TV does older women no favors
BY HEATHER WARLICK-MOORE
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Published: November 5, 2009
Television loves a good cougar. Perhaps the original TV cougar was Samantha from "Sex and the City.” Samantha liked to experience many men, but she knew what she wanted. She took care of herself, was financially secure and had extreme confidence.
Actress Courteney Cox arrives for The Avon Foundation for Women benefit gala on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009 in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Agostini)
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All women want different things in their relationships, said
Linda Franklin, author of "Don’t Ever Call Me Ma’am,” but the thing that ties real cougars together is that they understand how important it is to be self-sufficient and happy with themselves.
Hollywood star
Demi Moore will be remembered as a cougar for her real-life relationship with much younger
Ashton Kutcher.
Today’s television cougar is
Courteney Cox in "
Cougar Town.” Though the town’s high school mascot is the cougar, the show centers on a "cougar” woman over 40 who is suddenly single and dating a younger man.
"‘Cougar Town’ seems to be mainly about barhopping and women over 40 being able to attract younger men. It reminds me of men in their 50s trying to have a relationship with a 20-something-year-old female. I never want to be in that category,” said
Cathy Velte, 54, a self-described cougar who lives in
Oklahoma City. "The word cougar has been misused.”
Franklin agrees.
"I do not like ‘Cougar Town,’” she said. "I understand that it’s meant to be a comedy, but just the way that these women are portrayed, it is just pathetic because their whole world seems to revolve around going out and finding young guys and doing whatever you can do to make yourself appealing to them.”
And "
Accidentally on Purpose” doesn’t help the "real cougar” cause championed by Franklin and Velte. In this show,
Jenna Elfman stars as a "cougar-in-training” who, after a one-night stand with a much younger man, finds herself pregnant and living with her young "baby daddy.”
"If aliens learned about our culture by watching our newest television shows, they might assume that planet Earth was terrorized by predatory middle-aged women with hairless, bony bodies and the same blank expression on their overly Botoxed faces, a look of creepy awe at the joys of 20-something tenderloin,” commented entertainment writer
Heather Havrilesky on www.salon.com.
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