The rise of senior citizens as important cinema-goers for the film industry
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THE GOLDEN AGED OF CINEMA:
FILM VIEWING WITH THE 60+
FILM VIEWING WITH THE 60+
by Bryn V. Young-Roberts Deep Focus Film Studies editor Bryn V. Young-Roberts examines the growing trend of pensioners attending the cinema, the impact they're having on the film industry, and his personal experiences of watching movies with them. |
"The cinema can be a very different place if you're an oldie at lunchtime on a Thursday"
As you can imagine, in this line of work I tend to go to the cinema quite often, and many of those occasions are during weekday lunchtimes. Now many under the age of grey hair might not necessarily consider the average cinema goer to be 60+, however those rare few who have bunked off school to see a movie will know better (not that anyone does that any more, they’re much more likely to spend that free time on their mobiles). To those who are still in the prime of youth who regularly attend on a Friday or Saturday night and find themselves surrounded by their teen and twenty-something peers it might seem odd that films such as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) can make such an impact at the box office, but the truth is that pensioners make up a significant section of the ticket-buying public.
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Having recently become consciously aware of it, almost half the films I see are with an elderly audience, who come out in force on weekday afternoons. And why wouldn’t they? Retired, they have few urgent matters to deal with at this time of day such as jobs or children. It is a period of the day when they can avoid huge queues and (as they might perceive) ‘rowdy’ young people making them feel uncomfortable in a public setting. In addition to these reasons the ultimate topper is that cinemas also offer them a specially reduced ‘seniors’ price for entry, with some venues even tempting them in with free tea and biscuits (No really! The cinema can be a very different place if you’re an oldie at lunchtime on a Thursday).
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Since noticing the mature age of my regular film-viewing compatriots, and knowing that their attendance has traditionally been lacking from theatres, I have been asking myself how and why it has recently changed. The truth is there has been a quiet revolution taking place in cinemas over the last decade which has witnessed pensioners, who previously would scoff at the thought of joining teens and others with disposable incomes and plenty of free time (i.e. adults without offspring) in a desire to attend a multiplex, have become regular stalwarts of the venues. Convincing the silver-haired to return to the silver screen has been quite a pirouetting feat for Hollywood, the elderly being an audience they have largely ignored since the dawn of the modern blockbuster in the 1970s.
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Traditionally only making the trip to theatres to see one film a year, the grey pound has seen a sharp increase over recent years as pensioners now make a regular turnout to the movies. American figures concerning audience attendance of the over 50s show a 70% increase over the last 20 years. They are a market Hollywood are now willing to nurture, as their preferred younger targets become increasingly less reliable as a source of income (hence all the franchise movies, the only way to guarantee their continued attendance).
What then, has heralded the return of the older audience? |
"The silver haired return to the silver screen"
The reason is partly based on the industry’s failure to compete with an increasingly connected world of portable entertainment which has been winning most of the attention of its cherished 15-24 demographic (some teens would rather watch vines or Youtube clips than venture out to a cinema, a medium they consider outdated). But worse than this, their beloved young people are not only betraying them, they are stealing from them too. As though not turning up to a cinema where they can spend on popcorn and cola was bad enough, they are also quite happily pirating the latest movie releases free of charge online.
Noticing that illegally streaming movies online is an underhanded activity mainly perpetrated by the young (who culturally consider it the norm), Hollywood is now happy to beg for the return of the older (and still willing to pay for tickets) crowd which it had ignored for over 40 years. An audience typically unimpressed by special effects and fast-paced spectacle, the industry has had to turn to more composed film-making with characters reflecting more senior years in order to win back these viewers. It has done so quite successfully, with films such as The King’s Speech (2010) Made in Dagenham (2010) The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Iron Lady (2011), The Artist (2011), Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011), Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011) and Quartet (2012) – all films which either portray characters of their own age, are concerned with the past, or contain a level of sophistication (even if somewhat a bit twee at times) missing from the Marvel and Transformers worlds.
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Other filmgoers have benefited from the pressures they impose upon the market too. Since older people have little time for hollow spectacle, film-makers must provide the upmost quality to impress them. To a degree this only affects certain types of films – biography, historical, true stories and, understandably, narratives concerned with aging, which apparently are the genres of most interest to them. Although this means the industry has to bring their A-game to every seniors movie - a very unforgiving audience - on the plus side these films generally cost a fraction of the £200 million that blockbusters do in order to lure in an audience a third their age. In financial terms they are much less of a risk. When an expensive blockbuster flops it can put the future of an entire studio into doubt, but when a £10 million pound film fails to make a profit, it is merely an inconvenience - and the rewards can heavily outweigh the peril. The King’s Speech was made on such a budget and cashed in a gross of £290 million.
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"An evil very different from 'Young People' talking is 'Old People' talking"
As someone who regularly attends viewings with them, I must confess the 60+ are an audience I overall prefer the company of compared to the younger patronages of busier full-house periods where I quite often have to tolerate /not tolerate viewers / not viewers chatting on mobiles, taking selfies and snapping images of the movie for reasons I’ll probably never understand / accept. But for all my complaints against ‘the youth of today’ which are, overall, minor ones about infrequent occurrences (and I happen to know many folk under 30 who would be much more likely to see Carol (2015) than Fast and Furious 7 (2015)), the truth is that sharing theatre space with pensioners comes with its own, unique, set of problems.
An evil very different to ‘young people’ talking is ‘old people’ talking, which is something they might not do as frequently as their youthful counterparts, but tend to do much more LOUDLY. A recent disruption during The Revenant, which thankfully had entire scenes void of dialogue and therefore meant I didn’t miss any important plot points, went thusly:
‘JACK, WHAT WAS HE IN? IS HE THE ONE FROM THAT THING YOU WATCHED?’ ‘NO, HE’S A DIFFERENT ONE, HE WAS IN THAT OTHER THING, THE ONE ABOUT THE PILOT’ ‘WHAT?’ ‘NO, IT ISN’T HIM’ ‘WHAT?’ ‘NO, IT’S NOT HIM’ ‘ARE YOU SURE?’ ‘WHAT?’ ‘ARE YOU SURE IT ISN’T HIM? ‘YES, IT’S NOT HIM’ |
Then there are the elderly toilet trips, which owing to their frequency means you can be stood up letting someone get past more times than during a game of musical chairs. Sitting at the end seat in a row of 8, with each of the 7 people next to you needing to go at least 3 times (at least once an hour) can often mean getting up 7x3=21 times. Oh, and of course they have to come back from the loo which means it’s actually 42 stand-ups. If it’s a cinema that offers free tea you can double that figure again, but on the plus side you won’t need to go to the gym that evening. Almost unmentionably a problem that accompanies the standing up is the passing waft of smells of floral perfume (or old spice), a strange wet biscuit sort of stench, cats and just a hint of urine leakage.
That’s assuming they ever find their seat in the first place. Granted, we have all experienced the difficulty of locating allocated seating in a darkened theatre at one time or another, but people with cataracts can take twice as long, and often have to visit every seated individual in their row for a chat about their seat number before settling into the right one. Which later turns out to be wrong and they belong in an entirely different row anyway. Once seated, there is the mild-mannered, under-the-breath and unintentional heckling. Forcing a trailer for Deadpool upon an elderly audience is perhaps not the best use of Marvel’s advertising budget, with many a cantankerously whispered (but so loudly we could all hear) ‘what utter rubbish’, ‘well we’re not going to watch that!’ and ‘film for bloody idiots’ echoing the screening room, ruining all excitement for over-hyped upcoming releases by painfully highlighting how preposterously childish many of our blockbusters really are. |
The worst part however, is that you are often made to feel like you are watching late night telly with your grandparents. As soon as a rogue nipple or bare buttock makes its way onscreen you suddenly feel as though one of the audience members is about to reprimand you for watching such filth - or worse still, tell your parents. On a couple of occasions I’ve even heard an excited ‘ooow’ or a statement-making tut of disapproval followed by a walk-out (well I initially thought it was a walk out but as they later returned it appears to have just been yet another lavatory break).
They may not be perfect, but at least their presence is keeping Hollywood on their toes and possibly making some of our movies better, and for that they truly are the Golden Aged of Cinema. |
Before You Go...
Looking for movies featuring older people? Take a look at the following:
Getting To Know The Lady In The Van
Also Worth Checking Out
Looking for movies featuring older people? Take a look at the following:
Getting To Know The Lady In The Van
Also Worth Checking Out
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