Left Behind?

No, not the series of books that purports to be about the Revelation to John. I'm talking about people of a certain age. Like the man said, I'm talkin' 'bout MY generation. You know, us over the hills.

I recently read an article in the AARP newsletter (yep, I joined when I turned 50...been wanting to get those nice discounts on hotels and stuff for quite awhile now...I know my friend who writes Darwin's Cat hates AARP but if we have any chance of saving Social Security, they're the ones with the clout to do it...but I digress) about writers in Hollywood filing a class action lawsuit against the major studios, charging them with age discrimination. I had been reading for a number of years in Writer's Digest magazine that if you wanted to write for Hollywood, if you were over 30, you could just forget it. Not that I ever wanted to write for Hollywood, mind you, and if I had, I guess I would have moved out there long before I was 30.

One of the people quoted in the article (sorry, I don't have it in front of me), a baby boomer like myself, said that back in the days when movies like The Big Chill and shows like thirtysomething were popular, the writers assumed that, being baby boomers and the biggest group in the population and all, that there would always be a market in Hollywood for their writing. That the people who were writing about the angst of boomers in their thirties (getting married, having babies, the struggles of the career jungle) would later write about the angst of being in their forties, fifties, sixties, etc. No one, said this writer, ever expected that one day the studio executives would all be in their 20s and looking across the table at these writers and thinking, "These guys are old enough to be my parents."

But that's how it worked out. The writer interviewed in the article complained that these studio execs think that older writers can't write for younger audiences. We can, we can! he insists. But they won't hire us, so how would they know!

Weeelll...

Baby boomer and child of the 1960s, I well remember my favorite TV shows from back then (many are on cable these days, and others are on DVD, and some that are not, well, there are bootleg copies out there). And I remember some of the fortysomething writers on some of my favorite shows trying to write scripts to appeal to us up-and-coming teens, circa 1964-1967. If you are old enough to remember those years, you will remember that EVERYTHING changed in America during that very short period of time. And friends, on my favorite shows, the scripts, the dialogue, the direction, the production, the costumes, all of it was just plain embarrassing. Those folks didn't have a clue what we kids were thinking, or saying, or doing, or even wearing. So...I of all people hate to say this but...the twentysomething studio executives may have a case here.

For a long time I couldn't figure out why the television/movie market was so saturated with shows for the very young when we aging boomers make up so much of the population. Then one of my marketing savvy friends pointed out that it's all about advertising. We aging boomers have been around the block long enough to figure out what products we like to use, and we use them. We like X soap and Y car and so on, and we buy the products we know and trust. Younger folks are still trying to figure out what they like, so they are more open to advertisements for different products. And then too, hate to say it, younger folks go out more than we do. They go to the movies every week (I remember when I used to do that...and I don't anymore). So movies are geared to the young crowd that likes to go.

There are so many shows on TV and so many movies that I have absolutely no interest in seeing. "Reality" shows in particular: I can't figure out why anyone would want to see people get humiliated...or humiliate themselves. But there is a younger crowd that apparently is eating this stuff up.

I don't know how the class action lawsuit is going to turn out -- the age discrimination seems to be pretty blatant, but who knows. It is discouraging to realize that hey, maybe you really are over the hill.

BUT: if all this is so, why is it that I can sit and read Harry Potter books all day long? These are children's books, and they deal with children's themes: going to school, dealing with the angst of growing up (what do you say to that girl that you'd like to know better? how do you deal with that gang of bullies? what do you do when your teacher is unfair?). So why do they resonate with me -- and with a lot of other adults, from what I hear?

For one thing, they are well written. Hooray for J. K. Rowling (and her editor)! For another, they deal with universal themes: Harry isn't dealing with anything at school that we boomers didn't deal with (okay, leaving out the magical parts! I mean the childhood/teenage angst issues). We adults can even relate some of Harry's challenges to our own as adults if we consider them metaphorically (facing a dragon is a wonderful metaphor).

Maybe Hollywood could use some better writers. Writers who can write for all of us. Let the advertisers shake it all out. Don't assume that because I'm over 50, the only thing you can sell me is a Craft-Matic bed and burial insurance. Remember, advertisers, I'm now in the age group that has the most disposable income. You can sell me cars and computers and high-ticket items. Well, you can try, anyway.

Pastor Kathy