Pride and prejudice: celebrity versus fictional cougars

Abstract

This article explores the various forms that the ‘cougar’ – the mature and sophisticated woman who dates younger men – takes in television and film in the new millennium, contrasting fictional representations with ‘real’ celebrity cougars currently in the media spotlight. First, it examines the film cougar in a new cycle of the romantic comedy that emerged in the 2000s (Rebound (2009), I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007), Prime (2005), Something's Gotta Give (2003)); films which concentrate on and/or include relationships between older women and younger men, reversing the traditional May–December cycle of the 1950s. It also examines Cougar Town, the ABC sitcom launched in September 2009, starring Courteney Cox as a recently divorced, 40-something woman who starts sleeping with younger men in order to replace her lost youth. Cougar Town is especially significant to this movement, since Cox is also a ‘real’-life celebrity cougar who married a younger man and is not afraid to embrace the label attached to her by the media. Drawing on existing celebrity theory including Turner (2009. Understanding celebrity. London: Sage), this article explores the reactions that surround this ‘new’ woman, which range from prejudice and even contempt to positive embrace and acceptance. Using textual analysis of both fictional representations and media discourses about famous cougars, I reflect on how the ‘real’ cougar translates into the fictional one and whether both sets of representations negate or empower women in the twenty-first century.

Keywords:

• cougar
• Cougar Town
• Courteney Cox
• romantic comedy
• new millennium

Notes

1. www.urbandictionary.com

2. http://uk.askmen.com/top_10/dating/top-10-legendary-cougars.html; http://ezinearticles.com/?Top-Ten-Celebrity-Cougars&id=3886862; http://anythinghollywood.com/2010/05/hollywoods-hottest-cougars/

3. http://www.vipcougarclub.com/; http://www.therealcougarwoman.com/rcc.html

4. http://www.singlestravelcompany.com/singles/2010_2nd_international_cougar_cruise.html; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/16/cougar-cruise-norwegian_n_784069.html

5. The couple announced their trial separation in October 2010.

6. The great number of rom-coms produced in this period incorporated a number of distinctive cycles, which I have identified elsewhere based on a corpus of approximately 200 romantic comedies released between 2001 and 2009 (Kaklamanidou 2010).

7. These data are drawn from boxofficemojo.com.