Nicole Kidman wouldn’t describe her latest film, “Babygirl,” as a professional “risk.”
When asked by Zendaya about the project during their Variety Actors on Actors interview, Kidman said she didn’t hesitate to get involved. “As soon as I heard it was called ‘Babygirl,’ I’m like, ‘Yeah. I want to be the babygirl,’” she said.
The A24 psychosexual drama, which hits theaters on Christmas, stars Kidman as the CEO of a company who begins an affair with her much-younger male intern (played by Harris Dickinson). For many women in Hollywood, a project like “Babygirl” would likely be considered risky just because of its premise.
Over the years, men have been involved with younger female love interests (both on-screen and off), without many giving it a second thought. Women in similar situations have usually been categorized by society as “cougars.” Yet while some films have featured an older woman entangled with a younger man — including 1967’s “The Graduate,” 1971’s “Harold and Maude,” 1998’s “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” and others — there’s been a noticeable shift this year.
We allow men to do it all the time. Why can’t we do it?
-Robinne Lee, “The Idea of You” author
A handful of releases — including “The Idea of You,” “Family Affair,” “Lonely Planet” and now, “Babygirl” — have embraced narratives in which an older woman is romantically involved with a younger man. Audiences have been here for it, too. Each project has generated buzz, particularly among female viewers.
“Women I think want to see other women as fully fleshed out characters reclaiming their sexuality and their identity in a way we haven’t been able to see often,” said Robinne Lee, who wrote the 2017 book “The Idea of You" that the movie was adapted from.
“They want to see us enjoying ourselves and tapping into this part of who we are,” Lee told NBC News in a recent Zoom interview. “We allow men to do it all the time. Why can’t we do it?”
Martha Lauzen, the founder and executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, suggested the popularity of these recent releases can be explained by at least a couple of factors.
To begin with, Lauzen noted, the films all feature Oscar-winning actresses.
Kidman stars in two of them. In addition to “Babygirl,” she plays a woman who falls in love with her daughter’s movie star boss (played by Zac Efron) in Netflix’s “Family Affair.”
Then there’s “The Idea of You,” released by Amazon Prime Video, starring Anne Hathaway as divorced mom Solene Marchand, who finds herself in a relationship with the young lead singer of the fictional band August Moon (played by Nicholas Galitzine). The film's trailer release in March broke records, months before the film even debuted. Netflix’s “Lonely Planet,” released in fall, stars Laura Dern as a writer who finds a connection with a younger man (played by Liam Hemsworth) at a retreat in Morocco.
All the films also “offer an alternative to the traditional romantic narrative,” Lauzen said in an email to NBC News.
“Age is typically associated with power,” she wrote. “The older a character is, the more likely they are to possess personal and/or professional power. The female characters in these films are likely to feel more comfortable in their lives and with themselves than their younger counterparts and are thus likely to navigate their romantic encounters in a different way. Some audience members are likely to find this power differential unique and appealing.”
Brenda Weber, chair and professor in gender studies at Indiana University, also pointed to the timing of the releases. In the aftermath of an election in which gender played a major role, some remain concerned about the future of women’s reproductive rights.
“It does seem worth thinking about the larger sexual politics in the U.S. right now,” she told NBC News in an email. “Given how contested reproductive rights have become in the past two years, it’s striking that it is often ‘the older woman’ — who might also be perceived as the menopausal and not fertile woman — who has any capacity to experience a full and rewarding sexual life.”
Like Lauzen, Weber said in “some ways” she does see the recent surge in the trope as “a positive sign about allowing for and fostering women’s power much longer into the life span than popular culture has typically imagined.”
“I think for obvious reasons, it’s good and noteworthy to extend the ‘sell by’ date for women, and underscoring an ‘older’ woman as both desiring and desirable has a certain amount of progressive verve to it,” she said. “It does concern me, however, that such an extension is made available only to exceedingly talented and conventionally beautiful people.”
A recent list of more flattering depictions of older women also doesn’t erase past portrayals in film and TV.
Some older movies “offer a truly appalling version of older women and younger men,” Weber said, citing 1950’s “Sunset Boulevard” as an example. The film “makes the older woman figure lose her mind and become monstrous in relation to her love for the younger man, whom she kills," Weber noted.
Lauzen appeared skeptical about whether the popularity of the trope in 2024 indicates a broader cultural acceptance of the dynamic.
Next year, at least one film features a similar age-gap storyline with an older woman at the center. “Bridget Jones Mad About the Boy,” the fourth installment in the franchise, follows the titular character (played by Renée Zellweger) as she navigates dating as a widow and mother of two. Her suitors include a younger man (played by Leo Woodall), as well her son’s teacher (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor). (NBC News and Universal Pictures, the film’s distributor, share Comcast as a parent company.)
It’s unclear how many similar projects are in the pipeline.
“It is possible that these films will normalize these relationships and clear the way for greater numbers of them,” Lauzen said, “but the overall numbers for gender and age argue against that happening.”
Lauzen cited research from her annual “It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World” report, which examines portrayals of female characters in the top grossing films for the year. The report determined that men continue to be older than their female counterparts on-screen.
“If we consider the numbers of male and female characters in speaking roles in the top grossing films from 2023, we see that the majority of female characters are in their 20s and 30s and the majority of male characters are in their 30s and 40s,” Lauzen noted.
Still, some, like Lee, are hopeful that soon these types of stories will become mainstream across pop culture.
“Maybe it will become the norm, or just another option, like seeing a same-sex or interracial relationship on screen,” she said. “The more familiar you are with it, the more it becomes like just another couple.”
At a June red carpet premiere for “Family Affair,” Kidman reflected on portraying a romance between an older woman and younger man.
“Because of the nature of the world, it’s always been older men and younger women,” she told Variety. “Everyone’s like ‘oh my gosh’ … and I think that needs to be kind of demystified.”
