The Gerontologist 44:444 (2004)
© 2004 The Gerontological Society of America
WOMEN'S BODY IMAGE
Robert E. Yahnke
The three videos reviewed below address, in different ways, issues of gerontophobia (women's negative self-perceptions of their aging bodies) and ageism (stereotypical societal perceptions of women). In the first case the film Gracious Curves poses the question, "How can women overcome a negative attitude toward their bodies as they age?" This documentary, made by a female director from Finland, confronts this question by showing numerous examples of women across the age spectrum—often nude, in intergenerational contexts, and often combined with images of nature. Her theme is straightforward: a woman's body in old age is beautiful—although perhaps not in ways associated with normative judgments about beauty, which are almost always based upon a young woman's body as the pinnacle of beauty.
The second video reviewed below, Making the Crystal Quilt, explores women's body image from the perspective of ageism—that is, the sense that the contributions of old women are devalued and diminished by narrow-minded societal attitudes. Suzanne Lacy's video documents the process of planning "The Crystal Quilt," an example of performance art presented in Minneapolis, MN, in 1987. Lacy combines the visual tradition of live theatrical performances with effective sound montages and metaphorical images to convey the strength and creativity of older women of diverse backgrounds and races. The video also provides insight into the creative processes utilized in the making of this performance art piece. Her 1987 performance art project, "Whisper, The Waves, The Wind," was reviewed in The Gerontologist (Vol. 27, pp. 533–34).
The third video reviewed below, Inside/Out, is an effective companion to the first video, Gracious Curves, because it addresses the theme of women's negative feelings of self-esteem, and even self-loathing—as they relate to their perceptions of their bodies. In this video, a 61-year-old woman, afflicted with Bell's Palsy, examines the way the physical changes in her face, caused by temporary paralysis, have affected her image of her body—and, by extension, her sense of identity. The title of this video is an appropriate metaphor for the theme of all three videos: In each case women are portrayed as striving to overcome their negative self-images (the inside—gerontophobia) as well as negative images imposed from without (the outside—ageism).
