DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
Members' Mausoleum => Calendar Events / Announcements Archive => Calendar Events / Announcements '24 I => Calendar Events / Announcements '05 II => Topic started by: Mysterious Benefactor on July 02, 2005, 04:16:18 PM
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And yet another interesting DS reference, this one as part of an article about Disney's Howl's Moving Castle (featuring the voice of the '91 DS' Jean Simmons) that discusses the effect depicting extreme old age can have:
I suspect in part it is to evoke a primal fear of extreme age. The traditional image of a wicked witch is that of a wizened old crone, as in Disney's Snow White. Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars conforms to this archetype: the association of extreme age and evil. So too does a character like the sinister and elderly General Immortus in the 1960s Doom Patrol comics. There are episodes of the original Star Trek, Dark Shadows, and The X-Files in which leading characters rapidly age to extreme elderliness, to horrific effect. Consider, too, the ghastly image of the ancient Keir Dullea character lying on his deathbed at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey before his ultimate transformation into the godlike Starchild.
In all these cases, old age is presented as the opposite of youth, beauty, and vitality. ...
Check out the entire article: Age Before Beauty (http://comics.ign.com/articles/627/627879p1.html)
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Interesting. When I was a child my grandmother used to scare me by saying that if I went in the basement, or somewhere she didn't want me to go alone, that a "velho" or "velha" would be there waiting for me. Velho or Velha are Portuguese for "old man or old lady." That scared me a lot back then for some reason. Perhaps this article is onto something.
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......unless, of course, you come from an Asian tradition, where great honor is conferred upon those of great age. ;)