Cross Generational Relationships and Cinema

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.

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).