I can’t imagine a situation in which my mother would find herself browsing a university newspaper. However, in case she reads this, I would like her to know that I love spending time with her. We have a number of rituals - getting breakfast together, watching reality TV, dissecting the lives of extended relatives. But the one activity I will never endure again is watching another modern Hollywood blockbuster featuring has-been actors. I’ve had to sit through too many films, made by 60-year-old executives featuring a cast that ‘people will be itching to see!’ Sure, if it were 1998.

Here’s my new rule: If the film features an actress whose career peaked before 1995, and an actor who was born after that year, with a plot about a newly divorced mum just trying to balance parenting, wine, book club, and just a silly little thing called love, I physically cannot watch it.

As a 19-year-old desperately clinging to my teenage years, I’d like to say that I will miss when culture was solely created with my demographic in mind. Therefore, I initially thought I’d give my revered opinion on Marty Supreme, a film starring my generation’s aspiring great, Timothée Chalamet. Marty Supreme follows an aspiring table tennis champion who pursues a sexual relationship with Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow), a retired actress whom Marty uses as a connection to further his career. ‘Marty Supreme’ was not the exception. One need only see a 52-year-old Gwyneth Paltrow tonguing Chalamet in a back alley to be reminded of the surge of high-budget blockbusters featuring storylines where the empowered, sexy career woman pursues a stigmatised, sexual, and highly compelling romance with a younger man. There’s The Idea of You (2024) about a single mother (Anne Hathaway) in her 40s who begins a passionate romance with a much younger actor, then Babygirl (2024), where a CEO (Nicole Kidman) has an affair with her intern, or A Family Affair (2024, whereby a successful actor engages in a whirlwind affair with the mother (Reese Witherspoon) of his 24-year old personal assistant. 

There are a few hypotheses about why this trope came into fashion. At its simplest, romance performs well. Nearly three decades of box office data show that romantic comedies have generated over $11.7 billion in total box office revenue, only triumphed by genres that predominantly target male audiences, such as action or horror films. More women are directing and writing scripts from the female perspective, albeit the numbers are slow-growing, with the percentage of female writers increasing from 13% in 1998 to 20% in 2024. But any film-watcher knows that studios swing with the pendulum, resulting in toe-clenching bodice-rippers to retaliate against the type of Gen-Z American conservatism that young adults elsewhere abhor. Representing women with careers and agency is perhaps a necessary cultural capsule.

The older-woman-younger-man trope is not inherently bad. It’s refreshing to see women who aren’t starlets in their 20s redefine what it means for a woman to be ‘in her prime.’ For decades, Hollywood has sold the opposite as a fantasy - a naive but beautiful ingénue is selected by an older, virile silver fox who, amidst his string of other women, he engages in sexual relationships with, picks her for her pure-heartedness, most notably in Pretty Woman (1990), or practically every James Bond movie.

However, there is something to be said about how ‘older’ women aren’t portrayed as empowered in their sexuality unless it features a power imbalance with not only a younger male, but a career subordinate or a less intelligent, less capable counterpart. If Hollywood wanted to invert preconceived notions of women ageing out of their prime whilst men only grow more desirable, that would be a noble goal. Instead, the woman’s age still remains central to the plot. Could they not create an equally compelling storyline about a woman in her 40s who falls in love with an age-appropriate male counterpart, who can match her banter and intellect? 

Why is it that a woman only has two options - she can be in her prime and fall in love, or she can be older and still be an equal in her relationships, just as long as her boyfriend is purposefully written as younger, less experienced, or less intelligent than her? She can be a girlboss in her 40s as long as she does not reflect the reality for audiences as they grow - weight fluctuations, wrinkles, subtle graying - she must still remain as white and as skinny as she was in her 20s, only now she has two children on each hip (the son likes to masturbate and the daughter likes to ask where daddy is), both of whom of course, bear no impact on her appearance.

Perhaps my critiques are harsh. Perhaps this is the reality I should aspire to when the time comes. But as I cling to my teenagehood, desperately seeking a culture that revolves around me, I can’t help but notice: women over 40 starring in movies about love… just not on my terms. In the meantime, I’ll salute the women daring enough to defy ageism in film. And give a side eye to everyone else who made those films happen. 

Ela is a 2nd-year Arts/Laws student. When she isn’t pouring over her readings or checking her inbox to hear back from jobs she’s feverishly applied to, she likes to swim, consume as much media as humanly possible, and then complain about how high her screen time is.