wam – women ageing & media

One Response to “Ros Jennings – Ageing and performance/ ageing and audience: Petula Clark at 76”

1.   Sherryl Wilson Says:
   October 28th, 2008 at    

   The session used Ros Jennings’ presentation on Petula Clarke’s performance of pop star at a recent concert in Cheltenham as the starting point to consider a range of issues. The discussions slipped between attempting to theorise age as a construct, audiences of ageing female pop singers and our personal experiences as audience members and of ageing in these contexts.

   At her concert, it was clear that Clarke was playing out, or parodying, a femininity that was not simply a replay of the youth that she was when her songs were popular (1960s). We considered the ways in which the performance of femininity is linked to the policing of women’s bodies. Linked to this was the following discussion about the dissonance between how one is gazed at and the internal experience of ageing. The frequently cited phrase of ‘I feel 16 inside’ might be indicative of the desire to be linked with a youth-centric culture but also may refer to the desire to be connected with memories of a transitional, and therefore significant, age. If the desire to locate our inner selves as when we were young may be to risk the disavowal of our age and the attendant memories and experiences that accumulate over years and which form the basis of our sense of self as we are now.

   As audience members, attending a concert by ageing performers (of either sex) may be a way of recuperating our own youth but again, this might be less about wanting to relive a past but more about remembering family ties and connections that we identify with that period. With the Clarke concert, ageing was more of an issue because she was performing material from her past which appears to have the double bind of appearing to efface her age (rendering it invisible) while simultaneously marking the intervening years (making them visible).

   Liked to this are notions of authenticity and that age demands different claims to authenticity which would depend on audience demographics. Also, these demands are context specific. While there are male performers (Terry Wogan, Lenard Cohen, Jimmy Page, Michael Parkinson etc) who wear their age as a marker of authenticity, women are disallowed authenticity in the same way and seek validation in the public arena through a variety of means: Clarke contextualised her songs by introducing them as being used as a sound track, winning an Oscar etc. Patty Smith positions herself as poet, Joan Biaz has political credentials etc. So, the means of validation of ageing women for having a public presence depends on context.

   It was argued that Clarke stood separately from other female singers in the UK during the 60s partly because she was older than her counter parts and also because she is a part of French culture which lends her a status of being ‘outside’ the pop mainstream. This was played down for her Cheltenham audience (which might be quintessentially English). However, this did give rise to questions concerning the degree to which meanings attached ageing is culturally and nationally specific and also intersects with race and class. Different cultures have different normative codes and ways of being ‘outside’. This is an aspect of ageing that we have yet to get a ‘handle’ on but is one of the issues that we hope to address in our conference.

   Key arising questions and issues:
   • As with gender, can we think of ageing as performativity?
   • Memory is a key part of performativity and connection with ageing. The layers of memory form a part of ageing and of age.