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Depictions of cross generational relationships have always been present in popular cinema. While such relationships have historically operated within the framework of heteronormativity, and have usually explored cross generational romance in the context of older men/younger women, contemporary depictions have expanded to focus also on taboo configurations of love between older women and younger men and cross generational LGBT coupledom. Contemporary depictions have sought to complicate not only heteronormativity in cross generational relationships, but also to navigate the differences between socially acceptable love and transgressive desire. This collection focuses on the changing values and attitudes of cross generational relationships and addresses the often divisive relationship between the discourses of youth and ageing in popular culture.
List of contents
Introduction.- Joel Gwynne and Niall Richardson.- Female Desire in Cross Generational Relationships.- 1 Mother and Lover: Dissident Desire and the Older Woman in The Mother and Adore Joel Gwynne.- 2 Things to Come: Fertility, Futurity and the Family in L'Avenir, Un Chateau en Italie and Post-Coitum Animal Triste Fiona Handyside.- Heterosexual Romantic Cross Generational Relationships.- 3 Age Disproportion in the Post-Epitaph Chick Flick: Reading The Proposal Diane Negra.- 4 The Generation Game: Lovers and Friends; Mothers and Daughters; Filmmakers, History and Home AgainDeborah Jermyn.- Same Sex Romantic Cross Generational Relationships.- 5 Ageing Predators and Asexual Old Queens: Challenging Stereotypes of Cross Generational Gay Relationships in Beginners and Gerontophilia Niall Richardson.- 6 Queer and Upright: Sex, Age, and Disorientation in Alain Guiraudie's Staying Vertical Nick Rees-Roberts.- 7 'Draw Me Like a Statue': Youth, Nostalgia, and the Queer Past in Gods and Monsters Michael Williams.- Dysfunctional Cross Generational Relationships.- 8 'Shameless and Repulsive': Beryl Reid and Transgressive Middle-Aged Desires in Film Comedy of the late 1960s Claire Mortimer.- 9 "'I'm Seeing Something That Was Always Hidden': Innocence and Coming Into.- Knowledge Through the Gaze in Blue Velvet and Malèna Kwasu D. Tembo.- Non Romantic Cross Generational Relationships.- 10 Impossible Spaces? Liminal Space and Cross Generational Love in Ann Hui's A Simple Life Sue Thornham.- 11 Intergenerational Archipelagoes: Trans-motherhood and transing the Indonesian Family in Realita, Cinta, dan Rock n Roll and Lovely Man Alicia Izharuddin
About the author
Joel Gwynne is an Associate Professor of English and Cultural Studies at the National Institute of Education/Nanyang Technological Institute, Singapore. His research has appeared in international journals such as the
Journal of Postcolonial Writing, the
Journal of Literary Studies,
Film International,
Film, Fashion and Consumption, the
Journal of Contemporary Asia, the
Journal of Gender Studies,
Women's Studies International Forum,
Feminist Theory, and
Feminist Media Studies.
Niall Richardson lectures in film at the University of Sussex, UK, where he convenes MA Gender and Media. He is the author of the monographs
The Queer Cinema of Derek Jarman: Critical and Cultural Readings (2009), Transgressive Bodies: Representations in Film and Popular Culture (2010) and
Ageing Femininity on Screen: The Older Woman in Contemporary Cinema (2018).
