If this is true, it might also help explain why there are so few older protagonists in science fiction since readers come to the genre ready to identify with younger protagonists and might have more difficulty preemptively identifying with older protagonists.

Peter Graham has said that 'the golden age of science fiction is twelve' (13), assuming, perhaps, that twelve is a golden age because it is such a formative age for readers. Furthermore, there has long been a sense that the genre is geared toward adolescents (perhaps particularly adolescent boys). On television, there are some older central characters within the Star Trek franchise and on Battlestar Galactica, but few female characters who are retirement age and older (which will be my focus in this essay). One significant exception is Cocoon (1985), which stars a cast of older actors and takes concerns of ageing seriously. There are a few instances of science fiction film and television where age is thematically significant or where there are older protagonists, but these are rare as well.

Few representations of old age spring to mind within the genre, particularly within written works of science fiction.

Discussions of the politics of science fiction literature often consider gender, sexuality, race, class, and, more recently, disability age, however, is far less present within science fiction and science fiction criticism.

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