Ageless
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ageless is an adjective describing a person or thing whose age cannot be defined, is nonexistent or does not change.
It can also describe immortality, most specifically eternal youth.
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[edit] Ageless people
Agelessness can be attributed to people whose physical characteristics do not match their age.
The Castrati singers of the Renaissance aged differently than other men due to the lack of testosterone and other hormones, which took a toll on their appearance and stature. Specifically, Alessandro Moreschi (1858-1922) was described as having no facial hair and a young voice and appearance.
[edit] Modern examples
Agelessness is also something with which many Hollywood celebrities have been known to strive for, sometimes undergoing cosmetic surgery to attain it. Demi Moore, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Madonna are particularly known for their efforts to appear 'forever young'. Television host Dick Clark has been described as "America's Oldest Teenager." Many viewers have hardly perceived his having aged since the 1960s, despite being born in 1929. The appearance of Andy Milonakis is also ambiguous since he suffers from a hormone disorder, allowing him to perform the role of a young teenager in his shows.
Actor Suzanne Somers attributes her youthful appearance to the use of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. Her 2006 book Ageless continues the theme of her 2004 book The Sexy Years that restoring hormones (especially sex hormones) to youthful levels is the key to agelessness.
[edit] Methods to achieve agelessness
Cosmetics exist largely to aid in attempts to diminish the effects of age. This use sometimes creates conflicting age indicators (for example, red hair belonging to a wrinkled face), making age determination difficult.
Botox, silicone implants, tummy tucks, facelifts, and nosejobs are examples of surgeries that attempt to remove the signs of age. Sooner or later, however, the effects of the passing years do start to show on the body as it endures wear and tear. Scientists across the world are also working on finding the reason of aging and have come out with various theories, but still have a long way to go before this phenomenon is fully understood and controlled.
[edit] Mythology
Gods and goddesses were considered eternal in most ancient mythologies, and were endowed with eternal youth. In Greek mythology, this was achieved by the gods eating ambrosia.
[edit] Media and fiction
[edit] Comics and cartoons
A modern example of ageless beings are cartoon characters. Cartoons, for technical and commercial reasons, are intended to live in an eternal present, a timeless universe without any change. It is always the present day, even though the series may have run for decades. This is analogous to the "status quo" or "episodic" approach to television series, where at the end of every episode the characters' lives are back to where they started. The Simpsons has predominantly ageless characters, with every regular from Bart, to Grampa Simpson not changing their age over the 18-year run of the series.
Superhero characters are also ageless, including Superman, Wonder Woman, X-men Wolverine and the villain Mystique: often because their powers include magical healing or cellular regeneration. Sometimes plot devices which alter the timeline affecting the superheroes, such as Crisis on Infinite Earth and the similarly named Infinite Crisis or other story ideas, such as time travel and other dimensions are used to explain a superhero's apparent agelessness. Alternatively, agelessness is sometimes present without explanation if the authors employ a sliding timescale. Unlike many cartoon characters, superhero characters' lives change (relations with other characters, marriage, kids, etc.) while their ages remain the same through the 50-70 years of their crime-fighting lives.
Agelessness is also common of character-based newspaper comic strips. Blondie, for example, has been running since the 1930s. Although the main characters have married and their children are now teenagers, the passage of time is not at the same speed as real time; Blondie and Dagwood would now be aged in their 90s, and their son Alexander, born in 1934, would be in his early 70s. Although Dagwood's boss, Mr. Dithers, still dresses in a suit suggestive of the 1930s, Dagwood is now his webmaster.
[edit] Pulp literature
Long-running series of pulp novels can develop ageless characters. The main characters in The Hardy Boys have remained 17 and 18, and have been located approximately in the "present day" since 1926. The same can be said for The Nancy Drew series. Nancy has remained 18 years old for many decades (although she started out at the age of 16).
James Bond is a realistic ageless character. Some of his ally characters, including M, Q, Miss Moneypenny, Bill Tanner and Felix Leiter also do not age throughout both the novel and film series, which began in 1953 and 1962 respectively. Ian Fleming, the creator of Bond, tinkered with details of Bond's early life and changed dates to ensure Bond was always the appropriate age for his stories, a practice called retconning.
[edit] Fantasy literature
Tolkien's Elves are an iconic example of creatures who are ageless. They are not subject to entropy and decay, unlike Men and the rest of the Middle-earth. Tolkien described his elves as young, yet with some 'wisdom' and experience in their eyes and behaviour; he also stated that Elves do change and age—not by growing old, but by changing other features in their appearance. The combination of youth and overwhelming maturity makes the age of an Elf undefinable and alien by mortal standards.
The Aes Sedai of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series are described as ageless. A feature of their magical abilities extends life and makes their age difficult to place despite their white hair and physical frailty.
[edit] Television soap operas
Story arcs common in soap operas, where characters and the relationships between them evolve over time, may ignore the increasing age of the actors. Soap opera characters may then discontinuously be reset to a greater age to match that of the actor, in a process fans of the genre call Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome. Characters may even seem to age backwards in instances where an actor is replaced with a younger one.
[edit] See also
- Androgyny
- Indefinite lifespan
- Life extension
- Neoteny
- Pedomorphosis
- Rejuvenation
- Werner syndrome
- Neverland, a place in the Peter Pan mythos people can remain young forever
[edit] References
- Somers, Suzanne (2006). Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones. Crown. ISBN 0-307-23724-9.
- Somers, Suzanne (2004). The Sexy Years: Discover the Hormone Connection - The Secret to Fabulous Sex, Great Health, and Vitality, for Women and Men. Crown. ISBN 0-609-60721-9.
