Nicole Kidman wouldn’t describe her latest film, “Babygirl,” as “risky” on a professional level.
When Zendaya asked her about the project during Their various actors interview the castKidman said she did not hesitate to participate. “As soon as I heard her name was ‘Babygirl,’ I said, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘I want to be the baby.’”
The psychosexual drama A24, which hits theaters at Christmas, has Kidman playing a corporate CEO who begins an affair with a much younger intern (played by Harris Dickinson). For many women in Hollywood, a project like “Babygirl” would likely be considered risky simply because of its premise.
Over the years, men have become involved with younger female love interests (both on-screen and off), without many giving it a second thought. Society typically labels women in similar situations as “cougars.” However, while some films showed an older woman getting involved with a younger man — including 1967’s “The Graduate,” 1971’s “Harold and Maude,” and 1998’s “How Stella Got Her Groove Back,” Others -There has been a noticeable shift this year.
We let men do it all the time. Why can’t we do that?
-Robin Lee, author of The Idea of You.
A handful of releases — including “The Idea of You,” “Family Affair,” “Lonely Planet,” and now “Babygirl” — have adapted narratives in which an older woman is romantically involved with a younger man. The audience was here for it too. Each project is created buzzEspecially among female viewers.
“I think women want to see other women as whole people who are reclaiming their gender and identity in a way that we haven’t been able to see a lot of,” said Robin Lee, who wrote the 2017 book “The Idea of You.” The film is adapted from.
“They want to see us enjoying ourselves and tapping into that part of our identity,” Lee told NBC News in a recent Zoom interview. “We let men do it all the time. Why can’t we do it?”
Martha Lozen, founder and executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, suggested that the popularity of these recent releases can be explained by at least two factors.
First, Lozen points out that all the films feature Oscar-winning actresses.
Kidman stars in two of them. In addition to “Babygirl,” she plays a woman who falls in love with her daughter’s movie star boss (played by Zac Efron) in the Netflix series “Family Affair.”
Then there’s The Idea of You, released by Amazon Prime Video, starring Anne Hathaway as divorced mother Solene Marchand, who finds herself in a relationship with the young lead singer of the fictional band August Moon (played by Nicholas Galitzine). The film’s trailer was released in March Break recordsmonths before the film’s debut. The Netflix series Lonely Planet, released in the fall, stars Laura Dern as a writer who finds a relationship with a younger man (played by Liam Hemsworth) at a resort in Morocco.
All of the films “also offer an alternative to the traditional romantic narrative,” Lozen said in an email to NBC News.
“Age is often associated with power,” she wrote. “The older the character is, the more likely they are to have personal and/or professional power. The female characters in these films are more likely to feel more comfortable in their lives and with themselves than their younger counterparts, and therefore are more likely to navigate their romantic encounters in a different way.” That some audience members find this power differential unique and attractive.
Brenda Weber, chair and professor of gender studies at Indiana University, also noted the timing of the releases. In the wake of the election in which gender played a major role, some remained concerned about the future of women’s reproductive rights.
“It seems like it’s worth thinking about the broader sexual politics in the United States right now,” she told NBC News in an email. “Given how contested reproductive rights have been in the past couple of years, it is surprising that it is often the ‘older woman’ – which can also be viewed as a postmenopausal woman who is unable to reproduce – who has the capacity to have a sexual experience.” “Full and rewarding.” life.”
Like Lozen, Weber said she sees “in some ways” the recent rise in this trope as “a positive sign about allowing women’s agency to be empowered much longer in life than popular culture typically imagines.”
“I think, for obvious reasons, it is good and noteworthy to extend the ‘sell-by’ history to women, and to affirm the ‘older’ woman as desirable and desirable as having a certain amount of progressive vitality,” she said. “But my concern is that this extension is only available to very talented and conventionally beautiful people.”
Nor does the recent list of more flattering images of older women erase earlier images in movies and television.
Some older films “present a really horrific version of older women and younger men,” Weber said, citing the 1950s film “Sunset Boulevard” as an example. Weber noted that the film “makes the older woman’s character lose her mind and become brutal regarding her love for the younger man she kills.”
Luzin seemed skeptical about whether the trope’s popularity in 2024 indicates broader cultural acceptance of the dynamic.
Next year, at least one movie will feature a similar age gap story with an older woman at the center. “Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy,” the fourth installment in the series, follows the main character (played by Renée Zellweger) as she navigates dating as a widow and mother of two. Her suitors include a younger man (played by Leo Woodall), as well as her son’s teacher (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor). (NBC News and Universal Pictures, the film’s distributor, share Comcast as a parent company.)
It is unclear how many similar projects are underway.
“It is possible that these films will normalize these relationships and pave the way for greater numbers of them, but the overall gender and age numbers argue against this happening,” Lozen said.
Lozin cited research from its annual report “It’s a man’s world (celluloid).“, a report examining the portrayal of female characters in the year’s highest-grossing films. The report concluded that men are still older than their female counterparts on screen.
“If we consider the numbers of male and female characters in speaking roles in the highest-grossing films as of 2023, we see that the majority of female characters are in their 20s and 30s, and the majority of male characters are in their 30s and 40s.” Luzhin pointed out.
However, some, like Lee, hope that these types of stories will soon become mainstream in popular culture.
“Maybe it will become the norm, or just another option, like seeing a gay or interracial relationship on screen,” she said. “The more I got used to it, the more it became like another couple.”
For the red carpet premiere of Family Affair in June, Kidman considered portraying a romance between an older woman and a younger man.
“Because of the nature of the world, older men and younger women have always been older men and younger women,” she said. He told Variety. “Everyone is saying ‘Oh my God’… and I think that needs to be demystified.”
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2024-12-25 14:00:00
