Fortysomething? Why Hollywood doesn’t know how to tell your story

When you reach your mid-40s, something becomes very clear – popular culture doesn’t know what to do with you.

You’re not a charming coming-of-age tale.

You’re not a story of redemption where an old dog is taught new tricks.

You’re not The Breakfast Club or Juno or The Graduate.

You’re not The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

You’re not Rick or Morty.

You’re not a yuppie or a hipster or a punk or a thirtysomething.

“My drug hell”? By the age of 45 you’ve either been through your drug hell or you’re dead.

You haven’t just lost your virginity at band camp or discovered a new lease on life with a summer-winter love.

You’re not buying your first house nor selling out of the rat race to get pissed every day with your mates in Majorca.

You’re not a young Captain Kirk having sex with nubile aliens or a Dr McCoy dispensing wry elder wisdom.  If you’re lucky, you’re one of the poor “redshirts” who only gets one line before he or she is killed, because no one cares about your character arc.

You’re neither the cocky Will Smith shooting down the aliens nor the grizzled general giving the commands back at HQ. Maybe you’re another type of redshirt whose jet gets shot down next to Smith’s, leading him to exclaim “woah” or “god damn!”

You’re the middle management dweeb in suspenders from Office Space who, coffee cup in hand, says to junior employees “if you could just work harder that’d be great”.

You’re the bitter middle-aged divorcee who moves to Tuscany to find a new lease of life through sex with young Latin Lovers.

You’re stuck between hygiene commercials where smiling women ride horses and do cartwheels and ads about over 50s insurance where grinning geriatrics go bowling.

You’re stuck between Hugh Jackman’s first and last Wolverine appearances.

In your 20s your heroes were ninjas. Now, in your 40s, your hero is your nutritionist.

Fortysomethings live in the uncanny valley of popular culture.

No one knows how to pitch to you. Hollywood doesn’t know what to do with you.

Perhaps your spirit animal is Trainspotting 2. You chose life, a job, a career, a family. You have a big plasma TV, a washing machine, one car in the garage and one on the street. You have good dental insurance and compatible friends who now prefer easy listening over Underworld and Barossa Valley chardonnay over “LAGER, LAGER, LAGER”.

In your 20s you were fuelled by bravado and testosterone, all unfulfilled potential. Now you’re in your 40s and having a heart attack on your treadmill. You’re like a sadder, older Begbie or Spud, trading scag for Viagra.

Or maybe you’re Gal Dove, the middle-aged gangster from Sexy Beast. Maybe you’ve gone to seed and no longer have the bottle for one final job. Maybe you’re Ben Kingsley’s bitch.

The only people who know how to tell your stories are the geniuses of the new golden age of television. Your salvation is HBO and showcase and challenging TV boxsets.

This is your middle-aged life.

My new thriller Game Of Killers: The Spartan is out now as an ebook and paperback.