Monday, 13 December 2010

Representation of Age- Ebenezer Scrooge


The second someone says something about an elderly person most people get the same thoughts and images of elderly people in their heads. The stereotypical view of an old man or woman is grumpy, moans a lot, doesn’t like change, prefers traditional ways of life ‘back in my day’, always seem to be ill. The older generation seem to be very anti youth and racist because the youth and mixture of ethnicity is a lot different to what they were bought up with when they were that age. Also the image of older people are the same, socks and sandals, knitted jumpers, cardigans and sweater vests, glasses round their necks, caps and hats and a walking stick.
The character that i am going to talk about is Ebenezer Scrooge in the Disney film A Muppets Christmas Carol. Right until the end Ebenezer play up to the stereotypical view of an elderly person, he never looks happy or is happy, he doesn’t care about anyone else but himself and money. I think at first Scrooge comes across as a very typical miserable old man, but during the film you get to see why he has turned out the way he has. The ghost from Christmas past shows the audience what he use to be like a as a young man, when he was a child he was a very unsociable child and didn’t seem to have many friends. As a young man he was not popular, as he find out when he looks back to one Christmas day and he sees his ‘friends’ and peers mocking him.
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As the film goes on Scrooge is visited but three ghosts, one from the past, present and future. All three of the ghosts show Scrooge what he is like from someone else’s view and try to make him change his way before it is too late. The ghost from the present shows Scrooge what his employees think of him as he makes them work on Christmas eve, and also when he is the topic at the dinner table to Christmas day they thank him for the food that has been put in front of them. The ghost from Christmas future shows Scrooge his grave stone and tells him that he will die a lonely man if he does not change his life. I chose to choose Scrooge as my representation of age because I think he shows two different sides to how older people can be and it is represented very well in this film.

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