As a senior, I’m well awareof how we are marginalized by most of our youth-fixated culture. When I heard mention of an article about a Golden-aged Bachelor TV series, I cheered – until I saw a picture of the ‘typical’ 71 year-old bachelor.
The accompanying article about seniors was quite good, actually. It ignored the fact that many single seniors, most having had at least one or two ‘go-rounds’ at marriage, aren’t the least interested in matrimony. But, apart from that small fact, it was great. But the chosen ‘Golden Boy’ killed it for me.
The ‘Golden Boy’ is truly golden. A simply gorgeous, tall, fit, fabulously dressed man with just a hint of salt-and-pepper in his full head of hair. The 71 year-old is so handsome and tanned that he simply doesn’t look real. I was hoping for more reality and less hair. I was assuming that the program wouldn’t follow the lead of the Kardatians and Barbie, but I was wrong. The series producers simply upped the anti as they upped the age.
I should have known better. It’s TV. It’s fake, as factual as Trump’s speeches. But that’s what we’re used to. It’s what sells. It seems that many of us don’t want reality. We don’t want to admit that people with ‘age-lines’ can still love and hope. Maybe we want to have an excuse to not risk the sharing of ourselves that is needed in order to find a deep relationship. Since we know we don’t look like that, it gets us off the hook. We can just turn on the TV and watch vicariously, being confident that because we aren’t like that in any way, we don’t have a chance. So we stay alone and unchallenged. And we allow the caricatures of the elderly to become even more entrenched.
Being not-rich and not looking like movie stars, we’d better just stay as we are, unchangeable, choosing to not choose anything different. It’s easier to accept our situation and just watch the series on TV. So sad. But it must be the truth, it’s on T.V. Fellow seniors, why do we put up with this garbage, hiding who and what we are by staying placidly in the shadows?
Just imagine, seniors, being the largest and wealthiest generation in our culture, what we could do if we stopped allowing others to tell us who we are and what we’re good for! We really don’t have to put up with the shit that’s handed us. We could change the world, if we chose. We could leave a legacy to be proud of. The first thing to do would be to block the crap on TV and the news that’s untrue and distorts our reality. That’s easy to do, if we do it together.
But that would mean we’d have to communicate and go against the norms that society has given us. Not much chance that it will happen, but it’s possible. Who would produce or watch a TV show that was actually real, anyway. (I certainly would.)
Anthony, just hoping for more reality in my life.
