How Culture Shapes Our Perception of Aging

Neil Rerup (02:10)
Welcome back, everybody.

um we’re talking from a different perspective. We’ve talked with a lot of people that doing have done research into the medical side of aging, ⁓ of dementia, that sort of thing. But one of the questions that I always have in the back of my mind is why do we have these perceptions of people that have gotten older? So to that end, I reached out to Dr. Julia Henderson of ⁓ the University of British Columbia.

And I thought we’d have a conversation of just that entire concept of how we came about with that this thinking about old aging and seniors and that sort of thing. Anyway, Julia, it always sounds better coming from the person ⁓ that I talked to. So welcome. And why don’t you ⁓ introduce yourself and tell me a bit about who you are and what you do.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (03:00)
Sure, thank you so much for having me. ⁓ my name is Dr. Julia Henderson. I’m an assistant professor in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy at the University of British Columbia, and I’m also an investigator with the Edwin S. H. Leong Center for Healthy Aging, which is also at UBC. And I’m co-chair of community engagement and intersection with the center. ⁓ So I am a registered occupational therapist.

I also have a background as a professional actor and a PhD in theater. So I’m very interested in how aging and older age is represented in culture, ⁓ how cultural products work to circulate those ideas about age and aging, and older age specifically. And I am

Quite interested in cultural ageism in particular and how it tends to be constructed and circulate. I also do a lot of community-engaged projects with older adults that look at ways to counter ageism from different angles and experience lived experiences of aging.

Neil Rerup (04:15)
One of the things that my first question is how did we get here? How did we start to think that have these perceptions about older people? And by the way, if I’m using the wrong terms, let me know because I’m I’ll be honest, there’s terminology that is inconsistent across ⁓ every interview I have. So

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (04:44)
Sure. one of the things you do say that I really like is older people or older adults, right? Because we try not to homogenize older age and say, you know, as a monolithic the elderly or ⁓ yeah, so ⁓ how did we get here? How did we come to have particular ideas about age, aging, older age and what those mean? Is that the question?

Neil Rerup (05:14)
In essence, yeah.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (05:15)
Yeah. ⁓ well I guess like many ideas about different identities, different experiences, they’re constructed through culture and they have been ⁓ you know throughout history and that history works to shape ideas over time. ⁓ certain ideas and understandings tend to become

dominant in culture and those get recirculated and reiterated. and when we want to make cultural change, you know, it’s it’s the innovators, the change makers who are are trying to do that. So a lot of my work is centered around theater and performance and the stories that are told through theater. So if we look at theater history, a lot of

⁓ theater history comes through kind of mainstream western discourses and has roots in you know Greek drama and comedy and s you can trace it all the way forward but there are certain types of characters that are older that ⁓ you can kind of trace the lineage of, you know, right back to ⁓ to Greek.

Forward to how they tend to continue to surface on our stages today. ⁓ And there are certain stereotypes, there are certain storylines that ⁓ kind of have have developed over time but re-r are reentrenched through the stories that continue to be told. And then there are all kinds of other alternative.

histories and stories and types of characters ⁓ that can challenge those dominant discourses which are very often ageist. And some of those come from other cultures, ⁓ other and and other just other interpretations.

Neil Rerup (07:30)
You’ve talked two different directions. One you’ve talked time and the other you’ve talked disparate cultures over around the world right now. let’s start off with the time side of things. Has it have has the view of older people changed over time or has it stayed relatively consistent? One thing about stereotypes is

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (07:39)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Neil Rerup (07:59)
Typically it’s because you see it over and over again. So I’m just wondering whether it’s it’s been consistent or whether it’s changed over time.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (08:08)
Yeah, I think it’s a hard question to answer. I guess I would say it all cultures at different points in history have their own experiences of how they understand and interpret age and aging. And some of the ideas that we tend to have about historical understandings of age are not always true.

For example, we often say that in in previous times

Older adults were taken care of by their families. And that that is something now in modern times is gone and that doesn’t happen. And families are are divided and separated by geography, etc. ⁓ and we we know that that there are lots of instances in history where people were taken care of by their families, and ⁓ and there were also instances where they were not.

⁓ even things like ⁓ average life expectancy, right? Like we have this kind of myth that average life expectancy was really low, right? That people tended to only live to their 40s or something like that at different points in history and

historian Pat Thane has showed that you know those numbers are skewed because there was such high child mortality rates. And if you take that out, if people lived past childhood, they were highly likely to live into their 60s at least. So ⁓ I I think I’m I’m going in in different directions, but yeah, so I would say that there are certain

Neil Rerup (09:52)
Mm-hmm.

Interesting.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (10:10)
Understandings of age that we could say have been reiterated over time, like the idea that aging is an experience of decline and loss, and that there are negative perceptions of aging, but and that has been told and retold in many stories over time. But it’s not the only story that’s been retold. And ⁓ there there have been you know different perceptions at different

Times.

Neil Rerup (10:41)
So you say only story.

while I let you take your drink, what are some of the other stories? Like is is it’s there’s the I guess the stereotype of fragile older body, but there’s also the story of a more wise person providing guidance type thing.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (11:07)
Yeah, exactly. So ⁓ the most dominant story that we hear is what I think Margaret Morgan Rothgoul had originally defined as the decline narrative of aging. So this is the idea that after midlife the experience of aging is one of gradual decline and loss, loss of personal material resources, loss of wealth, loss of relationships, loss of physical and cognitive health. And we see that.

you know, told in many different ways in our culture, in in media, stories, plays, theater, movies, ⁓ even, you know, medical discourses. ⁓

It’s correct that also we have had this story of aging as linked to wisdom, ⁓ which is another type of story, ⁓ older characters as sages. ⁓ that’s important. It also can be critiqued as, you know s not it’s important not to expect ⁓ aging well to be linked to wisdom.

Right, that’s a lot of expectations to put on an older person. ⁓ to put on anyone that like to to be doing well in life, you must be wise. ⁓ we recognize that people gain lots of lived experience and that that’s important to recognize and ⁓ to collaborate with in the research. but in terms of of like if we’re thinking about characters and stories, ⁓ it’s

Neil Rerup (12:23)
Yeah.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (12:48)
Interesting to me to think of characters who are more nuanced rather than only like the wise sage.

Neil Rerup (12:54)
Yeah.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (12:56)
There have also been lots of character older characters in stories who are who are really funny, right? Who are like kind of the the person who sees things from different angles maybe and who brings in like comedy and a a sense of ⁓ even parody.

Neil Rerup (13:20)
Hmm. Is so that’s through the time side of things and how the stories have changed. What about from a cultural side of po point of view? we’re used to thinking in terms of from a European-based background. And by and large, that’s what the North American background has been traditionally, is a European-based. But as

Like Canada became much more multicultural starting in the early seventies.

Has that the stories changed? Has the concept of aging changed? And is it different in other cultures?

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (14:03)
⁓ well, first, is it different in other cultures? Yes, I think every culture has its own unique understandings of experiences of aging and older age. ⁓ but that being said, you’re right that kind of this dominant dominant Eurocentric ⁓

perspective on aging has infiltrated a lot of understandings because ⁓ the media is so like widespread, right? Like it it it’s viewed across many cultures. So those ideas around age can tend to circulate in that way. ⁓ what was the first part of the question?

Neil Rerup (14:45)
So it’s the cultural side. And then also as our culture has changed, because and I’ll focus more on the Canadian culture than the American culture because we started to diverge in the ⁓ early 70s when multiculturalism ⁓ hit Vanc ⁓ Canada. So we’re more of a multicultural country, whereas the Americans are more of a melting pot.

type of situation. Have has that started to change the way we view older individuals?

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (15:24)
Well, I would say overall in the last fifteen to twenty years there’s be com there we’ve developed a greater understanding of cultural ageism. I would say, you know, in the time that I’ve been doing this work, I have seen a shift in theater, in film and television in terms of having more stories about older adults, more stories that have characters who are nuanced and ⁓

have like kind of deep histories, they’re not one-dimensional, they’re not just plot devices, there are more and more leading characters who are older adults. ⁓ That being said, there’s still tons of work to do. In terms of different cultural perspectives, again I think we do see ⁓ some more in terms of representation in media. We see more

representation of older adults of different cultures, but less so than younger characters. Right? It’s there’s still a long way to go. And I think part of that is that ⁓ if if we’re thinking about like acting, right? If we’re thinking about film, television, theater, historically historically racialized minorities had

many fewer opportunities. Right. So very many people dropped out of those industries and and didn’t continue. So ⁓ it means that now in terms of the people who are still working in those industries, and I’ve you know found this in some of my research with older theater performers, there’s not as many people of ⁓ of diversity at that older range who are still working in in the in the industry. So there are are

fewer people to draw from, fewer people kind of maybe advocating for representation. ⁓ and it’s really ⁓ up to up to like those of us who are maybe a a bit younger to continue to advocate and to try to change that. ⁓ and I think it will change over time as well.

Neil Rerup (17:41)
Mm.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (17:46)
And in terms of like understandings of aging, definitely different cultures have different understandings and different experiences. ⁓ you know, we know that in indigenous cultures elders are very important to their communities, play a central role, ⁓ and that’s something that you know we can all learn much from. And I think seeing

more like creating more and more opportunities for indigenous artists, indigenous peoples to participate and to have opportunities to tell those stories is really important. It’s the same in other cultures. One of my students now, her name’s Namanita Ravishandran, is studying Indian origin caregivers of people living with dementia.

That’s an area that has not been studied very much at all. So to understand the perspectives of caregiving and the cultural tensions people might experience in those roles is really important. And so I think, yeah, these are these are areas that we really need to continue to develop and expand.

Neil Rerup (18:53)
Is it?

I’m wondering whether that breadth of opportunities is tied to the move away from single sources of information. ⁓ if you think about it from say a hundred and fifty years ago, it was ⁓ the stage and there were limited places you could go. You’d go to a central place. When you had the radio start showing up, you had more people able to listen.

So more opportunities, more radio stations. Then you had T V and me growing up, I had three channels. I had the ⁓ we had the antenna on the roof and I got C B C, ⁓ B C T V ⁓ and a channel from Seattle.

And so there was just three channels. Now

Then we had like fifty two channels and nothing on. And now it’s the internet and we’re moving away from that traditional ⁓ media to streaming to everybody has a podcast, a a form of information. So there’s so many different ways of looking at things. So as a result, the opportunities and the stories being told are diversifying as well.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (20:24)
I think I think that is true to a certain extent. I think that especially social media creates opportunities for many more people to participate in representation. At the same time, I also see on social media I I see a lot of great ⁓ accounts that are challenging ageism in different ways and ⁓ are

representing a lot of different perspectives, different cultural perspectives. ⁓

different yeah perspectives in other ways as well, ⁓ different class perspectives, different gender perspectives on aging. At the same time, social media also allows certain narratives to circulate and recirculate, right? So i it it’s a a mixed thing. And I don’t I haven’t studied and I haven’t read any studies particularly on exactly that subject about yeah, yeah, like

to what degree do the different types of media and opportunities influence the way that perspectives circulate.

Neil Rerup (21:42)
Yeah. I interviewed ⁓ Raymond Jetson, who’s the author of ⁓ Aging While Black. Because I it hadn’t even occurred to me. I was looking at my guest list, I was seeing predominantly women, probably a sixty-thirty split type situation, men to women, but it was predominantly white. So I reached out to Raymond and we had an interesting conversation.

And I had only been thinking in terms of the single ⁓ single way of putting people aside called ageism. But he’s dealing with it from a combination of both ageism as well as racism. And you can’t really separate the two because where what does one end and the other begin?

really interesting conversation, which made me think, thank you for my white privilege, so to speak. but that sort of thing.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (22:43)
Yeah, that’s right.

It’s very much an intersectional experience, right? So yeah, it ageism is not one monolithic thing and it intersects with the experiences of racism, homophobia, ⁓ classism. Class is is super important in considerations of ageism, right?

Neil Rerup (23:06)
Mm. So now you have multiple characteristics of the individuals that flow through it all. You can’t just separate out one issue. It all has to be part of. With the

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (23:18)
of

my work through the North American Network and Aging Studies where I was chair for the last three years was we worked to create an anti-racism, anti-discrimination committee. And it was part of the goal of that was to find ways to foreground the work of scholars.

of diversity and as well as on topics related to that. So we have been able to feature really interesting scholars like Lashonda Pittman, Dr. Nanako Nakajima, Dr. Mara Darua, who have done really ⁓ great research, intersectional research in age.

Neil Rerup (23:59)
Hmm.

As our society’s gotten older, has that also changed? Because now the audience themselves are older and typically audiences want to see themselves in what they’re watching, what they’re ⁓ ingesting from a media point of view.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (24:21)
Yeah, sure. I think so. I think that it’s contributed to why we now have more more stories than previously about older adults and and you know, especially in, you know, some ⁓ web series and things we see older characters as the central, you know, character in in these stories. So yes, I think so, definitely. I think there’s also a long way to go. But I think, yeah, as

Neil Rerup (24:45)
Yeah. Yeah.

No, I just

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (24:49)
that it grows as boomers age especially there’s more and more demand for new stories stories that reflect their experiences and interests.

Neil Rerup (24:58)
And I think a lot of it has to do with the actors and the producers of the shows as well. I mean I d I’ve said this so many times lately. I think the entire concept of retirement is wrong. I don’t think people retire. I think they just change and they f go from one phase to another. Doesn’t mean you don’t stop working, doesn’t mean you can’t change what your focus on.

But that sort of thing. I remember ⁓ probably the earliest film I can remember that I really noticed the age side of things was Second Hand Lions. Right? Okay. ⁓ that was probably in the I’ll say the late nineties. And it’s basically a a couple of older in individuals, probably in their sixties, late sixties, early seventies.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (25:40)
I don’t know.

Neil Rerup (25:57)
type thing that were being challenged by younger people and their place. And it was ⁓ it was more of in a rural setting, that sort of thing. But now I see

The the Sylvester Stallone series of ⁓ action movies with older actors that want to continue with their ⁓ their roles and their lives and that sort of thing. the ⁓ on Golden Pond type movies, that sort of thing.

So it I suspect that the movies being made are also tied to who is making them, not just who the audience is that sort of thing.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (26:42)
I think so, absolutely. I think it’s really interesting too that and and I am not a f a film scholar, just to be clear, so this is not outside of my area of expertise, but I think it’s interesting that you know, there’s several ⁓ film series that have had a a long break in time and then come back with a new film, like The Devil Wears Prada, for example. It’s been, I don’t know, twenty years since the original. ⁓ and ⁓

Neil Rerup (26:49)
No, no, no.

Mm.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (27:13)
know that I think the Harrison Ford, ⁓ what was it? Raiders of the Lost Ark is that one. They came up with a new one, right? So it’s really interesting that ⁓ to me that some of these series of films have had a long break and then bring back an older leading character to reintroduce that that kind of

Neil Rerup (27:19)
yeah.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (27:40)
film to a whole new audience, a t new generation of audiences.

Neil Rerup (27:46)
I noticed when I was doing the research for this that you were working on a project, excuse me, associated with ⁓ reimagining ⁓ dementia. Tell me a bit about that.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (27:59)
⁓

Yeah. So for my postdoctoral research, which was actually through ⁓ Concordia University, supervised by Dr. Kim Sawchak, ⁓ originally I had planned to spend a lot of time in Montreal and then COVID happened. And I very fortunately ⁓ was able to sort of shift and work with a project on the Sunshine Coast of BC.

Called the Raising the Curtain on the Lived Experience of Dementia project. This was led by Dr. Colleen Reed of Douglas College, ⁓ Chad Hirschler of Deer Cross and the Art Farm, and Bruce Devereaux of the Good Samaritan Christensen Village Long-Term Care Facility. And so this project was a community-based participatory research project.

Which meant that we were very interested in working collaboratively with our participants to design the research and execute it. And ⁓ it was also based in the idea of co-creativity and collaborative creation. So for over five years, we worked together with a group of people with lived experience of dementia. And we interviewed them about their lived experience.

And then we used the data that we got, that what they told us, we kind of grouped it into some tentative themes and shared it with them through a whole lot of different creative engagement opportunities. So we engaged through ⁓ visual art, through theatrical kind of devising and experimenting exercises, through music and collaborative songwriting. ⁓

what else through vid like different forms of of media. ⁓ and so through this through poetry creation as well, creative writing. And so we worked together to create ⁓ cre to experiment creatively, to sometimes produce creative products, and through this work to further explore and refine

These themes that described the lived experience of dementia. And through the process, about I think across the five years, about every year we did a performance, at first for invited audiences and then for public audiences to share those experiences and the creativity of our participants with the public.

Neil Rerup (30:24)
Mm. So

So was that more about a documentary approach or was it more about storytelling about dementia?

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (30:55)
⁓

Neil Rerup (30:57)
Or it sounded like it’s a combination of both.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (30:58)
Neither exactly.

kind of a combination of both, but not not exactly either. It was ⁓ a research approach that works collaboratively with participants. So in some research approaches, the research does design the study and then kind of execute it almost on the participants, right? Like here’s a survey, you fill it out, then I’m gonna take that and analyze the data and get my results. Whereas in

Neil Rerup (31:09)
Yeah.

Grant.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (31:27)
Collaborative co-creative research approaches. The participants help actually design the research as well. ⁓ And in this case, we were doing collaborative creation. So we were creating art. ⁓ Sometimes the creation process was the point. And so we described and analyzed our process so that other researchers could follow that in the future.

Neil Rerup (31:48)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (31:57)
And other groups. And sometimes we were creating artwork to share with the public for the purpose of challenging dementia stigma. And that artwork sometimes was visual art, sometimes it was performances, sometimes it was songs. And so it, yeah, it was a range of things. So the project overall really wanted to understand the lived experience of dementia and to challenge dementia stigma.

Neil Rerup (32:09)
Mm.

Okay.

So what type of stigma?

did you find was wrong? Wha what were the wrong conceptions with regards to Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (32:31)
What

⁓ what were the wrong conceptions of what it’s like to live with dementia? ⁓

yeah, so dementia stigma is pretty pervasive, and people generally ex you know ⁓ conceive of dementia as an experience totally of decline and loss, ⁓ as a tragedy, as something that is devastating beyond belief, tears apart people and families, and

What we know about dementia stigma is that yes, it’s absolutely, you know, there are losses involved, and it can be an experience of grief, and it can be very difficult for both the person living with dementia and their family. But a lot of that experience of loss and grief is created by the cultural circumstances around it. And that’s what our participants in this project told us, right? So a lot of times when someone ⁓

Is diagnosed with dementia, they will find that their friends and community start to retreat and fall away, and that they both they and their care partner become very isolated. And so that lack of community and that lack of cultural spaces where they can go and be part of a community and participate and have a sense of belonging is lacking. And that’s what creates dementia.

Stigma, right? That’s like influenced by and also recreates dementia stigma. and so part of a lot of this project was to challenge those ideas, to challenge the idea that ⁓ dementia experience is all about loss and recognize that people maintain a sense of creativity, sense of wanting and being able to be in relationship with others. ⁓ we even were

f focused on cultivating opportunities for our participants to teach and to share their experiences and not just be the recipients of care. So really that reciprocity and relationships and that collaboration was central to the project.

Neil Rerup (34:46)
So let’s telling stories out to other people. Are you seeing the arts theater, ⁓ other fine arts ⁓ being used for helping with various different issues that older people are dealing with? I’ll give you an example. one of my first guests was ⁓ a lady by the name of Carol Rosenstein. Now, Carol had started ⁓ a charity called Music Men’s.

Minds because her husband had Parkinson’s. And you know, when he was quite long into the Parkinsons, he’d wander over to his piano, which he used to love playing. And when he started playing, his Parkinsons would subside. So he she started a charity to help people with Parkinson’s to try and manage that aspect.

Do you see that happening in other forms of art as well? So that’s not so much about telling stories outwards as it is, for lack of a better term, telling stories inward.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (35:53)
Mm-hmm. Well, I just want to correct that perception, first of all, because this it’s really important from to me that ⁓ this project, raising the lived the curtain on the lived experience of dementia, was not only about telling stories outward. So it was very much collaborative, reciprocal, working together with people to not only tell stories outward, that was a piece of it, but also to create experiences.

Neil Rerup (36:08)
Okay.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (36:23)
that were cultivating a sense of community, cultivating a sense of creativity, ⁓ cultivating a sense of belonging, ⁓ engaging in creative process for the participants and their care partners. Right? So it it was that. So ⁓ I guess there’s kind of two pieces to what you’re asking about. Number one, arts have been used in therapeutic interventions.

as therapeutic interventions for years and there’s evidence that those are effective different ways. ⁓ So you know there’s arts therapy, there’s music therapy, recreation therapy, right? So absolutely. ⁓ And these are used in different healthcare settings ⁓ as effective interventions. ⁓ There’s also kind of

Community engaged arts, which are using arts and creativity to create cultural spaces, to create that sense of belonging and community, ⁓ and to value creativity in and of its own right, outside of just a therapeutic intervention. Right to recognize that creativity has its own value. So there yes, there are growing and developing ⁓

of cultural programs. There’s also, you know, in the kind of I guess healthcare stream, ⁓ there’s ⁓ cultural prescribing right where where now healthcare professionals can like prescribe arts-based cultural ⁓ community ⁓ experiences for people as part of their

a a as part of their, I guess, interventions or medical plan. which I think is an amazing opportunity and and Doctor Grace Park, ⁓ at UBC does a lot of work in that in that area and is a a real leader.

Neil Rerup (38:33)
I interviewed ⁓ Dan Levitt, who’s the senior’s advocate for ⁓ the BC government. ⁓ I found that he was focused a lot on more practical areas, i.e. healthcare, housing, that aspect. What areas do you think are not being influenced appropriately enough? I won’t say appropriate, ⁓ aren’t being influenced enough. And I think

A lot of that is coming we we lead where we go through stories and then those stories then turn into the research and they turn into from the physical sciences up through the arts up through societal aspects. what’s what are we not focusing enough on?

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (39:27)
yeah, that’s a big question. so I mean, I think a lot of the priorities that Dan Levitt has are really important, right? Long term care. There’s all kinds of structural funding issues with long term care. ⁓ I I think that that’s critical. I think climate change is you know for

Neil Rerup (39:31)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (39:54)
Everyone should be at the forefront of what we’re considering. And so considerations in particular of the effects of climate change on older adults it is really important and there’s lots of people doing really great work in this area. It just needs to continue and expand. ⁓ I ⁓ working with Dr. Teresa Polly and ⁓ some students at SFU who are doing work on extreme heat and

Neil Rerup (40:13)
Mm.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (40:23)
effects of stream extreme heat on older adults, which is increasingly important to understand and consider. So yeah, I mean there’s there’s so many areas, housing for sure, housing for lower income older adults, and the accessibility of that housing. Extremely important. But you’re right that all of these ideas about you know what we think about these things and what we believe

Neil Rerup (40:26)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (40:52)
circulate through stories. And so if we can shift the stories, they help us imagine futures that are are better for people. And you know, that sometimes is the first step. What is the imaginary imaginative future that we want to create?

Neil Rerup (41:13)
So what what trends do you see for the future? Because we’ve talked about the past, you know, all the way back to gr ⁓ Greek and Roman times. We’ve talked wide about around the world right now. Do you see a trend in a in a pattern of how seniors are viewed?

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (41:18)
Mm-hmm.

Neil Rerup (41:37)
And no, I’d I I’ll be honest, I I tend to see patterns all the time in various different areas.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (41:46)
I mean I tend to see patterns but also s tend to see things.

also not shifting, right? So I don’t know, it’s a hard question. Like I like to be optimistic and I like to think that we are seeing a shift in cultural ageism. ⁓ and I I feel that I’ve seen progress in this since I’ve started my career. You know, I feel like I see in in popular media and culture more representation of older adults, more diverse representation.

But also like recognizing that there’s just a really long way to go. and and also recognizing that you know that there are so many different experiences of aging and I can’t kind of have an understanding of all of them. And I’m sure, you know

for those people experiencing aging from intersectional perspectives, ⁓ minority perspectives, that they might not experience those shifts, right? And those improvements and perspectives that are that that in a more privileged circumstances people maybe are are privy to. So I guess I just wanna be very careful and and thoughtful about that.

Neil Rerup (43:08)
Mm.

Yeah.

I I’ll be honest, when I think about society, I d I I don’t expect things changing overnight. To me, society, regardless of which society you’re talking about, is like a a a huge ship and it takes forever to get it to turn. So it’s just can consistent communication of a message, which goes back to the storytelling. So if storytelling is the

leading edge of change, then there would be a consistent you could probably tell the direction 50, 100 years from now, based on what the stories are now. I’ll give you another example for those people that are listening. We think of the original Star Trek series.

The sliding doors when you walk through it. We didn’t have that back then. The flip phone comes from that. These sorts of things. So but that came from storytelling. So the storytelling that we do now will tell us what fifty hundred years ago from now will look like.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (44:31)
Maybe. Yeah. It can it can imagine possibilities, right? And some of those possibilities will likely come into reality and and some of them won’t. And some of them hopefully won’t, because some of them might not be things we want to happen. Mm-hmm.

Neil Rerup (44:33)
There’ll be there’ll be components. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, like Logan’s Run. ⁓

that’s for those that have never read it, Logan’s Run was a movie that came out in the mid seventies. ⁓ where once you got to I think it was the age thirty one, they literally to save resources would put put people

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (44:57)
Nope, you froze for me.

Neil Rerup (45:08)
down. So that the life expectancy of people was just a very short time frame compared to now.

Neil Rerup (45:15)
So last question, we’re getting to the end of the interview. And normally what I ask all my guests is this similar question. If you were going to give one piece of advice to people, ⁓ regardless of what the audience is, what would that be? And I always find it interesting how people go different directions with with that one piece of advice.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (45:37)
Yeah. I guess I would say ⁓

I think it’s really important not to allow cultural stories about aging, particularly negative stories about aging, to define how you understand it, how you think about it, and how you imagine your experience might be. Because there’s so many possibilities and there’s so many ⁓ opportunities and there’s so many creative.

openings ⁓ that if we allow what already is being told, the stories that are being told ⁓ to limit us, ⁓ then I think we we really miss a chance to have a have have positive experiences of aging, to create positive spaces for experiences of aging, and to just like connect across generations and

be collaboratively, reciprocally part of something together.

Neil Rerup (46:48)
Yeah. Interesting. Well, Julia, I wanna thank you a lot ⁓ for ⁓ taking the time and ⁓ talking to us about our perceptions on aging, our stories around aging. ⁓ for those of you that are watching this, ⁓ I will have links in the description for this video to ⁓ Julia, her ⁓ profile over over at UBC. ⁓ I’m sure she’d be interested in

having a conversation with ⁓ people that are have questions about her research and ⁓ storytelling. Julia, thank you very much.

Dr. Julia Henderson (she/her) (47:25)
Thank you so much for having me.