When picturing the perfect protagonist, people often imagine someone young — either in their late-20s or mid-30s, or 16 and coming-of-age. Elderly main characters are few and far between. Situationally, their lives are usually already domesticated by their children and partners.
Take “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Protagonist Evelyn Wang is in her late 50s, fighting against the worldly order of love and the estrangement of her daughter and husband.
Another popular film starring an elderly character, “A Man Called Ove,” follows a grumpy 59-year-old who begrudgingly forms an unlikely friendship with his neighbors.
Robert De Niro’s comedy film, “The Intern,” is about a sweet, retired elderly man employed by a fashion company who takes time to learn from younger people.
In all of these examples, romance is already present in these characters’ lives long before they turn the leaf of middle-age. The love stories stereotypically associated with a film protagonist have already occurred.
First-year student Madeline Anklam notes this isn’t always the case for the elderly. Employed at a senior center, she sees many people pursue romance later in life.
“Sure, they talk about their ex and late partners, but some have also remained single all their lives. You can still explore romantically as an elder,” she said.
For Hollywood, however, sex is out of the question. The media industry curdles at the thought of older people having sex.
Fourth-year University of Iowa student Laura Otting has noticed this, too. Otting has encountered many movies with aged main characters in her experience as a member of the Women in Film club at the UI.
“Older generations get overlooked when it comes to love, romance, and sex in pop culture,” Otting said.
The recent A24 hit, “Babygirl,” in which Nicole Kidman portrays 57-year-old Romy Mathis, challenges this usual notion of sex on screen. The film became somewhat of a cultural phenomenon in December 2024 when it premiered.
Critics like Whitney Friedlander of Variety magazine praised the film for its subversive subject matter. In a year full of films like “The Substance,” which seek to upend gender stereotypes on screen, Friedlander finds “Babygirl” to be the most sexually liberating.
Kidman’s character is a sexy, controlling CEO being seduced by her 25-year-old intern Samuel. Those who are more negative toward the film criticize it for its glamorization of the age gap romance rather than celebrate the depiction.
The age gap aside, critics say the film is not a good representation of the elderly. Following the same tropes elderly leading characters have been restricted by for years Kidman’s character has a pre-established relationship with her husband and doesn’t get much of an arc worthy of a film protagonist.
“The reason why ‘Babygirl’ didn’t work for me is because it didn’t feel like an actual exploration of the female erotic fantasy. It felt very hollow and surface-level,” Otting said. “When you see a lot of female actresses and characters put in these roles, you have to ask, ‘Are they doing this to make a statement, or are they showing boobs to show boobs?’”
Critics like Otting claim “Babygirl” isn’t as different as everyone thinks it is. It exacerbates pop culture’s stereotypes of the elderly.
The depiction of older folks in films has influences far beyond Hollywood. Negative age stereotypes and perceptions can have detrimental effects on the mental health, hireability, financial security, and social isolation of older people.
According to a study done in 2020 through the World Health Organization, an excess of $63 billion is spent annually on health conditions. Any form of prejudice ends up leading to costs, but there are far fewer polices and regulations in place around the world to combat ageism.
Films like the previously mentioned “The Intern” depict elderly workers as doting sources for comedy. De Niro’s character in the film is a retiree who gets a gig at a tech startup after they create a specialized senior intern position to perform progressiveness.
As critics of the film were eager to point out after the film released in 2015, the end of the film reinforced ageist stereotypes in the workplace. De Niro’s character leaves his position and returns to retirement, where he is seen living a more peaceful life, and the film portrays this as the correct decision, casting him as an outlier in the workplace but comfortable alone at home.
While the grumpy, isolated old man stereotype is likely the ageist trope most people are familiar with, “cougar culture” has been prowling the social conscious as well.
“Your mom” jokes have been a staple of school lunch tables for generations. The recent shift to joking about “MILFs,” a term sexualizing older women, is indicative of the shift in popular culture. Movies like “Babygirl” or Anne Hathaway’s “The Idea of You” centralize age-gap relationships and are completely marketed on the sexualization of older women.
Cougar culture is making a comeback in film and is perpetuating stereotypes that older women are only physically appealing when a younger counterpart deems them so.
“It’s honestly creepy. People typically date in their own ranges, and it’s reasonable to say that your attraction develops with your age,” Anklam said. “In real life, it’s predatory if a 60-year-old is with a 20-year-old. That, or people make comments like: ‘Oh, you’re in it for the insurance money.’ That’s also harmful to how the elderly are perceived.’” This depiction exacerbates the anxiety around aging and older body image disturbance.
“If you want to look at cougar culture, look at Adam Sandler’s opening sequence in ‘That’s My Boy.’ It’s something that’s been perpetuated since the ‘70s and ‘80s. The young boy wants to sleep with the older hot mom-slash-teacher,” Otting said.
Antonymous with the Lolita Effect, cougar culture is a phenomenon often obsessed with conquering and controlling older people. For example, Samuel gets off on the power his sexual extortion has over his otherwise empowered boss, Romy, in “Babygirl.”
“That’s what abuse of the elder is. You know they are vulnerable and, in some cases, unable to stand up for themselves when they’re being manipulated,” Anklam said.
Although Romy isn’t very “vulnerable” in the sense that people in need of a senior center or living home are, she has a lot missing from her life.
This makes her emotionally volatile, and the comfort that Samuel offers her is purely sexual. Even though he falls in love with her later, the lead-up to this is not contextualized by traditional and affectionate romance.
The focus of the film is not her personality, looks, or journey. It’s her age gap with Samuel and the reversal of their roles. The movie is littered with resignifications of age that comment on this.
For example, the film’s feature song “Father Figure” juxtaposes Samuel to Romy’s priest or authority. Controlling an otherwise independent, older woman is what drives his attraction and the success of their exchanges.
“The problem with the sexualization of older women is when the relationship they’re in with younger men is not about their emotional connection, but their age gap,” Otting said.
Instead of exploring the deep psychological and emotional nuances of being in a relationship with an older partner, most depictions prefer to take the fetishization route. Unfortunately, women in film have been facing hypersexualization since the dawn of cinema. Only now, elderly characters seem to be receiving more attention.
Not every film featuring elderly characters falls into stereotyping, though. Recent films like “Thelma” tackle age with humor and, in the case of this John Wick-esque comedy, blood. June Sqiubb starred in “Thelma” at 95 years old, an incredible feat. The story works to upend our expectations of elderly people and sees Thelma kicking ass on her motorized scooter rather than settling for the pitfalls of society’s expectations for elderly women.
In a more realistic depiction, Meryl Streep portrays a powerful woman at the head of The Washington Post in the 2017 film, “The Post.” While male characters around her try to make decisions on her behalf and constantly doubt her intelligence, Streep’s character, based on the real life Katharine Graham, follows her instinct and leads the publication through a difficult time.
While these two examples do reject stereotypes, they are the exception to the pattern. The pop culture we consume has reduced the elderly to one of three tropes: happy and settled, grumpy and widowed, or seductive and malleable. Critics of this trend wouldn’t classify these as characters, rather ageist caricatures.