Life
FLASH: Hollywood to Portray Olderhood in a Positive Light
Might the Moguls be catching on to the new reality of longevity?
Why would anyone be interested in a Rom-Com movie with a sixty-something woman and man?
I mean…seriously.
They’ve got to be way, way, way too old to be interested in sex, romance, new relationships, or anything but bingo, grandkids and crabgrass.
They just can’t have the inner fires and desires of attraction, newness, growth, challenge, relevance, and accomplishment that one experiences and desires in early adulthood.
After all, they’re in decline. They’re set in their ways. They’re old!!!
Oh yeah?
The Big Lie That’s Stupid
Well, here’s the thing. The Really, Really, Big, Big Thing:
When you get older you realize that this belief is the biggest pile of shit that has ever existed on planet Earth.
It’s the 8th Wonder of the World. Although the “wonder” is how we bought into the big lie.
How did we build such a colossal pile of fecal matter?
We did it by assuming we’re supposed to get “old” and live down to all the old, outdated, or untrue stereotypes of aging.
We did it by buying into marketing and Hollywood telling us how it is.
News flash: Hollywood and advertising agencies are masters of the dung heap and/or they just aren’t all that smart.
A new rom-com movie with older stars
For every rule, there is an exception, and on October 13th it will be in the form of “What Happens Next” starring the queen of Rom-Com, 61-year-old Meg Ryan, and 63-year-old X-Files star David Duchovny (Hmmmm. Maybe the aliens or that shadow government group is behind this).
Ryan is even directing it! OMG. An older woman being and star and directing?!?!?
Will the sun still rise in the east on October 14th?
From USA TODAY:
According to an analysis released in March by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, 36% of films released last year included a speaking female character in her 30s. But that number sharply decreased as women got into their 40s (16%), 50s (8%) and 60s (7%).
Even lower (it seems) are the number of compelling and positive movies about being older.
Hollywood and marketers go for the low-hanging fruit and what they believe to be the safe bet (Yeah, like the old saying, “Nobody ever got fired buying IBM”. Low-hanging fruit is often the first to spoil).
Granted, some roles scream for youth, beauty, and hot bodies. An older James Bond and “Bond Girl” probably won’t sell (although Sean Connery certainly cut it in other roles in his 60s and Jeff Bridges is doing great in the action series The Old Man as the protagonist).
You wouldn’t expect an “older” superhero (however…hmmmm…there may be something to that. Let’s do lunch).
As for advertising, marketing, and product development, the stupid meter goes off the scale.
According to the Brookings Institute, spending by people over 60 will hit $14 trillion dollars this decade. In the U.S. 70% of all the wealth is in the hands of people over 55.
By 2030 there will be more people in the world over the age of 65 than under 19.
Yet, they insult us with their banal portrayals of what the 30-something creative team (creative being a vast overstatement in this case) assumes and presumes life is like for older people.
Yeah, let’s fire that creative director who is 39 because he’s too old.
They haven’t caught up to the new reality of an extended health and life span. How people over 50 are transforming their lives, ways to earn a living, and what it means to be older.
Despite all of the statistics (including the number of business startups) and anecdotal evidence.
They’re missing out on trillions of dollars while hurting their brand, product, and themselves.
Ageism is an attack on your future…no matter your age
The underlying point is the underlying prejudice towards people who are “older”.
It’s an attack on all of us including those just born.
In the movies. In advertising. In our language.
Narratives about aging “can help shape our perceptions of what it might look like to age in the current world as it is,” Katherine Pieper, program director at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, told USA TODAY earlier this year.
“The more that we can see authentic portrayals of what it means to grow older in society … that might be very important for how people think about their own life trajectory.”
Yes!
Ageism in the form of beliefs, assumptions, presumptions, stereotypes, and language is being prejudiced against your future self.
(Sigh)
As Emerson said, “Where there is no path, leave a trail” and the trail is forming.
As with Meg Ryan and others (Helen Mirren, Al Pacino, Jamie Lee Curtis, Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman, Joan Allen, and Angela Bassett to name just a few), it’s up to each of us to destroy the lie.
We destroy it by example.
We can rant and scream about the wrongness of all this (thank you for letting me, it’s been therapeutic) but ultimately, it’s proof in the pudding.
It’s how we live our lives and make examples of ourselves.
Back to Meg
An article about the movie in USA TODAY by Patrick Ryan inspired me to write this. In it, he provided a great quote from (Meg) Ryan in Net-A-Porter magazine.
“I love my age. I love my life right now. I love what I know about. I love the person I’ve become, the one I’ve evolved into.”
So maybe an “older” person can have the inner fires and desires of attraction, newness, growth, challenge, and accomplishment.
Maybe we can have a rom-com experience or at least want to watch a movie about one with older love interests.
As the older woman said at the end of the famous orgasm scene at the diner in Ryan’s When Harry Met Sally:
“I’ll have what she’s having.”
Looking for a New Way Forward in your life? You can get my free “Launch Yourself Get Started Guide” by going to www.NewWayFWD.com.
