Women Attracted to Much Younger Men is Not Normal

4 Tropes 3 Movies 1 TV Show
Table Of Contents

Explanation of Conservative Trope

When women are attracted to younger men on screen it is usually singled out as not normal with the woman called a "cougar" or a man trying to seduce a woman for some purpose for example. But you often see men with much younger women and it's treated as completely normal.

Main Description

Men are often depicted with much younger woman on screen in a way that is normal. It is not mentioned or singled out that the actors have a noticeable age difference. But women with younger men? Not so much. Terms like Cougar have been popularized as is younger men calling women with kids they are attracted to MILFs thanks to American Pie. Women with younger men often get singled out for it in some way on screen while when men are with comparably younger women they are not.

Conservative Trope Examples

  • Hall Pass (2011)
    Grace (Christina Applegate) sleeps with a college baseball player even though she's old enough to be his mom.
  • Ocean's Thirteen (2007)
    Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon) seduces a much older Abigail Sponder (Ellen Barkin) to gain access to a sensitive area where diamonds were hidden. They originally were going to have older Rusty do it but Linus points out that she is a "cougar". He also uses a drug that when she smells it, she is instantly smitten by him and acts like someone drunk.
    Other Tropes: Women are Easily Smitten by Men
  • American Pie (1999)
    Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) walks into a room clearly marked with a "Please Keep Out" sign on the door and encounters Stiffler's mom (Jennifer Coolidge) having a drink next to a pool table. Instead of asking him to leave, she flirts with him by offering him a drink that's been aged 18 years, which she says is "the way I like it." As the song "Mrs. Robinson" begins to play in the background—a sly reference to the movie "The Graduate"—Stiffler's mom looks over at the pool table and tells Finch "you're dead" as the camera pans away and they presumably have sex.
  • Friends [1997 - S3E18]
    Phoebe's (Lisa Kudrow) long lost brother Frank Jr. (Giovanni Ribisi) is engaged to his (much older) former high school teacher Alice Knight (Debra Jo Rupp).