I think Tyler does a great job at pointing out that our insecurities can shift as we age–in other words we still are humans that can have insecurities, but they evolve or transform given our experiences and even how we are / feel we are perceived by others.

I’d love to get into some other topics–specifically how our culture perceives and treats old people.

Tell me if you think I should make this a separate post, but just the other day, Ceil blurted out a, “Our entire movie library is rated PG!! And I told them to get some better movies in this place, where are the R-rated ones? Who do they think we are, children???!?”

On another note, this film would take us in entirely different directions if we were in a) other countries / cultures and b) if we were in different socio-economic conditions.

Two simplified examples:

a) Japan has an extraordinary different regard for their elderly than Americans.

b) A 3rd world country like Nicaragua can’t afford to put up their grandparents in retirement communities!

Thoughts?

It’s a bummer, isn’t it. Really bothers me. I remember doing a grandparents oral history project as an elementary schooler and being surprised at how interesting my grandmother’s life had been. Why was I surprised? — I think our society breeds a disinterest in our elders as opposed to the respect that other cultures institutionalize. Our grandparents probably think they’re uninteresting because they grew up thinking their elders were uninteresting, too.

Has our culture’s notions about being “beautiful” become so distorted that even our eldest citizens aren’t allowed to feel any sense of beauty?

I agree with Ty.

And what is it about mainstream media that might contribute to these specific moments of self-deprecation?

The media systematically reinforces and recreates the way we think. In that it is powerful (can be beautiful but is often horrifying). The elderly aren’t being depicted as interesting or beautiful — at least not with much frequency — but then, they’re not being depicted much in general. Advertising is mostly geared toward kids, for instance, who are so much more impressionable.

Ash, I wonder if in your question there aren’t some self-enforcing assumptions that if these subjects are self-conscious it is because they are elderly and the elderly are told in our society that they are uninteresting and lacking any sense of beauty.

I would hazard a guess that most people would greet the prospect of being recorded for posterity with “Why me? What’s so interesting about me?” I know I would certainly shy from the opportunity or at least use self-deprecation as a defensive mechanism to cope with such sudden unprecedented interest.

Further, maybe it is a comment on this 24-hour record-button age we have entered that we find these instances of modesty so unusual.

I feel like its more of an insecurity issue than anything else. At least with my G-ma that is what I have seen. She even says that her dad used to tell her how stupid she was when she was growing up, and how she would never make anything of her life. I don’t know if she just had a jacked-up dad, or if it was a common theme of her generation. But I feel like that kind of parenting was a lot more prevalent back in the day. Obviously this would instill a severe feeling of insecurity, which could lead to some of the issues that you are describing. I think we have a tendency to look up to older people and see them as strong/secure/infallible, when the reality is that they have just as many fears and insecurities as the rest of us.

And what is it about mainstream media that might contribute to these specific moments of self-deprecation?

I have a different approach to this than attributing the self-deprecation to the mainstream media. I look at it more like this:
imagine that you were a world-class athlete when you were 21. Now you are 75 and someone wants to clock you and record that time in the 100-yd dash. And you’re just thinking to yourself, damn, I wish you had seen me run when I was 21. And you want to let the timer know that you set all these records back when you were 21, but all you can say now is “im slow.”
Its all relative.

Its a similar situation with the cameras. Imagine you were a 10 back in the day, and now you are 75yrs old and just a shadow of your old self. All these young kids come around with their cameras and want to preserve this version of you on film for all of eternity. All you can think to yourself is “Damn, I wish you had seen me when I was a 10.”

So I think the little remarks about how they don’t photograph well really aren’t due as much to mainstream media as they are to the fact that they remember what they used to look like and what they look like now. And they want someone to know that they used to run a lot faster when they were 21 than they do now.

-ty