Pop Culture Happy Hour - Hot Moms In Film

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

In the past year, there have been a lot of movies that feature older women falling in love with much younger men. There's The Idea Of You, A Family Affair, Lonely Planet, and Babygirl, just to name a few. But why now? Today we're bringing you an episode of the NPR podcast It's Been A Minute. In this episode, host Brittany Luse sits down with New York Magazine features writer Rachel Handler to unpack what these films say about Hollywood's changing attitudes towards older women and why the category of, quote-unquote, "women's film" still feels behind the times. behind the times.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

A warning, this episode contains references to sex and sexuality. So in the past year, there have been a lot of movies that feature older women falling in love with much younger men. There's the idea of view, a family affair, lonely planet, and baby girl, just to name a few. But I know I've been wondering, a lot of us have been wondering, why now? We've seen Hot Moms in Cinema for a long time. There was, of course, Mrs. Robinson and the Graduate, or Stifler's mom from American Pie. And for the longest time, these hot moms were usually seen as cougars, lusty older women circling in on younger men.

But these new movies are kind of different. To start, the moms are the main subjects on journeys of self-discovery and exploration, a far cry from strategic predators. I'm Ayesha Harris, and today we're bringing you an episode of the NPR podcast, It's Been a Minute. In this episode, hosts Brittany Luce sat down with New York Magazine Features writer Rachel Handler. They unpacked what these films say about Hollywood. which changing attitudes towards older women and why the category of quote-unquote women's

film still feels kind of behind the times. Here's Brittany. Rachel Handler, we're so happy to have you. So we're here to talk about the Hot Mom rom-com. How do you feel about the Hot Mom rom-com boom? Wow, that's a very big question. Big loaded question. I wish we were getting better ones is my answer to that.

I love a rom-com in general. I love a hot mom. The things together make me very happy. but I want our standards to be a bit higher. That's how I feel. You know what? I kind of agree with you on that. Some of the recent films that I have seen this year

featuring a sexy older woman with a younger guy who's like really trying to get with her. I'm rubbing my right temple right now because I've seen some things that have really stressed to me out. But you know what? Where there is a lot of room for growth, there also is a lot of room for discussion. Of course. But I feel like we're kind of like watching cinema to try to. to figure out that women don't face total social death after H-40. Yeah.

I almost like have to like suppress laughter at that idea. But I mean, but that's honestly how our society is kind of set up. Right. No, and that's why I do think maybe I'm being a little bit unfair in the sense that like they are trying to say that. But I'm also like, yeah, they're hitting it so hard. I'm like, are you kind of like almost creating a new problem by being like, well, can you believe it? This woman is still vibrant and she still wants it and she still gets it. Can you believe it? How irreverent is that? I'm like, okay, like, calm down.

Yes, yes. I want to get into some of these films. I'm starting with two movies that are pretty similar. A family affair, which we'll get to in a second. And the idea of you. Hi. Hi. Do you mind? Oh, you want to eat. Runny's the ball. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. The idea of you follows Anne Hathaway's character, who is a beautiful and very cool mom with her own business. She's like 40 or 40. one or something like that. And she falls in love with a much younger pop star, played by Nicholas Godstein.

They had great chemistry. They did. I love him. I love him. I love Ian Hathaway. That they were so cute together. What is that song? It's nothing really.

I like it. Yeah. Yeah. I was into their romance. Me too. I was really into it. And then there's a family affair, which has Nicole Kidman also falling in love with a celebrity, this time, a movie star played by Zach Afron.

Do I sense an accent, like South African? No, I'm Australian. Do you know Margot Robbie? No, I don't. I do. So these movies are kind of similar. What do you think they say about being a hot mom? I mean, what I found most interesting in sort of the tropes that I was outlining is that, like, there was so much similarity in terms of like, okay, she's really sort of classically Hollywood beautiful.

It's Nicole Kim and it's In A Hathaway. It's like they look like themselves. They're very professionally successful. Yes. Nicole is an author, a very, very successful author, who is sometimes paid in couture. You know who my mom writes assignments for Vogue when she can't finish a book? Yeah. Vogue does not pay very well.

But they do give a lot of swag. Whoa. And she never wears any of it. Right. In a closet of couture. She's like, when they can't pay me, they give me couture. I'm like, what? What job is this?

What are you writing for? What are you talking about? That was specifically moving. for aliens. But I do think, I hope they liked it. I hope they liked it. I hope they did. These women are like successful.

They're wealthy. Their whole lives are together except they have this, you know, aching pit at the center of their soul that can only be filled by, you know, a famous man, 15 years younger than them. And I thought that was really, it was fascinating. A lot of like the younger woman Romance are like, she's a hot mess. Can't get it together. If only someone could come along.

And like, play this woman up. Yeah. So I thought that was like an interesting switch. It's like she doesn't need him, but she wants him. She wants him. Yeah. I also found it so interesting in those films that like they just act like no one would ever ask them out. When we first see Nicole Kidman's character, she's this really fabulous writer.

She's got this huge, gorgeous home. But when we see her, she's like snapping green beans or shelling peas or something like that. And I'm just like, what? Like she's snapping peas or something for her grown daughter to come. I'm home and eat dinner. And I'm like, okay, you mean to tell me that a woman looks like Nicole Kidman with all this money, she doesn't have any friends to be with? No.

She doesn't have a pottery class that she wants to do. She doesn't have a trip to take. There's no other men asking her out. And the idea of you, which is interesting because they appeared to have, I think, the narrowest age gap of all of the films. But the whole movie, Salen. Selene. Selen. Her grandparents are French.

Her grandparents are French. Salenne, the whole time she's like, oh, you're too young for me. I'm so old. I'm too old for him. I'm too old for you. I don't know. Okay, I mean, I knew what we were getting into with the film.

Like, I get it. Yeah, we get it. I know. She's like, I just can't. Also, there's a scene in both of those movies where they, like, stand in front of the mirror looking amazing, but, like, pouting at the horror of their body. This is what I'm saying.

It's like, we don't need to keep reinforcing this point. Why do you think that those, films spend so much time kind of like focused on that aspect of these romances. I do feel like there are a lot of movies, especially in this genre that like a women's film, you know, that are just so deeply stuck in a world that doesn't actually exist anymore. And I agree that there should be, there should be an element of fantasy to a rom-com, of course. But like more often than not, it feels like delusion and it feels like regression and it feels like, and I don't mean to pick on rom-coms.

I think this is a problem with a lot of movies. I think part of it is probably like studio notes, right? They're like, we need more conflict. We need more stakes. And they sort of manufacture that as the conflict. It's like the lazy way in. I also think maybe they just assume that an audience would be like, well, why aren't they talking about? You know, I think a lot of times a script or a film will assume that the audience is stupid.

You know, that's how I feel whenever I watch Netflix, I'm like, you think I'm an idiot. You think I'm dumb as hell. I think the sort of like the marvelification of film has created a sense of an audience that wants something dumbed down, that wants something easy, doesn't want to be challenged. And I don't know if that's true. I just think that's what like the studio or the people in charge assume. I mean, my husband is a film editor and we were watching Family Fair. And I'm looking at Nicole Kidman. Kathy Bates, Zach Efron, and Joey King, four talented people.

They're having this conversation that is so goofy. It was pitch black, so I figured the only way out was to go through the desert. Wait, without water? Yeah, naring a drop. And my husband noted that he's like, oh, he was like, well, this is set. Like the camera set up is the same as like the view. Yeah. He was like, they got three cameras.

They have an A camera, B camera, C camera. It's like shot like a sitcom. Yes. He's like, if you have Nicole Kidman, why would you do that? Okay, coming up, we're done with the Hot Mom movie bombs, and we're going to open up the good stuff. What Hot Mom rom-com has us ready to risk it all? Stick around. All right, let's talk about another movie that wasn't a disaster between the temples, which is a movie I loved.

Oh, loved. Are you okay? Can you help me? Maybe. Give me your hand. Give me your hand. So it's one of my favorite movies of the year, actually. Me too.

It's a movie about a widow in her 70s played by the fantastic Carol Kane. And she wants to get Bat Mitzvahed because she didn't have one when she was younger. And she ends up finding love with a much younger, but still 40-something-year-old Hebrew school teacher, played by Jason Schwartzman. Can we have a shotgun Bat Mitzvah? I can look into it. Really? Yeah. Between the temples.

Beautiful film. Carol Kane and Jason Schwartzman have genuine deep chemistry. And I felt like they connected because they had things in common. Right. Like they're both widows or widowers. Yeah. And they also like had shared interests. Yes.

Yeah. At least one shared interest. Exactly. The things that cause people to fall in love in real life. I was like, oh, this is the person who made this maybe has been on a couple dates or met other people before. Right. Yeah.

Between the temples is really good and almost doesn't deserve to be in the company of other films, I think it's like a delicious movie from start to finish. It's delicious. I could not not be friends with Carol Canaan and not fall in love with her. No, are you kidding me? And that's the other thing I'll say that the film does really well is that I remember watching it and feeling like, at least within the world of the film and through the eyes of the filmmaker, it was like, well, who wouldn't be in love with this woman?

As opposed to showing you a very conventionally attractive, young-looking Anne Hathaway and being like the audience needs for her character to be. ask the heavens, why, oh, why, just this young hot guy like me as opposed to, yeah, I felt like in between the temples, the gaze of the film was looking at Carol Kane, you know, this really gorgeous, fantastic woman in her 70s and being like, I mean, can you blame him? Yeah. No, that's exactly right. And that's exactly what I'm talking about. It's like, even though the conversation does turn to age, it's still an inevitability that he would fall in love with her. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I left the movie being like, I'm risking it all for her. And I do think that they're, what's missing too is I do think that like none of these movies are kind of like leaning into the eroticism of that inherent dynamic. Very good point. It's interesting because I mean, when I feel like films do lean into the eroticism of that dynamic, that's when you get Stifler's mom played by Jennifer Coolidge. It's like a joke. It's like a joke.

It's not typically something that is treated very seriously. Like whether it's the woman's desires are not serious or the man's, the man's desires are traction to the. women cannot be serious. Exactly. Exactly. And I imagine that there are some people who probably like the idea of getting with someone. Of course. I mean, it's a feature, not a bug. Like, hello.

Come on. That's a very, very, very good point that the eroticism in that mixed age dynamic doesn't really come through in movies like this very often. I will say one of the things that's interesting about these films, and you point this out in your piece, all the leads are white. Why do you think that is? How much time do you have? Why do I think that is? I mean, because it's like, again, it goes back to this idea of it being like the safest, most anodyne, in offense. Everything else has to be like, the studios are like, oh, well, it simply has to be like a thin, white, rich woman who has her career.

It all fits into that sort of like horribly racist, misogynistic industry that we know so well. I mean, I think that's obviously a part of it. But also something else that I have been thinking about is, like, in my experience, black women have less age anxiety than white women do. Also, like, a lot of black actresses, like, especially Gen X. I think they're all in their, like, mid to late 50s and they just stop playing, like, 35-year-olds. Yeah.

Just stop playing. Like, Raji P. Henson is in her mid-50s. She just stopped playing 35-year-olds like two years ago. Absolutely. This is so interesting and you're so right. The sort of, like, I feel so insecure because I'm so old thing. That's just not something that comes up in my life or in pleasant. That is so interesting.

Does that come up a lot? Sorry, asking you resident. Let me check in on the group chat. No, I mean, not with my friends. That's what I'm saying that these movies feel so foreign to me in that just implicit messaging. It's like, that's not the world that I live in. I have friends who are over 40. We're both approaching that era.

No one has ever been like, I'm too old to like be wanted. Like, everyone's out here like, you know, hooking up with younger dues and having a ball. Yeah. that with another age gap romance starting Nicole Kidman, baby girl coming out this December, there is an opportunity for something a little different in the Hot Mom rom-com or Hot Mom, whatever, Hot Mom film Canon, I suppose. You saw Baby Girl. Do you feel like it is going to give us a little something different? Absolutely. I mean, I wouldn't describe it as a rom-com necessarily.

It doesn't seem like a rom-com from the show. But it's sexy. It's very sexy. And the issue is not necessarily like her age. It's more like her kinks, which is very interesting. It also seems like it's going to play with power. Yes. I think that there's an assumption sometimes in these films that because women's power traditionally and perhaps societally is expected to be derived from fertility and youth and beauty that when you age, those things in their conventional sense diminish. and so then your power diminishes.

But it seems like they're actually going to highlight the fact that she has acquired power and that she has power. Yeah. Which I feel like is also missing from a lot of these films. Absolutely. I'm very interested in that idea where a woman's power comes from and how that can be erotic and not a problem. How that can be erotic and not a problem. And for me, I'm thinking like, okay, what else do I want?

And the first thing I thought of, which is a movie that I do mention in this piece, kind of tongue-in-cheek, is the movie Birth with Nicole Kidman? I just watched it. That's that for the first time a couple weeks ago. Oh, you want a woman to be viable only in the eyes of a younger man? How about a child? Who's her husband reincarnated? What about that?

What about that? Yeah. Nicole Kippen, I'm like, girl, maybe she should come in here. I'm going to be like, what's up? We need her on this. Yeah, we need her on. We need her. We need her.

I'm like, Nicole Kiman, give me your opinion. Between birth, a family affair and baby girl. I mean, what it really is is a triptych. It is. That's a film series. they should be showing a MetroGraph. MetroGuff, call us. Please call us.

We want to program Nicole Kidman's Age Gap Romances. And then the last one is the hours. Oh my gosh. Rachel, it is always just a pleasure to have you on this show. You are just so brilliant. And I am so glad every time I get to talk about. Me too. Me too.

It's so fun. That was Rachel Handler, Features Writer for New York Magazine. This episode of It's Been a Minute was produced by Barton Gerdwood. Alexis Williams Liam McBain This episode was edited by Jessica Plachachak Our executive producer is

Jasmine Romero Our VP of programming is Yolanda Sanguini All right That's all for this episode of It's Been a Minute from NPR I'm Brittany Luce Talk soon