Desperate Housewife?

Okay, I admit that I spend WAY too much time researching and contemplating movies, then mulling them over afterward. Maybe I should get a life. But not quite yet, I’m having too much fun in my fantasy world.

I recently watched a cute little romantic comedy, It’s Complicated, a light, fluffy, fun movie with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin. As a movie, it’s okay, like low-fat mousse, pleasant and guilt-free, but not deeply satisfying like Belgian dark chocolate.

What is remarkable in this movie is the fact that Streep was born in 1949, whereas Baldwin is nine years younger. Dare I hope that Hollywood has, in its infinite wisdom, deigned to allow women to age normally? Streep played a mother with a young adult daughter in Momma Mia, too, and while both movies take implausible liberties, it is refreshing to see a 60-something woman with 20-something kids. Even if it’s the same actress both times.

The plight of the “woman of a certain age” is a Hollywood cliché, but it remains difficult, even for beautiful women, women who have easy access to top drawer trainers, stylists, plastic surgeons and dermatologists. Typically, in the movies, Mother is barely older than the kids. In The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman’s character has an affair with the mother and dates the daughter. Mother is played by Anne Bancroft, a whopping six years older than Hoffman. In 1988, Sally Field played Tom Hanks’ lover in Punchline; six years later, she was cast as his mother in Forrest Gump. (Field is ten years older than Hanks.) Toni Collette, twelve years older than Paul Dano, played his mother in Little Miss Sunshine. Consistently, the mother is played by an actress at most 20 years older than her child, meaning most mothers of young-ish adults are in their early to mid 40s. Case in point: Steel Magnolias (1989). Now no one can tell Julia Roberts’ real age—her birth year changes frequently—but she was born sometime between 1962 and 1968. Sally Field was born in 1946, so of course, it is biologically feasible that she could have had a 22 year old daughter when she was 43. In reality, though, Field’s baby (born in 1988) was on the set during filming.

On one hand, this makes sense, because by Hollywood’s standard of beauty, we all look better at 43 than we do at 63. But I’d love to see more women in their 50s and 60s cast as mothers of young adult children. I’d love it even more if the best friends, just as attractive and successful, had grandchildren. Real women’s lives range so much farther than the movies give us credit for.

One of the true gifts of the feminist movement has been to make the childbearing years more flexible—you know, “40 is the new 30”. I’m stereotyping here, but bear with me: The women who most benefit from this flexibility tend to be successful, upper middle class, and well-educated, with interesting careers. Exactly the privileged women Hollywood portrays as having grown children when their real-life counterparts—often even the actresses themselves—are thinking about fertility options or perhaps juggling diapers and day care.

It’s Complicated isn’t great film art. Not even close. But it’s still nice to see some softening of the gender and age stereotypes.