Veteran journalists and ‘vieilles filles’ : how gender, age and journalism congregate in the the French dispatch
- Authors
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2023
- Source
- Ghent University Institutional Archive
- Keywords
- Language
- English
- License
- Unknown
- External links
Abstract
This study set out to understand how representational practices of journalism and age congregate in the fiction movie The French Dispatch (Anderson, 2021). Employing textual analysis, we found that the film engages with three overlapping tropes in which journalism and age congregate. First, it represents journalists as different from “normal civilians” especially in their state of loneliness which is a constant throughout the narrative. This difference narrative is especially invigorated for journalists that demographically deviate from the norm in which older women are labeled as “old maids”. Second, the film represents an intergenerational conflict, specifically in relation to explorations of journalistic neutrality. Last, the commercial nature of journalism is addressed through the representation of an older mentoring editor-in-chief who protects journalistic quality against commercial pressures. By combining the lens of journalism and ageism, we uncovered how both concepts congregate and create a unique romanticized perspective on the profession as “it used to be”.
