at the sight of nude older bodies, of those people we will one day become still enjoying the pleasures the flesh can afford.
And let's not talk about what *old* really means in Hollywood. I'm not talking about eighty year old actors here. How many characters in their fifties are portrayed as sexual beings in film and TV (particularly female characters?)
( And here's what makes me love BSG all the more )
And I am hoping beyond hope that when I finish this show what I'm going to find in fandom is a real embracing of the opportunity we've been given to depict older characters in sexual situations. *crosses fingers*
I think that most of us agree that we live in a youth culture. The bodies of the young are used in advertisements to sell everything from salad dressing to underwear to beer to novels. Youth is celebrated. Although this is another essay, I think the ways in which we strive to hold on to its emphemerality has granted youth a kind of cult status in modern society.
Actors are expected to retain their youth forever, and when they fail to do so, especially the women, they must stop working or else begin playing benign grandparents who peck each other on the cheek or magical wise people who help the younger protagonists find the life answers they're seeking or the hags, crones and misanthropes that either terrorize or teach the, yet again, younger protagonists. (Again, this feels like another post, but how many actors consistently portray characters significantly younger than they really are, and what does that mean in terms of the way we market and understand youth?)
Older characters in film certainly don't have sex. Maybe they cuddle on the couch or kiss each other on the cheek or hold hands. They've had sex in the past, but they're not having it now. It's as if Hollywood wants us to believe that age neuters us, that it strips from us that which makes us want to connect with other people on a visceral and physical and erotic level. It's as if Hollywood believes that we would recoil in horror at the sight of nude older bodies, of those people we will one day become still enjoying the pleasures the flesh can afford.
And let's not talk about what *old* really means in Hollywood. I'm not talking about eighty year old actors here. How many characters in their fifties are portrayed as sexual beings in film and TV (particularly female characters?)
( And here's what makes me love BSG all the more )And I am hoping beyond hope that when I finish this show what I'm going to find in fandom is a real embracing of the opportunity we've been given to depict older characters in sexual situations. *crosses fingers*
