In my search for media representations of old gay men, I stumbled
upon Beauty before Age (1997, J. Symons, producer), a short documentary on gay
men’s anxieties about old age. I had forgotten that I had seen it back in the
late 1990s, when it came out, and that my dear friend and colleague, Rafael Diaz, was featured in the film.
This is a pioneer piece, as significant discussions about
old age rarely took place in gay culture until the mid 2000s. Credit to Mr.
Symons for touching on the salient themes around growing old and being gay: the
negative stereotypes, the cult of youth and muscular physique, the (exceptional)
ageless love, the aging we faced during the peak of the AIDS epidemic, and the
active participation of gay men, young and old, in maintaining the invisibility
of the old.
More precisely, the film is about aging in the Castro. And
as I watched it (this time), I wondered if, and how, this phenomenon is an artifact
of capitalism. Youth is a product, a commodity, an attribute that is sold and
bought. Sexual attractiveness and performance and musculature go along with youth
and they are marketed, sold, and consumed. But I’m thinking that the work of
capitalism goes further: youth, as a commodity, gives as a sense of being. It
makes us believe that we are powerful, attractive, productive, healthy, and strong.
It provides the illusion of a full and purposeful life in the midst of the alienation
and hollowness of contemporary capitalism.
I’m referring to youth as manifested in our contemporary and
dominant white gay culture, not to a “universal” sense of youth. There are, of
course, alternative ways of being young and queer, but they are not visible.
And even then I wonder if any of those choices escape the rejection of old age.
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