Being a cougar is the new American Dream

Their roar has grow to be positively deafening. 

Cougars, more mature females who lunge at younger males like they’re elk at Yellowstone, are prowling across our screens all over again with renewed vigor. 

And, in a twist, with the utmost seriousness.

To be a Hollywood coug was as soon as the mockably hilarious stuff of Jennifer Coolidge as Stifler’s mom in “American Pie” or a scandalous romp like Anne Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson in “The Graduate.” On Tv, they ended up risque primetime soap fodder a la Eva Longoria’s Gabrielle on “Desperate Housewives.” 

All of them, you’ll recall, ended up bored spouses acquiring a roll in the hay.

To point out the clear, the ABC and TBS display “Cougar Town” was no deep status drama.

Presently, nevertheless, a far more mature girl hopping into bed with a in shape 20-a thing is becoming portrayed, not as taboo or sultry, but a fantastic and noble American aspiration. 

Life, liberty and the pursuit of Coreys.

Acquire very last week’s “A Family members Affair” on Netflix, in which Nicole Kidman plays a widowed California author and mother named Brooke who unexpectedly hooks up with motion star Chris Cole played by by Zac Efron — 21 a long time her junior.

When there is some comedy that emerges from a quirky predicament — her daughter is the hunk’s personal assistant — the movie is, for the most section, about a drifting lady whose husband died 11 years earlier and is shut off to discovering appreciate yet again.

She has, erm, quite the change of coronary heart when she feverishly rips off Efron’s shirt and marvels at his abdominal muscles as though she’s just encountered the Fantastic Pyramid of Giza. We’re intended to rabidly applaud this own victory as if its our have and it’s possible even get rid of a smaller tear.

Proving the movie’s a lot more than pure frivolity, Kathy Bates is in it.

A equivalent headline-maker, “The Strategy of You,” debuted in March on Key Video, and it’s honest as a saint. 

Forty-one particular-year-old Anne Hathaway stars as a Los Angeles art gallery proprietor who starts a fling with a planet-well-known, 24-yr-previous British boybander despite the prying lenses of the paparazzi and their ten years-and-a-half age distinction. 

Dependent on Robinne Lee’s popular novel, the story is said to be modeled right after Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles’ superior-profile, two-12 months romance.  

Hathaway’s Solène — what a name — is depressed about being over the hill. Adding to the torment of the calendar, she’s stymied by a jackass ex-partner and is the lonely mom to a teen daughter who’s shut to leaving the nest.  

Then lucky Solène acts as an unwitting chaperone on her kid’s vacation to an legendary new music festival, and leaves with an A-list singer remaining infatuated with her. Phone it “Coachella Enchanted.” 

Her whirlwind courtship with alluring Hayes is shown as a deeply significant sharp change in everyday living relatively than some bubbly enjoyable established to pop tracks. The pair cry rivers, deal with social media backlash and have focused discussions about their long run.

There is not a second of the motion picture where viewers really don’t root difficult for Solène and Hayes’ relationship to perform out in the conclude. Earning our approval is not generally the chief target of age gap tales, but this “Idea,” the movie insists, is a exceptional 1.

I am all for the cougs’ bold new period. The movies permit appealing Academy Award winners like Kidman and Hathaway to escape the slim confines of Oscar bait. And the movies entertainingly convert an aged joke on its head. 

Forget “Kingdom of the Earth of the Apes.” Suitable now, Hollywood is the Earth of the Cougars.