MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

The TV series Grace and Frankie has been lauded by critics for exposing ageism, especially ageism against women. While the series does expose some “ageisms,” it also reinforces the contemporary obsession with “successful aging,” a concept that is itself a pernicious kind of ageism. Since the 1980s, successful aging has been a dominant aging concept in gerontology and has also permeated popular culture. It presents a positive agenda of healthy aging: the elderly should avoid disease and disability, maintain high physical and cognitive functioning, and engage in productive activities. This positive agenda has led many people who are “aging-beyond-youth” to pay more attention to maintaining their physical and mental health. However, this agenda is also problematic for a number of reasons. It puts most of the responsibility for successful aging on the individual; good health becomes a moral imperative so the individual can avoid burdening their family or the state. The healthy aging movement is a global one but it especially complements two factors in the US—our deep antipathy to old age and “neoliberal ideals about individual freedom, self-governance, and minimizing public support.” The concept of successful aging has been critiqued for its many faults, but this paper will deal with only two of them in relation to Grace and Frankie: it ignores social inequalities, and it denies the realities of old age by advocating an unattainable agelessness. “The aging self is, ideally, an ageless self.”