When I first read that Judi Dench and Maggie Smith were in a movie about pensioners going to India I started to worry. Then a couple of discerning friends saw The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and came home raving.

Still, I needed to know how the film portrayed older people. You know, people like us? Would we want to be them? What I meant was, would you call the characters adorable (ick) or attractive (yay). Were they getting a little daft?

Were they airbrushed and stretched to the max?  Or had they stopped obsessing about their necks?

Hollywood is not known for being respectful, let alone real, about older people. It’s like movie makers want to disassociate themselves with getting old. Like, they couldn’t possibly relate.  So every time movie characters are said to be of a certain age, I expect to squirm.

I want them to be romantically inclined but not desperately randy. I don’t want them to all be Senior Olympians but I don’t want them to all  need a hand to cross the street.  And please don’t let them be timid. Or terribly cranky.

I don’t want them to wear rubber shoes and granny panties.  I want them to be hip and wise, not petted and pathetic.  I want to laugh with them, not at them.

It’s all about PR. You don’t want people in your same time zone making aging look bad.

Shortly into Marigold my friend whispered, “I like that they have their own faces.”  The actors, in their 60s and 70s, have been around for a long time. As have their faces and bodies.   You can hope that younger people might look at those creases and gray hair on the big screen and get the idea that this is what naturally happens in the normal life cycle. Not just to their grandparents but to fine and famous actors. And that’s okay.

Then you have the Marigold characters, people who’ve been disappointed in life and facing some scary unknown, but are trying to cope. Or as Judi Dench’s Evelyn says, to not just cope, but thrive.

Another good line: “If everything works out in the end and things haven’t worked out, it must not be the end.”  At least it trumps, “Life is short and then you die.”

Some call it The Big Chill for Geezers but what’s wrong with that? I’d love to have those people over for a house party.

After I turned off my ageist radar I relaxed with the story. I was particularly struck by how kind some of the characters were. Wouldn’t it be nice if you became more compassionate the longer you lived on the planet?

The big challenge in getting older, of course, is not to panic, which isn’t easy because there are a lot of things that can go wrong. But a lot that can go right, too, even without proper planning.

If the retirement savings go to hell and the pension goes bust and they kill  Social Security maybe we could move to a run-down palace in Jaipur where the locals  seem to like Americans.  And, I might add, where the fashion is far from fuddy-duddy. Those long scarves and dresses over pants are rather flattering on the mature body. And seem just made for hopping on a motorcycle.

The wealth gap between younger and older Americans is reported to be wider than ever. According to census bureau numbers young working families are worse off than older people. This would be expected if you consider that the longer you work the more your income goes up and the more you save for retirement. And when you’re starting out, you’re not making as much.

But funny thing about this is I don’t feel wealthy. And I sure don’t want young people thinking their elders are all sipping Glenlivet and perusing the cruise catalog.

I recognize the horrible squeeze on young people. I’m related to some. But older people have taken some of the same hits.

The numbers show the typical American household headed by a person 65 and older has a net worth 47 times greater than a household headed by someone under 35. That is, a median net worth of $3,662 for young families opposed to $170,494 for older ones.

The Pew Research Center analyzed the discrepancy this way. Young families are hurting because they’ve got mortgages on houses that aren’t worth as much as they paid for them and carry a load of student loans and credit card debt. The old are presumably doing better because we are thought to have paid off our houses and have investments. And on top of that we get Social Security.

And that’s when I thought uh-oh, this sounds like ammunition for generation warfare. And there it was.

Responding to the report, economist Harry Holzer from Georgetown University said, “It makes us wonder whether the extraordinary amount of resources we spend on retirees and their health care should be at least partially reallocated to those who are hurting worse than them.”

Oh Harry, I do agree. In part.  If you are eligible for Social Security and don’t need it or you can tell Medicare no thanks it would be a grand gesture to pass it on to a young family, maybe your own children and grandchildren.

But while I know some retirees who are living quite well, I doubt the majority of  oldsters are feeling fat on Social Security.  According to the Social Security Administration most retirees count on those monthly checks for a major  chunk of their income. And people over 65 represent the fastest growth in bankruptcy filings.

As for sharing the wealth that’s pretty much the message of the Occupy Wall Street movement. But the occupiers’ beef is not with greedy grannies. It’s with the one percent with all the dough. That’s why you see signs that say “Education is a Right” next to ones insisting “Save Medicare not Billionaires.”

I don’t know many older people who are leading a madcap life – okay, a few – but I do worry the image handily serves those wanting to gut retirement programs . We old ones are pretty mad at the system, too. Older people can remember when they were in their 30s and struggling and hoping that by the time they were in their 60s they would be feeling a lot more secure.

Older people are part of the dwindling middle class., too. We’ve seen our savings and investments shredded. We too have been hit by the housing bubble.  If we have any extra we may be paying for our adult kids’ health insurance or paying on those students loans and even caring for elderly parents.

I know plenty in their 60s and early 70s who say,  “I’m going to be working until I die.”

In fact the wage gap study noted that older Americans are holding onto to their jobs longer than ever while young people are facing the highest unemployment since World War II.

So, if we’re so wealthy why are we still working?

Sometimes I feel like our political leaders are involved in a street fight. And it’s getting ugly and scary and we’re not sure what the fight is really about. And who started it and how it will end. But one thing we do suspect is that when it’s over the blood will be on us.

Or it’s like a domestic squabble where the police are called to figure out what’s going on and in the process one of the cops gets shot. And we’re the cop.

I’ve been dealing a lot in images lately because I feel there is such little straight talk on what’s really happening in the free-for-all over the deficit, spending cuts, tax breaks, tax loopholes, entitlements, revenue increases and the debt ceiling.

We’re just sitting there waiting for the fight to end and see how we get hit.

The president likes his metaphors. He says we have to rip off the Band-Aid. He says we have to eat our peas. Tighten the old belts. I know he’s talking to me when he says that and people like me. But, is that everybody? Are the rich eating their peas?

I’ve pretty much stopped paying attention to political leaders of either side who talk about “our seniors” as if they really care. If you care about “our seniors” you don’t bludgeon Medicare and Social Security. Right now I feel like those of us who thought we could rely on both are being pushed to the edge of a cliff and some people are yelling “save them” and others are saying “jump.”

It’s particularly telling when members of Congress talk about “our seniors” as if they aren’t one of us. The average age of both houses of Congress is 58, which is old enough to be long on the AARP mailing list and to move into a retirement community. You’d think they’d relate but they don’t. Is it because nearly half of Congress are millionaires? So they don’t personally worry about safety nets. And so all the talk is about getting rid of programs rather than figuring out a way to save them.

Here’s another image. We like to say we’re all in the same boat but this one feels like the Titanic.
The rich are on top and the rest of us are in steerage. And when the ship starts to take on water, the people in steerage are the first to drown and the people upstairs keep dancing. But then the whole thing goes under. And even the rich are looking around for the security of a life boat.