Why This is Good

In addition to the light/dark stereotype discussed yesterday, there exists a young/old stereotype that is pervasive in film and story. This is the belief that youth is innocent and good, while old age and experience breed bitterness and callousness. This paradigm is clear in simple fairytales-Cinderella and Snow White were young, good, and pure, facing evil in the form of their old, jealous step mothers.
But the stereotype is perpetrated more subtly in other ways. More modern storylines, such as The Devil Wears Prada or The Graduate still fall into this mode, portraying the older woman as a vicious predator, while the young innocent girl is the pure one worthy of love. It tends to be a sexist stereotype, more often applied to women. Men in films can be older, their experience and wisdom a good thing, while the same experience and authority in an older woman is considered bad. The disproportionate number of older man with a younger woman couples seen in film exemplifies this thought process.
Thankfully, as with the light/dark stereotype, this one is changing, with movies such as It’s Complicated, Something’s Gotta Give, or Harold and Maude portraying older women as deserving of love and in some ways more worthy than their younger counterparts.
In addition to recognizing this stereotype in a broad sense, it is important to avoid it in dealing with and creating individual characters. While crafting characters, don’t rely on the young=good/old=bad, or young=innocent and naïve/old=jaded and bitter stereotypes. Let each character speak for themselves as an individual with unique circumstances and background. Your youngest character may be the most bitter and cynical, while the old grandfather is kind and warm, happy and optimistic. The way you envision and create your characters should be based on what you have experienced and seen in your life and feel to be true, not what you have been taught by other films and stories that perpetuate clichéd ways of looking at the world. In all your writing, be original and authentic so that no one reading your story could cite it as yet another example of an overused stereotype.