Some Seniors Find Popular Movies to be Disgusting


Older adults tend to possess milder and more sedate tastes in movies than younger people. They've seen enough sex scenes and heard enough foul language to last a lifetime. With maturity, they come to select films that reflect classic cinema with a focus on storytelling rather than action.

Movies like As Good as It Gets, Cocoon, Driving Miss Daisy, Grumpy Old Men, Little Miss Sunshine and On Golden Pond rank high as senior favourites. The storylines are about aging people in their mature years. Older actors are featured and the dialogue tends to be reasonably 'clean'.

These films are favored by retirement residents in Active Living and Independent Living settings.

It’s understandable that in late August upwards of 40 seniors from Gladstone, Australia, walked out of a screening of Horrible Bosses within 15 minutes. The major complaints stemmed from too much swearing and raunchy language. The exodus included several seniors with wheelie walkers.

The City was responsible for the outing. Mayor Gail Sellers told The Observer: "We put on this movie on the understanding that it was a comedy appealing to people over the age of 15.” She added, “We humbly apologise for hosting a movie that obviously offended some of our valued residents.”

F-bombs aside, not all were offended. “I’ve worked on construction sites and I had four brothers, I just block it out,” Dianne Gibb, a resident, told the media source.

Moviegoers in their mid-50s enjoyed the show. The feeling was that the age gap between Boomers and older adults creates a tolerance difference between the generations.

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