Viewpoint: Female perspective dominates page and screen, and it's steamy.
"Annie Mumolo's character in 'The Idea of You' states, 'Did I not warn you? People hate happy women.' This thought is the foundation of this popular dramedy."
The central point of this widely-watched show is about a forty-year-old single mother, played by Anne Hathaway, who falls for a twenty-four-year-old boy band star (Nicholas Galitzine). They have impressive sex and enjoy each other's company. However, the mass media catches on and the world goes insane.
In this film, Hathaway's character, Solène, initially encounters Harry Styles-like singer Hayes Campbell (Galitzine) at Coachella. He develops an instant crush on her, while she struggles with reasons why their relationship wouldn't be suitable. The primary reason she cites is their significant age gap. When she eventually allows herself to succumb to their chemistry, she's delighted to experience an intense orgasm during their first encounter.
The movie swiftly transitions into a montage-filled affair across Europe, showcasing the couple's romance before their identities become public knowledge. As a result, sensational headlines like "Hayes Caught With a Cougar" and "Sleaziest Mom of the Year?" emerge. In reality, similar findings were published about Olivia Wilde dating the real Harry Styles a few years ago.
I had forgotten the indiscriminate flurry of criticism when that celebrity couple was thrust into the spotlight, much like the persistent fascination with Sam Taylor-Johnson and her much younger husband, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, twenty-three years her junior.
But the summer of 2024 is providing an interesting range of cultural responses to this scolding narrative, in which older women are openly defying the belief that they can't sleep with whomever they prefer.
Miranda July, a performance artist well-recognized for her oddball cultural scrutiny since her initial movie "Me and You and Everyone We Know" (2005), has penned a new book that leads the pack. "All Fours" revolves around a married woman, a well-known artist like July, who leaves her spouse and child at home while traveling to New York on a supposed journey.
Soon after, she stumbles upon a young man, Davey, in a nearby dusty town and decides to stay at the local motel throughout her supposed trip. Their uncommon courtship sets the stage for discoveries about aging and desire. July is emphatically gung-ho about optimism.
"Was this the key to everything? This physical freedom? It seemed instinctive and beneficial, as if promiscuity was my birthright as a woman," she wrote. "Maybe it was. Was this the mystery in civilization's dark recesses? The source of why men had been so relentlessly obstinate toward us since the dawn of time... It appeared natural and sweet to engage in intimate encounters with all my associates."
Her secret trysts include an affair with an older female, a moment that uncovers a crucial insight for the narrator: "I'd been imagining her as a figure of sorrow, a hapless character. But that elegant bed in her living room... she probably engaged in sexual activities or caressed or kissed people on it all the time. She wasn't lost in the past... The sad character was solely a result of my perception."
The "sad character" narrative is a recurring theme in how society conditions us to view single, aging women. There's something unsettling about a woman old enough to understand herself, and potentially less concerned with the opinions of others than she was a decade before, that seems undeniably menacing to certain societal factions. A forthcoming memoir from the gifted author Glynnis MacNicol, "I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself: One Woman's Quest for Pleasure in Paris," tackles this issue head-on.
Writing in the New York Times, MacNicol said, "My life has the trappings of a dream, if we allowed for tales starring single, childless women on the verge of hitting sixty." However, she continues, "saying so should not be sensational in 2024, and yet, somehow it feels that way. We reside in a world whose power structures keep benefiting from women remaining stationary. In actuality, we're living through the latest backlash against the gains of the past fifty years of feminism."
It's encouraging to witness the recent spate of enthusiastic endorsements celebrating women indulging in themselves and their bodies, even after society has perceived them as undesirable. "Bridgerton," which I've praised frequently, has a washed-up societal reject — Nicola Coughlan's "spinster" Penelope Featherington — being pleasured in a carriage by her love interest in the show's first half. This heavily-discussed scene is part of what my close friend calls the 'fingerssaince' phenomenon. This refers to scenes where all the delight is concentrated on the woman, which represents a significant departure from the almost ubiquitous love scenes featuring heterosexual couples engaging in missionary-style sex and the woman typically experiencing a dramatic, yet anatomically questionable orgasm.
An appropriate supplementary read is Dr. Karen Tang's informative book "It's Not Hysteria," released last month. This comprehensive reproductive health guide tackles various women's issues, including a chapter on sexual dysfunction that criticizes doctors for recommending women with low libidos to simply "try having a glass of wine." Tang points out that for many women, society positions sex as an obligation to a male spouse or partner rather than a source of joy and pleasure for oneself. To counter this, she provides an in-depth exploration of the myriad reasons why women might experience a libido decline and discusses various treatment methods (though none are as colorful as July's).
Finally, any examination of middle-aged female sexual liberation is incomplete without mentioning Mumolo, who's a co-writer and co-star in "Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar." I've been praising this zany comedy from Mumolo and Kristen Wiig since its release in 2021, but to little acclaim. In this movie, Wiig and Mumolo play two Nebraskan women in culottes who become romantically entangled with a younger man (played by Jamie Dornan, known for "Fifty Shades of Grey") and exhibit no shame regarding their age or their desires.
Wiig told Variety in an interview at the time that "Barb and Star" was mostly made possible because "Bridesmaids" was such a success, laying the groundwork for other middle-aged female raunch comedies like "Girls Trip" and "Bad Moms." She stated, "It's fantastic that more things have been greenlit. But on the other side of that, it's like, 'Why the hell weren't you greenlighting it before?"
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In response to the societal backlash against aging women pursuing sexual liberation, author Glynnis MacNicol asserts in her memoir, "I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself," that claims of a single, childless woman in her sixties living a dream life should no longer be sensational. This reflects a shift in societal perspectives, where women are now becoming more courageous in indulging in themselves and their bodies, defying traditional norms and opinions.
The film "Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar" continues this trend, with co-writers and stars Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo embodying middle-aged female characters who proudly display their age and desires, proving that sexual liberation and agency are not the exclusive domain of younger generations.
