ABSTRACT

It is conventional to say that in the values of consumer culture youth is given a privileged status. Through a variety of modes of image and narrative we, as members of mass audiences, are encouraged to see being young as being strong, independent and sexy. It becomes a civic duty, indeed a moral responsibility, to undertake a number of remedies to prolong this stage of the life course (Hepworth and Featherstone, 1982). In contrast, therefore, aging is necessarily unattractive. It tends to be characterized by images that are the converse of strength, independence and sexiness. And yet there must be contradictions within marketing practices. While it might be easy to sell lifestyles on the back of youth, the facts that we do all more or less gracefully age, and that the elderly form an increasingly large proportion of the total population in late-modern societies, mean that the elderly are a large and potentially profitable market that will appreciate being approached positively. We can go further and say that our discourse of identity (the resources through which we find ways of giving ourselves social identity and points of reference on ways of living), must find some accommodation for the transitions of aging, particularly in the marketing of leisure.1