Old People in Movies

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One trope that I truly despise in movies but I see all the time is old people dying or getting a stroke or something.

It's almost as if filmmakers think the whole purpose of an old person is to die or be infirm or something.

If a movie has an older character 9 times out of 10 they will die or fall ill in some way.



One trope that I truly despise in movies but I see all the time is old people dying or getting a stroke or something.

It's almost as if filmmakers think the whole purpose of an old person is to die or be infirm or something.

If a movie has an older character 9 times out of 10 they will die or fall ill in some way.
I couldn’t agree more; in fact, I was just about to start a thread on this yesterday but you beat me to it. It’s not just the dying and getting a stroke as such, but the ****ing pseudo-Darwinian assumption that it’s okay for old people to be left to die in the climax (this applies especially to science fiction and disaster movies), with old people themselves usually promoting such an approach. Just watched Greenland and it’s there, but the most gruesome example I can think of is Dante’s Peak.



I can half agree with this in the sense that having an old/older character die or experience a medical emergency is a quick and easy way to generate emotion in the viewer. I do sometimes roll my eyes when a movie totally telegraphs that some sweet old lady or man is going to get sick or die just to generate feels.

But on the other hand, death/dying/illness is a big concern and issue for people in that stage of life. Losing someone to old age--especially a parent or parent-like figure--is probably one of the most defining life moments for many people. I can easily think of several films that used this notion as the center of a really compelling narrative, things like Marjorie Prime or Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont.

Movies frequently focus on major life events for their characters (having a baby, going to the prom, getting married, kissing someone for the first time, going away to college, etc). These things make it into films because they generate emotions and they are common experiences for most viewers.



I can half agree with this in the sense that having an old/older character die or experience a medical emergency is a quick and easy way to generate emotion in the viewer. I do sometimes roll my eyes when a movie totally telegraphs that some sweet old lady or man is going to get sick or die just to generate feels.

But on the other hand, death/dying/illness is a big concern and issue for people in that stage of life. Losing someone to old age--especially a parent or parent-like figure--is probably one of the most defining life moments for many people. I can easily think of several films that used this notion as the center of a really compelling narrative, things like Marjorie Prime or Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont.

Movies frequently focus on major life events for their characters (having a baby, going to the prom, getting married, kissing someone for the first time, going away to college, etc). These things make it into films because they generate emotions and they are common experiences for most viewers.
Marjorie Prime seemed to me reasonably original. The analogy
WARNING: spoilers below
with the dog is both a bit flippant and quite profound in terms of false memories and how humans process loss
. As I read the topic (and certainly as I’ve been thinking myself recently after watching Greenland), it’s more about old people being seen as destined to die. There seems to be no other option for elderly characters, even in films that have nothing to do with death/ the end-of-life journey. One notable and remarkable exception is Farewell, where
WARNING: spoilers below
we are told at the end that the grandmother defied the odds and lived for years after the protagonist’s visit
. I appreciate your point that the end of life journey is a big concern, but it’s rarely addressed from the point of view of the dying/the old themselves and I find it a little exploitative and quite manipulative. With regards to ‘generating emotion’, yes, I guess so, but it’s become such a trope that the impact is in fact diminishing because we expect the death. I am honestly more surprised if an old person survives till the end of the film these days, such as in The Mule. It’s reductive and disrespectful to old people to assume their narrative worth and purpose begins and ends with either helping other, younger characters process death, or arriving at it themselves.



One trope that I truly despise in movies but I see all the time is old people dying or getting a stroke or something.

It's almost as if filmmakers think the whole purpose of an old person is to die or be infirm or something.

If a movie has an older character 9 times out of 10 they will die or fall ill in some way.
I think Death Wish 3 offers a nice antidote to this trope.



It’s reductive and disrespectful to old people to assume their narrative worth and purpose begins and ends with either helping other, younger characters process death, or arriving at it themselves.
I think that there are a lot of demographics that have a very overused function in films.

For example, the wife/girlfriend of the male hero is often raped and murdered so that he has something to avenge. It is reductive and disrespectful to women to assume that their narrative worth is suffering in order to evoke emotion in a male character.

Sticking with action, children often mainly exist to bring out the dormant humanity in the lead character. It is reductive and disrespectful to children to assume that their narrative worth is being adorable and/or vulnerable to motivate an adult character.

I think that most tropes, when they are centered on a specific demographic, feel reductive and disrespectful.

I also think that a character dying is something that forever alters the status quo in any situation. And an older person dying is simply more plausible and is the kind of death that can be placed in a narrative without introducing gruesome spectacle.

There are films that deal with death/dying from the point of view of the elderly person, but they obviously don't feel like tropes because the narrative has been thought out from that perspective.

So I agree that it is an over-used trope, but I don't find it much more offensive than other tropes.



When I first saw this thread title I thought of a character actor named Burt Mustin.

I remember seeing him on All in the Family and he played an old man, but then I was astounded to keep seeing him in older and older shows & movies, yet he always played an old man!
I started to wonder if this guy was EVER young!

Old black and white movies from the early 50's and there he was, same guy, and he was an old man even then!

I came to learn that Burt appeared in his first film at the age of 67 in 1951 - so he appeared "old" during his entire acting career which spanned 25 years right up until he died! He was born in 1884! He lived to be 92 and died in 1977.

I will always think of him as the perpetually old man.




I think that there are a lot of demographics that have a very overused function in films...

...So I agree that it is an over-used trope, but I don't find it much more offensive than other tropes.
I never said ‘offensive’ - boy, that word is loaded. I do understand where you’re coming from when you make that point, but I must say, at times it baffles me as an argument.

I think the first time you made a similar point was the feminism thread. I just don’t see what the existence of any other tropes, if that’s what we must call it, has to do with this ‘trope’ (again, if this is even about tropes). I don’t think it’s particularly helpful to evoke the idea that all cinema is stereotypical when you’re discussing a particular issue. What does that give? What has it got to do with anything? How does saying there are many other tropes shed light on this particular topic?

Imagine you were writing a paper about child slavery in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 21st century - surely child labour in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when it was pretty common, would be irrelevant?

And I do see a difference between girlfriends/wives and this one, but I fear this will really detract from the main topic of the conversation if we go there. Suffice to say that it’s not the same to kill a wife mainly to give the protagonist a revenge motive (and I wouldn’t say most wives in films die, the above is more common in third-rate thrillers and B-movies) and to implicitly show that old people cannot but die. This is about age, as per OP. I do agree with the OP that if you see an old person at tie beginning of a film, it’s a fair assumption that they will die.

In my view, no matter how many wives are killed for the protagonist to have a revenge motive, that doesn’t suggest women are destined to die. There will likely be a new female interest over the course of the film and, more importantly, other secondary female characters, be it a ‘prostitute’ or a barmaid or whatnot. I don’t even believe women die disproportionately more in action films than men - I’d argue that, on balance, the number of slaughtered evil henchmen evens that one out. One wife/girlfriend vs loads and loads of ‘disposable’ male machos.

But old people tend to be underrepresented in that there’s usually one elderly character, and it’s this character that inevitably dies. This doesn’t always (I would argue, hardly ever), serve to teach anyone anything. It’s one thing to take this approach to instill empathy or whatnot, but another to make an explicit argument that old people’s lives are less valuable. This is not in any way like the murdered women. Dante’s Peak has a scene where the protagonists (woman with kids and her new male love interest)
WARNING: spoilers below
are escaping on a boat through an acid lake. The boat starts to melt. The elderly character in the scene, the woman’s former mother-in-law, the mother of her late husband, jumps into the acid to push the boat to shore. Her legs melt into stumps and she dies, having saved the family. Unless one is used to hardcore horror, this is an extremely graphic scene, which serves to reinforce the point even further. Why didn’t the younger guy jump in the water? In many cultures that would be the expected thing to do - save the women and children and the elderly.
But I guess the writers had to make sure the lovely young lady had someone to screw.

I see no comparable use of female characters. If we’re talking about the idea that women will always prioritise children and sacrifice their lives for children, then I think there’s a certain biological instinct there that can’t be ignored, but I don’t remember very many scenes of leaving a woman behind to die in a disaster film being seen as totally cool and noble. Yes, you have Harry Potter-type stuff when the woman covers her child and dies, but anyone would do that. This is the point of the maternal instinct, biologically.

But scenes like the Dante’s Peak example make a point that this is the elderly’s narrative (and life) function. This is chauvinistic in some sense or bigoted, or perhaps there’s another word, but it’ll come to me.

Again, as I was watching Greenland, I wondered whether there is a film where the elderly character says to the younger adults in this semi-noble way that they’ll die where their wives died and whatnot and condemn themselves to dying as someone ‘less important’, but the protagonists then make them change their mind and save them. A bit like Walter White deciding,
WARNING: spoilers below
Nah, you know what, this is fun, think I’m gonna give that chemo a try
. Change of heart.



For example, the wife/girlfriend of the male hero is often raped and murdered so that he has something to avenge. It is reductive and disrespectful to women to assume that their narrative worth is suffering in order to evoke emotion in a male character.
What’s even more “disrespectful” is when said events evoke zero emotion in the male character.
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What’s even more “disrespectful” is when said events evoke zero emotion in the male character.
I mean, some men are conditioned to be or (and that’s also possible!) are naturally non-emotional. Does the lack of writhing on the ground in sackcloth and ashes Job-style detract from their grief? I thought The Quantum of Solace gave us a great show of male grief with zero emotion shown, and that’s just one example.



I mean, some men are conditioned to be or (and that’s also possible!) are naturally non-emotional. Does the lack of writhing on the ground in sackcloth and ashes Job-style detract from their grief? I thought The Quantum of Solace gave us a great show of male grief with zero emotion shown, and that’s just one example.
How can you have a “great show of male grief” with “zero emotion”? It doesn’t make sense & I’ve never seen the movie you reference.



I am honestly more surprised if an old person survives till the end of the film these days, such as in The Mule.
To be fair it's based on a true story so the filmmakers didn't really have a choice.



I think the first time you made a similar point was the feminism thread. I just don’t see what the existence of any other tropes, if that’s what we must call it, has to do with this ‘trope’ (again, if this is even about tropes). I don’t think it’s particularly helpful to evoke the idea that all cinema is stereotypical when you’re discussing a particular issue. What does that give? What has it got to do with anything? How does saying there are many other tropes shed light on this particular topic?
The function of evoking other tropes is to contextualize my response/opinion about this specific topic (the portrayal of the elderly in film and the trope of the old person whose narrative function is to die or become debilitated). And my opinion is that I agree that this trope is a thing, but that I do not find it more off-putting/offensive than other common tropes that tend to involve specific demographics.

My response wasn't just "Oh, well, lots of tropes exist *shrug*." I said that there are some good films that buck this trend, said why I felt that this trope actually has some narrative value in supporting themes about change and loss, and then gave my opinion about whether or not it bothers me.

In my view, no matter how many wives are killed for the protagonist to have a revenge motive, that doesn’t suggest women are destined to die. There will likely be a new female interest over the course of the film and, more importantly, other secondary female characters, be it a ‘prostitute’ or a barmaid or whatnot. I don’t even believe women die disproportionately more in action films than men - I’d argue that, on balance, the number of slaughtered evil henchmen evens that one out. One wife/girlfriend vs loads and loads of ‘disposable’ male machos.
I didn't say that more women die in action movies.

I said that female characters (usually the wife/girlfriend) are often used as a narrative device to generate anger in the main male character.

And my larger point is that anytime an underwritten character is introduced into a film just as a narrative device and not as a "real" person, it makes me roll my eyes. Whether that's an elderly person clearly destined to die; a generic angelic wife/girlfriend who is obviously going to be dead before the 10-minute mark (ditto a generic smiling family--they are clearly headed for a car bomb!); heck, I don't even like it when dogs or cats are introduced just so that something can eat/kill them in the first act.



The function of evoking other tropes is to contextualize my response/opinion about this specific topic (the portrayal of the elderly in film and the trope of the old person whose narrative function is to die or become debilitated). And my opinion is that I agree that this trope is a thing, but that I do not find it more off-putting/offensive than other common tropes that tend to involve specific demographics.

My response wasn't just "Oh, well, lots of tropes exist *shrug*." I said that there are some good films that buck this trend, said why I felt that this trope actually has some narrative value in supporting themes about change and loss, and then gave my opinion about whether or not it bothers me.
Yeah, okay, fair enough. I do appreciate that not everyone is bothered by the same things. I did bring it up because that’s what the thread is about. I see your point about change and loss. Still think it makes the character appear disposable. This bit of the thread, I think, has gone astray from what I was getting at originally, which was that old people were seen as more disposable than other characters. There may well be a kind of gradation where female characters are more disposable than men and the elderly are more disposable than women. I mean, I’m losing the plot a bit here. My personal view is that creating the assumption that the elderly are destined to imminently die is cheap. It’s cheaper than suggesting a woman’s death works to motivate the protagonist for revenge.



It’s more cheap than suggesting a woman’s death works to motivate the protagonist for revenge.
English grammar 101: Superlatives - cheap, cheaper, cheapest. (Don’t hate me. Please.)