Age representations of older women in TV fiction. Fleabag as a case study

Following research on the representation of older adults in media discourse and discoveries about their sexuality, this paper presents a narrative analysis from a critical feminist perspective of the series Fleabag. Specifically, the study focuses on the character of the Godmother, a middle-aged woman who stands out for her overtly sexual discourse. The aim is to test the narrative construction of older women in audiovisual fiction in relation to the device of sexuality (Foucault, 1977). To do so, an analysis matrix has been designed based on previous works such as those by Casetti and Di Chio (2009), Lopez Tellez and Cuenca Garcia (2005) and Guarinos Galan (2018), among others. The results of the analysis show that the character is written as a middle-aged woman who does not comply with social gender expectations, largely due to the characterisation of her sexual activity in phenomenological, formal and abstract perspectives. Her discourse on sex challenges the codes of power associated with gender and places the character in the position of the villain of the story.