Old age – „how beautiful to be yourself”

Abstract

in every given period one can observe different attitudes towards old age, death and the elderly, which are shown through varied stances and ideas about this specific period of human life. The reality of the xxicentury often regarded as “vision-centric” is dominated by the cult of beauty and youth which creates increasingly demanding requirements, rela-ted mainly to the attractiveness of appearance, of the body – especially the one belonging to the elderly. The increase in the number of senior citizens compared to the rest of the society that can be witnessed nowadays leads to the elderly being amore carefully examined social group. Mediated by the media discourse the images of the elderly are becoming more common and therefore the author’s attempt at reconstructing the postmodern strategy of the rendering of late adulthood seems to be an interesting and important topic to consider.