Our March film session at the Ealing Oldies Network was poorly attended due to the snow and treacherous slippery streets. My need to go back home early was imperative. There were only 8 women present and I decided to talk about my research and the history of Old Women in Feature Films groups rather than show the long classic I had planned.

This was followed by a general discussion that was not recorded.

My impression was that some women were very aware of the sexist/ageist bias of the representations of old women as compared with old men.
It seemed to me that there was more awareness of recent films featuring well known actors: (Dench, Mirren, Smith), than pre 2000 films.

A discussion about some specific films was not possible as not everybody had seen the films mentioned by some.

As a general observation I note that there is an enormous gap between academic research about age, gender and representation and the old viewing public ‘s awareness of the issues.