Home » News & Events » Documentary Takes a Tough Look at Aging in America
That’s the provocative question asked at the start of the new, one-hour documentary, “Aging in America: Survive or Thrive.” It started airing and streaming on PBS stations on Thursday, May 1, and continued throughout May, which was Older Americans Month. It also was recently shown at the On Aging 2025 conference organized by the American Society on Aging.
To answer the question about how the United States is treating its elders, filmmaker Neil Steinberg uses as his lens the Pulitzer-prize winning book “Why Survive? Being Old in America” written by the pioneering gerontologist Dr. Robert Butler 50 years ago. Steinberg met Butler in 1986 while producing the video series, “Caring for an Aging Society.”
A Boom in People 65 and Over
At the time Butler wrote “Why Survive?” there were fewer than 23 million Americans over age 65. Now there are more than 55 million, of whom over 17 million are economically insecure, the documentary says.
When Butler died in 2010, AgeWave CEO and founder Ken Dychtwald — a consulting producer for the film — wrote: “Every now and then, in the course of human history, an individual emerges who changes the course of everything. There is no question that Bob Butler was such a man.”
In his book, Butler described the treatment of older adults this way: “In America, childhood is romanticized, youth is idolized, middle age does the work, wields the power and pays the bills, and old age, its days empty of purpose, gets little or nothing of what it has already done. The old are in the way.” He called nursing homes “houses of death.”
Older Adults Who Need Help
One thing Steinberg learned making the film, he says, “is that a lot of people who really need help are strong, vital, terrific people who just got hit with something out of nowhere.”
The film spotlights a few impressive achievements now helping Americans age well as more and more of them live into their 80s and 90s.
One is the Age-Friendly Emergency Department at UCSF in San Francisco, staffed by geriatricians assisting older adults. “Breaking your arm at 17 is one thing, but breaking your arm at 87 is a whole ‘nother situation,” Steinberg says.
Another example cited is the federal government’s small PACE (Program for All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly) initiative, providing medical and social services to older adults who are eligible for nursing home care but prefer living at home.
“Til this came along, I was in my house by myself,” says an Indiana resident at a local PACE center. “This way, I get to meet people.”
The documentary also discusses ways some older Americans are using the second half of life to reimagine themselves and find new meaning.
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