Hollywood needs to “wise up,” asserts the state of California’s leading advocate for older adults. The California Commission on Aging recently convened authorities from the entertainment industry and the field of aging to strategize how to improve the portrayal of…
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Don’t know what ageism is? Ask a millennial to describe “old age.” You will hear words like retired, sickly, frail, feeble, dependent. These are ageist stereotypes of older adults. And these stereotypes manifest themselves in various forms of discrimination that…
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Guest essay by Carla Gardini, Executive Vice President of Harpo Films. (Reprinted by permission from AgeWatch, publication of the California Commission on Aging) A work in progress, which like most everything in Hollywood, is probably the best way to respond…
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Helen Mirren plays a good badass, and not only when the cameras are rolling. For her, her art regularly imitates her life. She is more confident in presence and purpose than most people half her age (which is 72). Most…
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This is an old story with a new plot twist: Add to Hollywood’s well-documented biases against woman and minorities a new category: older adults. More confirmation than revelation, ageism exists in the entertainment industry, according to a comprehensive study of…
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Growing older is confounded by misapprehensions, contradictions, ironies and age-inappropriateness. The sooner we can correct these bad attitudes and actions and get back to when longevity rules, the sooner we can slap a cease-and-desist order on manufacturers and marketers of…
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“Hey, isn’t that ... oh crap, you know from that old show ... damn, what’s his name ... Alan Thicke?” “Nope,” your friend declares, and thinks, “Welcome to Hollywood, you rube.” There is a phenomenon that occurs with remarkable regularity…
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In the intrinsically superficial world of Hollywood where people make a living pretending to be who they’re not, it’s not surprising that many actors attack aging as a challenge to play “against type” – both on-screen and off. Frances McDormand,…
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Veteran actors Helen Mirren, 68, and Om Puri, 64, star in the new DreamWorks film “The Hundred-Foot Journey.” The story is not about age though. Food, family, ego, ambition and love are the ageless themes of this mini-masterpiece. With its…
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Hollywood is getting the message about catering to mature audiences – the one-in-five among us 65-and-older, with comparatively more disposable income, more time to be entertained and less time to be wasted. Longevity rules in this new genre, which is…
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