This week: On Senior Characters Edited by: Kitti the Red-Nosed Feline  
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What do you think you'll be like as you grow older? Will you live up to the stereotype of a senior citizen, or will you still be uniquely you?
This week's Drama Newsletter is all about senior characters.
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Your actions catch up with you as you get older. My uncle went through his back last week. It’s not the first time. Years of physical labour have affected his muscles and bones. Likewise, a friend of my husband and I required surgery after an old horse-riding injury kept playing up. My husband’s back and knees show quite a bit of wear and tear. I am not immune, either. The last few years I have needed more medical treatment than I’ve had in the previous decades put together. I am used to there being years in-between doctor’s appointments, but that no longer appears to be the case. I sure hope I won’t turn into one of those people who knows everyone at the practice by name, and their partners, and their kids, because of being around all the time. I’d rather return to supporting the work of health professionals from a safe distance.
This is the way of things: we get away with a lot more when we are younger. Or so we think. It all adds up. That doesn’t mean that it’s not possible to be healthy and fit when you turn older. If you eat healthy meals and allow yourself regular exercise you stand a good chance of being in good shape for many years to come. My great-uncle could do cartwheels when he was in his 80s! I haven’t managed to do those at any age. Just… wear and tear does happen. That’s something to keep in mind as writers, if we are to write realistic older characters.
There are probably reasons that many romantic heroes are in their 20 or 30s and many romantic heroines tend to be some years younger than their love interest. It was all well and good reading about them when I was in my teens, my twenties and my thirties, and I don’t mind it too much now that I am in my 40s, but I sometimes wish there were more romantic leads who are a little older. It’s one of the reasons why I love the TV series Grace and Frankie. The main characters are in their 70s and 80s. They have interesting personalities, they live full lives, they are fun and creative and still filled with passion about what they do. They’re not the stereotypical grandmothers and grandfathers from too many novels and movies whose lives appear to be solely dedicated to knitting socks for their grandchildren, or waiting for the dog to bring one’s newspaper and slippers.
Yet, the characters are older, and Grace and Frankie not only doesn’t shy away from that reality, it highlights what it is to be older in modern-day society. For example, the speed with which pedestrians are expected to cross the road, or how those nice, soft, squishy sofas can be extremely difficult to get up from. Those are things that are unlikely to even enter a younger person’s mind. It is quite common for me to read posts from people who get annoyed at the time older ladies and gentlemen take at a cashpoint, or at a supermarket till. I have never understood why some feel such high levels of irritation at what is only a small delay, but there appears to be genuine resentment at the “loss” of those seconds. It can’t be pleasant being on the receiving end of such impatience.
I know someone who despairs at their mom’s refusal to fit into their mental picture of what an older person is supposed to look like and act like. They compare their mom to their friends’ moms and feel embarrassed. I actually think their mom is great. She colours her hair with henna and generally wears it in braids. She wears colourful clothes, often in clashing patterns, and completes the combination with Doc Martens. She has a nose piercing. She is in her 70s and still wanders over the hills and through the woods looking for interesting plant life. I hope that I will be as active and as interested in the world still when I get to her age. Like me, she loves to study and is usually busy with this course and that course in a wide variety of subjects. I don’t see why that’s anything to be embarrassed about.
It makes me think of those of us who will be the next generation of senior citizens. We won’t fit the current image of who older people are supposed to be. Many of us will have tattoos and piercings, we’ll be connected to the Internet, writing and streaming and gaming. No brown nylons and grey polyester skirts for us, thank you very much! We’re Generation X!
Let our older characters be individuals, then, with as rich an inner life and existence as any other character. Except that perhaps they’ll make some additional sounds when getting up off their seat. And maybe, like my mom, they’ll have to trade the high heels for trainers. Even if they fear that it makes them look like Donald Duck.
It doesn’t, mom. You look great.
Kitti the Red-Nosed Feline
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Drama: June 30, 2021 Issue [#10857]
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