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Lost in the dark, wood-paneled bowels of the administration building, I finally wound my way around to the notice announcing "Faculty Contracts."There to sign papers for my first teaching job as a newly-minted PhD, I eagerly presented myself at the appropriate office where, after only a cursory glance in my direction, the young woman behind the desk asked if she could help me with retirement.Although this encounter ended in mutual laughter, I've often wondered how this scene would have played out in the movies, been portrayed on TV, depicted in a painting, written into a novel, or danced in a ballet.Would it have been represented in a way that encouraged us as an audience to laugh at me for disrupting the usual age-based stereotypes by failing to "act my age," or to cheer me on?Portrayed in a manner that prompted us to laugh at the woman behind the desk for her ageist, and in this case embarrassing, response, or to identify with her? Or possibly depicted in a way that inclined us to chuckle at the uncomfortable recognition of our own unconscious age biases? According to three recent books on the ways that aging is represented and made culturally visible-Visions of Aging: Images of the Elderly in Film by Amir Cohen-Shalev; Aging, Performance, and Stardom: Doing Age on the Stage of Consumerist Culture, edited by Aagje Swinnen and John A
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