“I’m 23.”
“Oh my God, you’re a child. I have t-shirts older than you.”
Age gap relationships make us uncomfortable,
but where exactly is the line – and can they ever be a good thing?
Right now, these relationships are being explored a lot in culture,
for good and for bad.
“It was... incredible.
“Except for the whole ‘him being married’ thing.”
“I tried not to think about that.”
While the older-man, younger-woman relationship was long treated as normal
today we’re bringing more skepticism and critique to that pairing.
In stories like Impeachment and Sean Baker’s Red Rocket,
we see how the age gap can create a power imbalance,
where an older, often more powerful man
takes advantage of the inexperience of the younger woman.
“Smokin’ hot, gorgeous, drop-dead gorgeous, and get this?
Seventeen years old. Legal as an eagle.”
Meanwhile, examples that go against social norms,
like an older woman with a younger man may be more surprising to us,
“I’ve always thought of you,
and I-I mean this in the best possible way,
as a stone-cold killer bitch.”
“Who says you don't know how to flirt?”
and often painted in a more positive light –
even if this itself can result in a different double standard
overlooking that this dynamic, too, can sometimes be exploitative.
When age-difference romances aren’t tainted by power imbalances, though,
there’s a sense that getting to know someone
from a different generation, whether as a lover or a friend,
can unlock understanding about ourselves and others.
As L.P. Hartley’s novel “The Go-Between” puts it:
“The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.”
So, someone who grew up in a foreign time period automatically
brings a different set of experiences for you to compare yours to,
perhaps helping you arrive at deeper truths.
Maybe being with someone who doesn’t share your particular set
of references and assumptions forces a greater level of authenticity.
Here’s our take on onscreen, age gap relationships,
for better and worse,
and when they can represent something special.
[Whispering] “Reach out. Take a chance. Get hurt even.
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[Over the phone] “Just get a lawyer to draft an affidavit.”
“Saying what?”
“Well Monica, what would you wanna say?”
The problem with relationships with big age gaps
is that they often come with a major power imbalance.
In the post Me Too era, they’re seen as almost inherently problematic.
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, nearly three hours long.
Leonardo DiCaprio attended the premiere,
and by the end, his date was too old for him”
And there’s a long-overdue reappraisal of relationships
with age differences that, at the time,
weren’t widely questioned.
There was very little pushback when Aaliyah’s
“Age Ain’t Nothin’ But A Number” was released,
written and produced by R Kelly and allegedly about their marriage -
with Kelly 27 and Aaliyah 15 at the time
“You had the history of musicians who married young girl fans and…
I think while it was disturbing to people, um…
it’s very easy to rationalize things.”
But the revelations and criminal sentencing
of R Kelly’s abuse and grooming of other young Black women
has forced us to stop brushing this. and other R.Kelly lyrics,
under the rug.
Similarly, Woody Allen’s Manhattan
has always been considered in the pantheon of American cinema,
but the resurfaced allegations of abuse against him
from adopted daughter Dylan Farrow, and the documentary Allen v Farrow,
have brought more evidence toward the way that Allen portrayed
onscreen relationships between himself and very young women
to legitimize and normalize this dynamic for the audience.
“I'm 42 and she's 17.” [Coughing]
“I'm... I'm older than her father.”
Allen v Farrow even observes that, in Manhattan,
Allen writes it so that Mariel Hemingway’s character –
who was 17 in the script, the actress 16 during filming -
– is the one voicing the strong feelings to Allen’s character.
“He gets to be the shrinking violet,
and she’s the one with the serious desire.
He uses her to make his predation OK.”
Revisionism is also at the heart of the series Impeachment,
which revisits the Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton scandal
with a modern ethical framework to illustrate what an abuse of power
the relationship between a president and a young, naive intern really was –
“It’s actually quite disturbing, she was 21 when it started, an intern,
and he went after her immediately.”
– and how disturbing it was t hat Clinton was eventually protected
while Lewinsky was thrown to the wolves.
A range of iconic stories in our culture –
from Lolita to Juno to Fish Tank
– have shone a light on the tactics and mindsets
of older men who are predatory toward younger women.
But for a long time, this behavior was treated
as normal and expected – or worse,
just as Humbert Humbert projects his desire to Lolita,
the woman was painted as the figure holding the cards,
thanks to her sexual desirability
“What drives me insane is the twofold nature of this nymphet…
of every nymphet, perhaps.”
The archetype of the “gold digger”, for instance,
is often used as a way to criticize young women
who allegedly pursue older men for financial gain.
Here, despite the man being older and richer,
it’s the woman who is seen as powerful,
and prone to use that power for a self-serving end.
“This compulsive fornicator is taking my father
for the proverbial ride.”
Only Murders in the Buildings plays on our continuing assumptions
of what’s a normal age difference when it comes to
Jan’s relationship with Charles to her relationship with Tim Kono
“I’m a sucker for lonely guys with notable age differences”
Actually, the difference in each pairing is relatively similar,
while the show’s writers call out that, likely,
viewers are more likely to see the difference between her and Tim,
due to our being so much more desensitized
to seeing an older man with a younger woman.
And when a male celebrity dates a woman who’s older,
or even just age-appropriate, this is often treated as news.
Meanwhile, though we’re more aware of and vocal about
the problems with many older-men-younger-women alliances,
that doesn’t mean these problems go away.
In 2020’s Shiva Baby, Danielle –
who has created her own college major, “The Business of Gender”
– feels like she’s in control of her decisions,
as she experiments with sex work
through the “Sugar Baby” app where she meets Max.
But when she’s confronted with Max’s wife and baby
and becomes unsettled at a shiva she attends with her family,
it becomes clear that she’s not really coming from
as empowered a position as she might have first imagined
“I wish I could have my own bachelor pad
where I could do whatever the f-[BLEEP] I wanted.”
In 2021’s Red Rocket,
Sean Baker sews this feeling of discomfort and unease
of the imbalanced age-difference relationships
into the fabric of the movie about former adult film star Mikey Saber
beginning a relationship with 17-year-old Strawberry,
hoping to use her to reignite his own career.
“How old are you?”
“Who’s asking?” “Me.”
“Why?” “C’mon”
“I’m old enough.”
Baker said Mikey is inspired by
the real “archetype” of the “suitcase pimp,”
or a male in the adult industry who lives off of a female talent.
And we watch how Mikey grooms Strawberry
for a potential adult film career.
“I don’t wanna f-[BLEEP] anybody else,
and I don’t wanna think about you f-[BLEEP]-ing other girls.”
“It would be just us, it’s called couples scenes.”
“You would have made $2000 for that video right there.”
Meanwhile, he’s bragging to friends about her,
and loafing off his wife Lexi, who hates his guts,
but caves to his pleading and advances to let him move back in.
We can infer that, back in the day,
Mikey did this same “Strawberry” treatment on Lexi –
who’s now addicted to drugs and lost her child to CPS –
a sequence of events Mikey takes no responsibility for.
Even when Mikey’s plans are thwarted,
and he leaves a path of destruction in his wake,
he doesn’t really learn any lesson
and continues to keep dreaming the same dream.
And there’s something recognizably American in his mindset.
Throughout the film, the shadow of Trump’s election looms large –
so there’s an implicit connection between Mikey
and a man with a similar attitude toward women
who rode his perceived charisma and celebrity to the White House
[Over TV] “America is a nation of believers,
dreamers, and strivers that is being led by a group of censors”
“I hear he's got some 20-year-old twinkie in the city.”
“I’m a twinkie!”
“Really? I’m a hero!”
Meanwhile, there’s a double standard at play
when it comes to relationships between older women and younger men.
“Your physical relationship with the defendant lasted how long?”
“Uh, five glorious weeks, ma’am.”
Songs like Fountains of Wayne’s “Stacy’s Mom,” and Busted’s
“What I Go To School For,”
the 2015 Pete Davidson “Teacher Trial” SNL sketch,
and the character of Stiffler’s Mom in the American Pie franchise,
herself a spin-off on Mrs. Robinson, eroticize this relationship –
“Single malt?”
“Aged eighteen years… the way I like it.”
– bringing out the way that sleeping with an older woman
can be a badge of honor for a younger man.
Similarly, in Cougar Town,
the idea of an older woman dating younger men
is depicted through a quasi-feminist lens,
as a reaction to the more culturally accepted notion
of the man going through a mid-life crisis who decides
to start dating younger women.
“Your wife moves what, a week ago?
And you’re already sexing up sorority girls,
but nobody cares,
because when a 40-year-old guy gets divorced, all your friends are like:
[Mockingly] “‘Oh, way to go tiger!’”
The older woman is still often depicted as having the power,
but that power is viewed as sexy,
and NOT predatory.
“I didn’t mean to be such a hardass just now,
you can totally wait until I’m gone to put your gown back on.”
“Take off your pants.”
“Yes, m’am.”
While in some cases this might be true,
it can also lead to overlooking what ARE abuses of power
by women toward underage boys.
In Mad Men, Don Draper’s first sexual encounter
is with Aimee Swanson, a prostitute,
when he’s still a child, sick in bed with the flu,
and he explicitly says he doesn’t want it to happen
“Don’t you wanna know what all the fuss was about?”
“No.”
But despite it clearly being non-consensual –
and the series eventually implying it caused a lot of lasting damage
in Don’s psychology and later relationships –
the encounter was viewed as another example
of this eroticized older-woman, younger-man relationship.
In The Wall Street Journal, Aimee is described as
“guiding [Dick] through his first sexual experience,”
and writing in The Guardian, Paul MacInnes said,
“Aimee knew what young Dick really wanted
and was prepared to do what was necessary to give it to him.”
Arguably the most famous older-woman, younger-man relationship –
Mrs. Robinson’s seduction of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate –
is remembered in our culture in a light-hearted, joking manner,
but there are actually a lot of dark undertones
in Benjamin’s initial discomfort with her advances –
“I want you to know that I’m available to you,
and if you won’t sleep with me this time–”
“Oh my Christ!”
– the depression and confusion he’s going through,
and the eventual fallout of their affair as he falls for her daughter.
Today, our discourse is focusing more on how this kind of transgression
can happen with dynamics of any gender.
Fosse/Verdon spends time exploring how Bob Fosse’s early sexual experiences
as an underage boy left him with complicated sexual hang-ups,
which then fueled his own pathological womanizing.
While Licorice Pizza’s relationship between
25-year-old Alana and 15-year-old Gary
is presented in a sweet, positive light,
some people criticized Alana for grooming Gary.
And in The French Dispatch,
Frances McDormand’s character is directly insulted for sleeping with
Timothee Chalamet’s MUCH younger political activist
–
who then does end the story with someone more “age-appropriate.”
All this gets at how fraught and complicated
our assumptions, standards, and boundaries
for these relationships often are.
It’s also worth noting that our views
on the discomfort of age gap relationships
feel very specific to straight relationships,
and when applied to queer relationships,
can veer into well-worn, homophobic tropes
around queer people corrupting younger men and women.
Writer Christopher Sherwood says:
“When I eventually 'came out’ at the age of 24,
having recently met my 61-year-old partner,
who I’ve now been married to, (with a prenup) for nine years,
someone close to me said, ‘It’s drugs, isn’t it?
He’s got you into drugs. That’s what this is about…
How can you possibly be attracted to someone that old?’”
Similarly, Jill Gutowitz writes how the eroticization of older women
takes a completely different form for queer women
than it does for straight men, saying:
“Much of what I liked was actually quite maternal,
but definitely not in the Stifler’s mom type of way:
Whoopi Goldberg safeguarding her fellow nuns in Sister Act was hot.
Shannen Doherty as a protective older sister in Charmed was hot.
Miss Honey adopting a child and creating the blueprint
for cottage-core living in Matilda was hot.”
In truth, age gap relationships are far more common in queer relationships,
with a study from Facebook in 2014 revealing that
the average absolute age difference between same-sex partners
is larger than in heterosexual relationships.
These contradictions in how we view age gap relationships
reveal that maybe what makes us uncomfortable
is less to do with age than we think.
When power imbalances and exploitation aren’t an issue,
sometimes a relationship with an age difference
can be a beautiful means towards self-understanding.
When you’re not sure of yourself or what you want,
being with someone outside your generation –
and free of your particular generational baggage and assumptions –
might be the key to helping you figure these answers out.
One of TV’s most famous age gap relationships
came with Monica and Richard in Friends.
While the two were completely head over heels for each other,
the relationship cemented Monica’s desire for a family,
which she couldn’t get with Richard –
“I want to have a baby. But I don't want to have one
with someone who doesn't really want to have one”
– a problem of timing in terms of starting a family
that’s a recurring problem in age gap relationships.
“You want a baby,
and he is in no position to give you that.”
Even though the breakup was painful, it allowed Monica to clarify
what she wanted out of her life, and pursue that.
This mutual understanding is at the core of the romance
between Gary and Alana in Licorice Pizza.
Alana is turning 25 and going through something of a quarter life crisis,
while Gary is 15 and maybe trying too hard to be an adult,
when he should just be a kid
“My Mom works for me.”
“Your mom works for you?”
“Yes she does, in my public relations company.”
[Incredulously] “In your public relations company?”
While their flirtation is pretty chaste for the most part,
they each find an ease and comfort with each other:
Alana validates Gary’s more hair-brained schemes,
while Gary takes the pressure of growing up away from Alana.
There’s a sense that neither is fully formed,
but their relationship allows them to flourish and not worry too much
about the messiness of where they’re at.
Sometimes this greater understanding comes at a time when characters
aren’t being understood by the people who SHOULD understand them.
In Harold and Maude, angsty and suicidal Harold
is misunderstood by his family from the start;
his concerns are given no weight by anyone.
“I suppose you think this is very funny, Harold.”
But he finds real connection and love through his relationship with Maude,
who we find out, too, is reflecting on her own mortality.
The love for life that Harold eventually finds
at the start of his adult life
comes specifically from the fact that Maude is at the end of hers,
and knowing what she’s about to leave behind.
Their age gap may be taboo,
but it’s crucial to Harold’s emotional journey.
“I love you.”
“Go and love some more.”
In Ozark, too, no one can understand or respect
the 40 or 50- year age difference relationship
that forms between Wyatt and Darlene -
but their behavior together is full of loving respect and honesty,
of a kind which doesn’t really characterize most of the interactions
we see on the show.
“Did you mean what you said? Am I a good mother?”
“Yeah, every word”
And in Modern Family,
people may view Gloria and Jay as a wealthy-guy-hot-second wife cliche,
but the two make each other happy and build a healthy family together
“The important thing is you make him happy,
which you do, in so many ways.”
Outside of romance, the age gap relationship
plays an important role, too.
We can learn from friendships with people
much older or much younger than us,
because their experiences are just so different.
To quote Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie,
“Time is the longest distance between two places.”
In practice, these connections also often help us to remember that,
despite the feeling of generational divide,
our hopes, struggles, and dreams are very much the same.
In Only Murders In The Building,
the generational gap between Mabel and Charles and Oliver
might make it seem they’ve been born on different planets,
but they meet each other during a shared stage of uncertainty.
“Tim was my friend, or he used to be.
I think that’s why I’m so obsessed with solving this murder.”
They have a united sense of purpose.
And their differences,
rather than leading to moments of disconnection,
bring them closer and add color to each other’s lives.
“I taught him how to use Postmates, and he taught me how to do this.”
In the end, the age gap helps the group achieve
a sense of wholeness from coming together.
“There were parts of myself that were dead
that they brought back to life.”
In Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon,
building cross-generational relationships feels necessary
and almost utopian.
The conceit of the film -
an NPR-esque journalist traveling the country
to talk to schoolkids about how they see the future,
all the while reconnecting with his own nephew -
gives a huge amount of weight to these young idealists.
“What would you tell them about the U.S.?”
“You come here and you’ll see a lot of bad,
but it’s beautiful.”
They’re able to describe things like climate change and race relations
in a pure, unfiltered, authentic way that helps us see them
in a new, much less cynical light.
C’mon C’mon reveals that if the generations
started listening more to each other,
then we might be able to make more progress together.
It feels like the generations have always been at war with each other,
and it’s overblown in our media today.
Headlines announce that Boomers hate Gen-X,
Gen-X hate Millennials, Millennials hate Gen-Z,
and vice versa.
“Right now the average age of this 52nd parliament is 49 years old -
ok boomer.”
But what if this generation “gap” is all in our heads?
Studies that have examined differences between people of different generations
have shown that if they are there, they’re minimal.
So maybe the age gap relationship is important because it invites us
to question our assumptions about people much older,
or much younger, than us.
As long as it’s on an even playing field,
we always have something to learn from people with different experiences.
“Aim above morality.
If you apply that to life, then you're bound to live life fully.”