When women are too old to appear on TV The broadcaster Miriam O'Reilly is suing the BBC for ageism. She's not the first TV presenter to cry foul, but how does the dearth of visible older women affect the rest of us? Miriam O'Reilly, who is suing the BBC for age and sex discrimination after she was axed from Countryfile. Photograph: BBC Miriam O'Reilly could be forgiven for having ­believed that her job was safe. A long-established broadcaster, she worked for the BBC for 25 years, most recently as a presenter of the Sunday-morning rural-affairs programme, Countryfile. Then, in 2008, it was announced that the ­programme would be moving to a peak-time slot. O'Reilly, 52, and her three female colleagues – all in their 40s and 50s – were told the show would be "revamped". They were no longer needed. "I felt sick to the pit of my stomach," says O'Reilly. "One female producer told me she had never felt more ashamed of the BBC." As a result of that decision, O'Reilly last week took the unprecedented step of suing the corporation for age and sex discrimination. She says ageism at the BBC is "endemic". "We have almost come to accept it as the norm, that if you are a woman you have to be a size 8 and have unlined skin. I hoped to be judged on my work as a journalist and broadcaster, not on the way I look . . . [The BBC] should be a place for all age ranges, because we're supposed to represent the ­licence payer." Of course, this isn't the first time the BBC has been accused of ageism. In 2007, there was a row when the corporation dropped newsreader Moira Stuart, who was in her late 50s; that same year, the broadcaster Anna Ford asked, "How many presenters do you know on television who are over the age of 60? They're catered for on Radio 4, but they are not catered for on screen." Then, last year, controversy ensued when Strictly Come Dancing judge Arlene Phillips, who is in her mid-60s, was replaced by Alesha Dixon, who is in her early 30s. Ageism isn't only an issue on the BBC. In 2008, Selina Scott won a ­reported £250,000 and an apology from Five after apparently being ­replaced for an upcoming job by a younger presenter. And across the channels the formulaic older man-younger woman pairing persists: Bruce Forsyth (81) and Tess Daly (38) on Strictly Come Dancing; Adrian Chiles (42) and Christine Bleakley (31) on The One Show; Phillip Schofield (47) and Holly Willoughby (28) on This Morning and Dancing on Ice; Jeff Stelling (54) and Rachel Riley (24) on Countdown. In fact, glancing at our visual culture – television, films, billboards – it can seem that, with a few notable exceptions such as Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren, older women have ceased to exist. In an Australian study, the ­psychologist Dr Lauren Rosewarne found that fewer than 4% of women on advertising billboards were portrayed as being over 30. "By rendering these women invisible," she says, "the inference is not only are they not attractive enough for billboards, but that they are not attractive at all, which becomes synonymous with failing to contribute to society." And while this ageism can be a personal disaster for individual women in the public eye, it is interesting to consider how it affects ordinary women too. The feminist and psychologist Susie Orbach feels that the cultural invisibility of older women is "crazy". "There is all this research which shows that women are more capable, more energetic and confident as they get older, and there is this contradiction between that and this culture we have now, [which assumes] we should be spared the sight of women over a certain age." What counts as a "certain age" isn't fixed: the writer Suzanne Moore suggests that the age at which women are considered old – and therefore ­apparently redundant – seems to have fallen. "When we say 'older', what do we even mean any more?" she says. "It probably used to be anyone over 60, but now it seems to be applied to women over 40. I was reading something Fiona Bruce [the BBC newsreader, who is in her early 40s] was saying about her worries about getting older, and I was thinking, you're not that old. It used to be that women were considered redundant ­after the menopause, but now the ­message seems to be that you're redundant in your 40s. I think we need to get a distinction in our heads between those who are paid to look good – models or actors – and those who are paid for what they do." Suzanne Doyle-Morris, who runs a company coaching professional women, believes that the emphasis on youth and beauty affects women's careers. "Women are taught from a young age that a huge amount of their worth is based on their looks," she says. "And when you are constantly told that older women are not considered attractive, women lose their 'value' as they get older. When we are not used to seeing older women in roles of ­responsibility, it sends a message to younger women that you won't ­succeed beyond a certain age." Moore agrees. "It comes down to that old thing about role models," she says. "If you don't have older women authority figures in view – whether they are reading the news or in politics or running companies – then what do young women aspire to?" She thinks a backlash is growing. "Audiences want to watch people with authority, and not just the pretty faces you see on every other channel. The BBC is ­supposed to have authority, and it is ­ridiculous to try to ape commercial channels. I don't understand why these decisions are made. I don't think it comes from the audience. Have you ever heard anyone say 'I wish Moira Stuart wasn't presenting the news ­because she looks too old'? I haven't." One of the obvious consequences of our current culture, says Orbach, is the pressure on women to look younger, and the huge growth of the anti-ageing industry. "There is this major horror about ageing, as opposed to accepting it as a fact of life," she says. "When 20-year-olds are used to advertise anti-ageing creams marketed at women in their 40s you get all these messages about how society thinks you are meant to look." The consultant psychologist Dr Eileen Bradbury specialises in body ­image. She says that almost all of the people who are referred to her when seeking cosmetic surgery cite ageing as their primary concern. "Thinness and youth are the twin gods, and the burden on women has greatly ­increased. There was a time when the way women who were powerful and successful looked was irrelevant. Now, they have to be considered attractive as well." According to figures released by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons this week, cosmetic surgery continues to rise. Despite the recession, 5% more women had procedures last year compared to 2008, with eyelid surgery – a specific "anti-ageing" procedure – up 7%. The broadcaster Joan Bakewell, the government's Voice of Older People, says that, in years to come, society will increasingly be dominated by older people, and so "it is enormously ­important that older women become more visible . . . we are absolutely ­entitled to see our society reflected in popular culture." She says she was cheered when she read about O'Reilly's suit against the BBC. "I thought, good, this isn't ­going to go away. The pressure is still on. I really feel there is a wind in our sails, and women are saying, 'Here we are.'"   Would you like to see a wider range of ages represented on screen? And do you think that ageism is a serious problem in everyday life?             Media representations of different groups of people based on age (children, adolescents, the elderly), or occupation often essentialize, generalize, or categorize people based on stereotypical generalizations about individuals.

One of the incentives to essentialized, generalize or categorize people into groups is to create a hierarchy in which certain groups are perceived as inferior scapegoats, as did Hitler with Jews during World War II. Another incentive is to use these prototypes to ridicule or parody the shortcomings of a particular group, for example, to create humour out of the stereotype itself.

Children/adolescents

Children are often portrayed in the media or films in negative or stereotypical ways. For example, based on an analysis by British 18-year-olds of British newspapers, students identified what they perceived to be seven stereotypes of children in the media:

Kids as victims Cute kids sell newspapers Little devils Kids are brilliant Kids as accessories “Kids these days…” Brave little angels

A study by Professor Katharine Heintz-Knowles for Children Now of the representation of children on television found that children are often portrayed as motivated primarily by peer relationships, sports, and romance, and least often by community, school-related, or religious issues. About 70% of the children portrayed are engaged in pro-social actions such as sharing, telling the truth in difficult situations, meeting their responsibilities, and helping others of the time, while 40% are portrayed as engaged in anti-social actions, such as lying, neglecting their responsibilities, or being aggressive either verbally or physically. Physical aggression was portrayed as effective in meeting the child’s goal most of the time, and deceitful behavior is seen as effective nearly half of the time.

Another study by Professor Dale Kunkel, also for Children Now, showed that topics such as child poverty, child care, and welfare accounted for only 4% of all news stories about children. Only about a third of all stories dealt with public policy concerns associated with children.

Adolescents are often portrayed in being in a crisis state, without providing them with tools for critically analyzing reasons for their problems. In the following three sites, David Considine, argues that the media present adolescents with a lot of consumer options and portrayals of substance abuse, but do not provide any critical analysis of these options/abuse or strategies for coping with them.

Children are also represented in television commercials in ways that socialize them to become active consumers with defined needs for various consumer products at an early age:

Adolescents are also represented as members of prototypical groups — jocks, nerds, druggie, brains, underdogs, athletes, etc. Students could identify the nature of these groups in films and television programs and note the limitations of representations of these groups. For example, the trailer for the film The Goonies contains a number of stereotypical group representations.

The elderly

At the other end of the spectrum, the elderly are often represented in equally limited ways. A study sponsored by Children Now of prime time television programs in the Fall of 2000 found that only 3% of the characters were 70 and older, and only 13% fell between the ages of 50 and 69, in contrast to the reality that 9% of the American population is over 70 and 28% are over 50. There was also a gender bias; only 19% of women were over age 40.

Sandy Landis analyzed the representations of the elderly in film and television and found that they were highly one-dimensional in that any complexity of these characters were limited to one or two particularly makers of aging:

“Grumpy old man.” (Grumpy Old Men, Grumpier Old Men ,The Sunshine Boys, It’s a Wonderful Life, On Golden Pond, King of the Hill, The Simpsons) “Feisty old woman.” (Tea with Mussolini, The Golden Girls) “Sickly old person.” (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Key Largo, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Big Sleep, The Sunshine Boys) “Mentally deficient.” (The Simpsons. On Golden Pond, The Golden Girls, The Whales of August) “Depressed or lonely.” (Fried Green Tomatoes, Enchanted April) “Having wisdom.” (Murder, She Wrote; the Miss Marple mysteries; Harold and Maude) “Busy body.” (Everybody Loves Raymond, Murder, She Wrote) “Having a second childhood.” (Cocoon, On Golden Pond, Arsenic and Old Lace)

Analysis of the representations of the elderly over 65 in prime time television commercials:

No clear cut, definitive negative stereotypes of elderly people emerged from this study; in fact, elderly characters did not appear in the anticipated commercial categories. For example, elderly characters did not appear in roles for products such as arthritis medication, denture care products, or skin wrinkle creams, nor did they appear in sick, weak, fragile, or absent-minded roles.