From Zoomers to Geezerade: Representations of the Aging Body in Ageist and Consumerist Society

Abstract

This paper is based on an analysis of representations of seniors in the media. In particular, we examine images of the bodies of seniors in the advertising campaigns promoting a product called Geezerade sold in Circle K convenience stores in the Atlantic provinces of Canada in the summer of 2011. We contrast these with images of seniors in the Canadian magazine Zoomer, formally CARP magazine, a magazine published by the Canadian Association of Retired People, a seniors advocacy organization. Following Goffman's arguments in his seminal presidential address to the American Sociological Association, "the Interaction Order", we take the position in this analysis that the body does not determine social practices but none-the-less the body is the sign vesicle that enables interaction. Concomitant however, while the images of bodies we see in the media do not determine the signs given and given off via bodily presentation, they none-the-less provide us with the categories by which we interpret those signs. We conclude that the images in the Geezerade campaign and Zoomer magazine represent a binary model of images of seniors that reflects ageist and classist assumptions about the bodies of seniors. Such a model limits the categories through which we understand the aging body and fails to account for the diversity of seniors' bodies in society.

Aging and masculinity: Portrayals in men's magazines

“…Even Zoomer, with its target audience of Baby Boomers, primarily depicted individuals who appeared to be aging youthfully as opposed to including older men in the Fourth Age. Our findings are in line with previous research, which has extensively documented the underrepresentation of older adults in the media generally and in advertisements specifically (Bramlett-Solomon & Wilson, 1989;Harwood & Roy, 1999;Low & Dupuis-Blanchard, 2013;Thompson, 1994).…”

Ageism and Sexuality

“…Due to the emphasis on youthfulness by mass media, older men and women are underrepresented in advertisements. Moreover, when they do appear, they are typically peripheral, grouped with others or in a specific context such as insurance plans (Hurd Clarke et al 2014;Low and Dupuis-Blanchard 2013). Images of older people relating to specific advertisements, such as pensions or health care products are associated with notions of burden frailty, loneliness or vulnerability (Media and diversity in an ageing society, [2002][2003][2004], which reflect stereotypical expectations about later life (Prieler 2012;Williams et al 2010) and convey them to society.…”

Ageing, old age and media: Critical appraisal of knowledge practices in academic research

“…Other articles regard media texts as co-constructors of social realities and critique the ways in which the truths and norms that are being presented via media silence, stigmatise or glamorise (particular groups of) older adults (e.g. Harwood & Anderson 2002;Low & Dupuis-Blanchard 2013;Rozanova 2010;Rudmann 2006). Here, under-representation is treated as part of a larger problem, related, for example, to discourses that articulate youth as the norm while rendering old age invisible.…”