Walt Rubel Commentary: Ads mocking the elderly aren’t funny

I’ll be glad when the Medicare open enrollment period ends on Dec. 10, bringing a merciful pause to the flood of ageist television ads that saturate the airways each year at this time.

The worst are produced for a business called Medicare Advantage Advisors, and feature a gray-haired woman with oversized glasses named Martha who, we are told, “is a bit cranky” because she heard that the open enrollment period had started.
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In a voice that brings back memories of the old Saturday Night Live skits featuring Doug and Wendy Whiner, Martha screeches that she is already on Medicare. The kindly announcer patiently explains why seniors need to update their plans, with Martha responding by putting her hands on her hips and petulant declaring, “I’m not calling.”

Later in the ad she acts confused, saying, “I think I called before.” Then, when she finds out that plans provide services at no charge, she reacts with the astonishment of a toddler seeing toast pop up from the toaster for the first time. Martha finally comes around in the end. But by then she’s been made to be so unlikeable that I really didn’t care.

The Progressive Insurance ads about new homeowners becoming their parents also promote stereotypes of ageism, but at least some of them are funny.

Those are just two examples of a new trend in advertising that mocks the elderly. A commercial for Tide starts with a couple explaining that they are doing more laundry now that they have an extended family. A clueless grandpa in his boxer shorts then walks into the scene asking if anyone has seen his pants.

Older people have become the last safe group in America to make fun of. And, maybe some of that is understandable. Jokes told about the weak and powerless are cruel, not funny.

None of these ads would have been the least bit funny in the 1930s, before the advent of Social Security and company pensions. Back then, those too old to work who had not saved enough for their remaining years were forced to rely on the generosity of family or strangers to survive.

In 1959, more than a third of elderly Americans earned incomes below the poverty line. By the 1990s that had been cut to 10 percent.

Now, people age 55 or older control 70 percent of all personal wealth, according to a study by the Federal Reserve. So, maybe we need to be able to take a joke.

Still, advertising that reinforces negative stereotypes is not harmless, Paul Irving of the Milken Institute Center for the Future of Aging argues in a story on the AARP website.

“Imagine this ad portraying women, people of color or LGBTQ individuals the same way,” he said. “The response would be angry, and rightfully so.”

I’m not advocating for a world without humor. All of us need to be able to laugh at ourselves. But there is a difference between good-natured ribbing and ads that mock the frailties we all will experience during the aging process.


Walter Rubel can be reached at [email protected]

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