Disability, Obesity and Ageing

Book excerpt: Disability, Obesity and Ageing offers an engaging account of a new area of pressing concern, analysing the way in which ’spurned’ identities are depicted and reacted to in televisual genres and online forums. Examining the symbolic power of the media, this book presents case studies from drama, situation comedies, reality and documentary television programmes popular in the UK, USA and Australia to shed light on the representation of disability, obesity and ageing, and the manner in which their status as unwanted and unwelcome identities is perpetuated. A theoretically sophisticated exploration of television as a translator of identity, and the exploration of identity categories in allied virtual spaces, this book will be of interest to sociologists, as well as scholars of popular culture, and cultural and media studies.