Thursday, May 31, 2007
We hate old people and it's all Walt Disney's fault apparently.
A study by American researchers at Brigham Young University, Utah, looked at 93 characters who appeared to be aged 55 or older from 34 Disney films going back 70 years.
...Typical portrayals of elderly people included showing them as toothless, hunched, and with cracking voices. Many were depicted with "saggy breasts", the researchers said in an article for the medical publication Journal of Ageing Studies.
The academics, who recognised that many Disney creations were based on Brothers Grimm fairytales, added: "Some of the films (15 per cent) contained only negative portrayals of older characters, and 71 per cent of the films contained at least one negative portrayal of an older character."
Their study concludes: "Why the portrayals of older people seem more negative when the consumers are children is uncertain."
I suspect that the academics really wanted an all expenses junket to eastern Europe to 'investigate' why the Brothers Grimm stories had negative elderly people stereotypes but the university wouldn't pay for more than a half dozen DVDs. And let's think of the films with positive portrayals of the elderly, The Princess Bride, The Matrix, Stop or my Mom Will Shoot! ...
A study by American researchers at Brigham Young University, Utah, looked at 93 characters who appeared to be aged 55 or older from 34 Disney films going back 70 years.
...Typical portrayals of elderly people included showing them as toothless, hunched, and with cracking voices. Many were depicted with "saggy breasts", the researchers said in an article for the medical publication Journal of Ageing Studies.
The academics, who recognised that many Disney creations were based on Brothers Grimm fairytales, added: "Some of the films (15 per cent) contained only negative portrayals of older characters, and 71 per cent of the films contained at least one negative portrayal of an older character."
Their study concludes: "Why the portrayals of older people seem more negative when the consumers are children is uncertain."
I suspect that the academics really wanted an all expenses junket to eastern Europe to 'investigate' why the Brothers Grimm stories had negative elderly people stereotypes but the university wouldn't pay for more than a half dozen DVDs. And let's think of the films with positive portrayals of the elderly, The Princess Bride, The Matrix, Stop or my Mom Will Shoot! ...
Labels: ageism, movies, stupidity
