I'm sick of old people clichés on TV – last time I checked we're living rich, fulfilled lives

Telegraph

19-06-2025

Are you an older person? Do you feel 'bombarded' by adverts for funeral services, care homes and mobility aids? Ah, bless. I have every sympathy, why when I become… wait, these commercials are aimed at the over-55s?
That's me! Seriously. Me! I'm not dependent and defenceless, I'm not about to cark it. And even if I were, it wouldn't give me any peace of mind knowing my casket is all paid for. I need that money for flamenco lessons and overpriced restaurants that only sell small plates. I've still got a teenager at home for pity's sake – and no, she's not my grandchild.
But in the eyes of today's proverbial Mad Men, I'm fair game for both funeral plans and weaponised skincare products that promise to 'fight' sign of ageing and banish the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles – because why on earth would anyone want to look like a (whisper it) midlife woman.
According to a poll by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), older people are fed up with being 'reduced to outdated stereotypes' depicting them as lonely and vulnerable. And it's not all in their (our?) minds. More than a third of the UK population believes that older people are 'negatively stereotyped' in ads which depict them as 'lonely, purposeless or powerless'.
What an indictment. Maybe our contemporary Don Drapers and Peggy Olsens could remind themselves how times and generations have changed by catching up with current television shows, which have evolved – and are all the better for it.
It's chastening to know that in the rebooted Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw was 55, and her friends Miranda Hobbes and Charlotte York were 54, making them around the same age as Rose, Dorothy and Blanche in the early seasons of The Golden Girls. I know, right?
In this new research, people of all ages said they wanted to see more 'authentic and realistic' portrayals of older people, avoiding binary depictions of pensioners as 'always being wealthy or grumpy'.
Bring back the classic Renault Clio adverts, I say, where Nicole kept finding her Papa getting up to French mischief in Aix en Provence. That's how ageing ought to look – and not a Werther's Original in sight.
Given that Ofcom figures show 82 per cent of Baby Boomers watch television compared with 48 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds, the whole industry needs to pivot.
We need more series like the fabulous Last Tango in Halifax – would anyone dare tell the magnificent Anne Reid she was in need of a stairlift? Or what about Vera? DCI Stanhope (played by Brenda Blethyn) outwitting criminals and whippersnapper colleagues alike for 14 years. Losing her marbles? Aged 79, she had more bloomin' marbles than the British Museum. Admittedly she was a bit grumpy – but crucially, she wasn't just grumpy.
And it's the retrograde one-dimensional tropes that advertising needs to axe. It seems crazy in this day and age but in mainstream commercials, an old person is still regarded as visual shorthand for 'out of touch' and 'in need of care'.
That's why I hollered with joy when a friend recently sent me a video from Instagram featuring a catwalk show of stunning elderly models sashaying down the runway in jaw-dropping pleated dresses. It was, quite simply, joyful.
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Only afterwards did we both realise it had been dreamed up by AI. It was both impressive and alarming. After all, what does it say about the creatives dominating the advertising sector when artificial intelligence has a clearer – and saliently, more creative – vision of the future than they do?
Older people are quite rightly cavilling at being lazily written off as hopeless and socially isolated. And that needs to be reflected in commercials as well as in programming schedules.
Think of Rip Off Britain, fronted by the redoubtable Gloria Hunniford, now 85, with a roster of other high-profile women of a certain age. And who could resist the humour and charm of Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing? Bob Mortimer is 66 and Paul Whitehouse 67. I wonder how they would react if a bloke in a cardigan turned up on the banks of the River Frome trying to flog them a couple of shower chairs?
The BBC's new crime caper Death Valley, which debuted last month, has proved to be a ratings winner. Its star? Timothy Spall aged – pass the commode! – 68.
I really do hope this new survey will give advertisers pause and mark a real sea change. And not just advertisers; woe betide the next politician who next describes older voters as a 'demographic time bomb' as though their very existence were a threat to the young.
The 'othering' of a huge proportion of the electorate won't wash these days. It's insulting and reductive to start offering us funeral plans at 55 – and not just now and then but in every ad break on daytime telly – when many of us are immersed in the most rewarding peak of our careers and the rest are planning the next footloose-and-fancy-free chapter of our lives.