The blurred lines around perceptions of ageing

A 70-something woman auditions for a voice role in a commercial. She receives compliments from the room but is told the client will make the final decision.

A call comes a few weeks later.

It’s a knockback.

Although she is in the demographic group the advertisement will target, she does not sound ‘old’ enough for the part.

She takes it as a complement and pockets some cash for her travelling expenses. But how old is old?

Full of verve, she lost out to someone with a thinner, wavery voice – someone who sounded ‘old’.

Dr Andrew Hughes, a lecturer in marketing at the Australian National University, is concerned about the way older people are portrayed in marketing and advertising.

Dr Hughes has seen it countless times before: the grandmotherly or grandfatherly type who has little purpose outside the home.

“A lot of our ideas, and lot of our marketing and advertising material, is based on a very outdated perception of older people,” he says.

He blames those on the other side of the generation gap for the way older people are presented in the media.

“A lot of the portrayal of older  people is done by younger people,” Dr Hughes says.

“And their ideas are often based on personal experiences.”

Dr Hughes says those behind the marketing often have no significant exposure to older people other than their grandparents.

Grandma baking biscuits or grandpa tinkering in his shed does not constitute a complete picture of them as people or of their lives, he says.

“They get this idea that older people are retired and doing very simple, at-home tasks – and it’s as though they don’t have a mind,” he says.

Dr Hughes likes to set his young students an exercise which involves them sitting down with their grandparents and asking questions  about their lives.

It is not compulsory, because he knows that some do not have grandparents or that family relationships or distance might constrain contact,  but it is a positive experience for those who do.

“I get some really surprised people who realise once they sit and talk that ‘just because they are older than me, and their bodies are starting to fall apart, doesn’t mean that their mind is’.”

Darren Young, chief executive officer of the Queensland Council of the Ageing, is also concerned about a narrow portrayal of older people.

He takes issue with news reporting, which he says does not reflect the full spectrum of ageing or older people.

“What I would say is that the media, in general – and, particularly, the news media – under-report older people … and that it often frames older people in the light of dependence and being past their prime,” he says.

“People are seeing older people  in a negative light, as valueless, dependent on the system and dependent upon others.

“That’s probably a negative view and we’re further marginalising older people when all the messaging out there is about valuing youth.”

Mr Young says media reporting of ageing tends to be limited in range and propels images of older people as a burden or victims.

“We are not seeing some of the stories that probably could be showing a great diversity in the experiences of older people,” he says.

“We’re seeing stories about the extraordinary costs of aged care, hospital beds that are being taken up by older people and keeping other people from getting the care they need, stories that portray older people as a burden  on society.

“We are seeing that a lot. There was a study last year, and I think it was done mainly of news outlets. It was of something like 700 news articles and two-thirds of the stories were all about nursing homes and funding for nursing  homes and problems older people  were experiencing.

“People looking at this through  a community lens are only seeing the very negative view of the older population. It’s basically portraying older people as very needy and, if it’s not doing that, it’s telling stories of older people being valueless and decrepit.

“If we look at news as the big way people get to understand the world, I think there’s more could be done.”

But Mr Young says the problem is not just the news, but what else is on our screens.

He says the main age range  depicted on Australian television  drama is 18 to 44, and although 15 per cent of the population is over 65, only 6.4 per cent of the people on TV are in the same age group.

“It’s not telling the real-world experience of the community. It’s not telling the real story of older people and their experiences,” Mr Young says.

He says the images being  reflected of older people in the media, and the views of the community, could be disempowering.

“What’s going to happen is, that’s going to influence older people’s  view of themselves and their views of people ageing.”

Mr Young says the occasional  story about the achievements of an older person is often framed as happening “despite their age”.

That’s reinforcing the notion that older people should be incapable.

Author Anna Johnston has also picked up on a subtle form of ageism: able-ism, where older people are considered interesting or valued because they carry on with youthful traits or abilities.

She said society still idolised youth, and older people were encouraged to ‘erase’ the signs of ageing by dyeing their hair or smoothing out wrinkles.

Ms Johnston, whose humorous novel The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife focuses on an 82-year-old man and a case of mistaken identity, says less than three per cent of main characters in literature are over 80.

In her article, Beyond the Fountain of Youth: Embracing Authentic Ageing in the Media, she says the under-representation of truly old people sends a message about what society considers worthy of portrayal.

Ms Johnston grew up with her grandparents in the same house and worked at the same nursing home that her grandfather Fred lived in after being diagnosed with dementia.

While working in the nursing home, she was able to observe residents’ strength, resilience and ability to heal and grow, and the way her grandfather maintained his kindness to others – even with his failing memory.

It became important for her to use that in her book.

“I wanted to show not just an older character but an older hero who inspires hope and shows that worth, unlike eyesight, does not diminish with age or declining ability,” she wrote in her article.

Ms Johnston aspires to be an octogenarian and hopes that, if she is lucky enough to reach that age, that there are stories to read about embracing ageing as a valuable and meaningful part of life.