ABSTRACT
Journalistic obituaries and personals are uncannily similar. In both one wonders where is the “real” person apart from the glowing encomia? Why is each person described in ideal terms, in the superlative, or at least at his or her best? And why is the personality eerily set like a mold? Both modes are essentialist, unvarying, preserved—“I am” or “She was” one thing or another. As in personals, occasionally a picture accompanies the obituary, and no matter the age at death, frequently the photograph supplied was taken at an earlier point, when the individual was most like his or her “best/ideal” self. Youth. Dorian Gray’s obsession only marks boldly what has been implicit in every Western culture since the prospect of old age loomed large for greater numbers of people than ever before, since, that is, the nineteenth century. Old age became newly visible as a social problem; the negative context contributes to the tendency to minimize or discount “senioritis” wherever it erupts. Disguise or hide it, make it risible, contemptible, or neutral—the various attempts to deny, ignore, or counteract old age indicate strong social unease with the prospect of an aging culture. And the enemy is not “out there.” The elderly scrupulously inspect themselves; they scout the wrinkle before the smile; they lift the face, color the gray, and transplant each hair.
