A person's life experiences were valued among every community. Through the increased popularity of television, which tends to focus on youth and beauty, the portrayal of the elderly has become negative or even non-existent. Through the Emmy Award-Winning series, The Simpsons , characters support the negative stereotype. Audiences respond to the humor created to humiliate the elderly of the show and continue to support the negative portrayal of the elderly population. The Seven Myths of Aging , people in general have seven misconceptions of the elderly.
Television continues to misrepresent the elderly.
This misrepresentation alters how younger people perceive older people. The Simpsons continues to portray the elderly in a negative manner through a variety of characters. By portraying the elderly in a negative aspect in primetime television, viewers begin to accept the false stereotype. Jeff Sagansky, the CBS Entertainment Chief, says How this country thinks and relates to older people, and how older people think of themselves, is directly affected by what is put on television. Through this paper, the knowledge of what the seven myths of aging are and how a negative stereotype of the elderly in television affects the perception of viewers will be obtained.