Cougar Town should crawl back into its lair

cougar townLast night Cougar Town aired with 45-year-old Courtney Cox playing Jules. I was hoping for a humorous yet positive portrayal of single women in mid-life. What I saw was a sad commentary full of inconsistencies. I realize sit-coms often have nothing to do with anything near reality.

Courney CoxFor example, the first scene is of beautiful, slender Courtney Cox standing naked in front of the mirror inventorying her body’s flaws. Heaven forbid — she has some loose skin around her elbow! Her slender thighs and arms are not as taut as she’d like. I would kill to have her body, yet she’s unhappy that she doesn’t look like her 20-year-old self? I’d say she looks pretty darn close!

Soon we see her lusting after a shirtless young man at her son’s high school sporting event. She tells her girlfriend she’d like to lick this man’s body — with her teenage son sitting next to her! What a great role model of appropriate comments in front of your teenagers!

Courtney’s character appears sex-starved, desperate and angry. She chastises her handsome middle-aged neighbor for dating younger women and not being interested in someone her age. Maybe because she’s so bitter it would be hard to be attracted to her! And yet, she, too, finds solace in bonking younger men and not seeming to be interested in their intellectual capacity or life experience.

She goes out drinking with Laurie, her decades-younger assistant and gets looped. A twenty-something man strikes up a conversation. She leaves when she realizes she’s too wasted, and her gal pal later delivers this young man to her house. She invites him in, treats him like her son’s teenage friends, and he seduces her. Yes, this is exactly what it’s like to be a middle-aged woman dating again!

Her friend Barb is the equivalent of a dirty old man. If her comments were from a man, we’d be disgusted at her sleaziness. She oozes with inappropriate sexual innuendo.

I know there are people like all these characters, and that these people are somewhat exaggerated for the entertainment value. Yet, I always hope — against all logic — that producers will actually paint a positive view of midlife singles based on some more common reality. But we know I hope for a lot of things that aren’t likely to happen!

(When I was contacted last Fall by two TV producers asking me to host a reality dating show for midlifers, I said I wanted to have real-looking people, not pretty actor-types. And I wanted no one to get voted off the show. Needless to say, they couldn’t sell the show because the money-people said the American public only wanted to see young, fit people. I said that so many middle-aged daters didn’t look like what they saw in Hollywood and yet they could be very attractive. No sale. Oh well.)

Did you watch Cougar Town? If so, what did you think?

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Want to know more about the realities of dating in midlife? Get your copy of any of the Adventures in Delicious Dating After 4o books.

Comments

4 responses to “Cougar Town should crawl back into its lair”

  1. Anna Avatar
    Anna

    Sorry DG, I did not watch it and now I definitely won’t ! But I would have watched your reality TV show with REAL people so perhaps the Media / money people are not always correct? Either that or we are not the real audience they are trying to attract. They are missing out on a huge market of ordinary mid life daters who have not had the benefit of surgical enhancements, surgical corrections or a personal trainer, personal chef, dietician etc. 🙂

  2. Cate Avatar
    Cate

    I watched it… ick.
    I could not believe a) she truly had body issues, b) she and her friends would behave/talk that way in front of her son, c) that anyone our age can pick up beautiful young guys like so many of the women in this show did. I also thought it was way too raunchy, that women our age know better and have more refined humor. I didn’t laugh once.
    Pass.

  3. rlt Avatar
    rlt

    I like the idea of the midlife dating show…i think it would be great. I could definitely add some good reality stories to the show.

  4. Richard Avatar
    Richard

    After reading your blog, I recorded a show. I spent about 3 minutes skipping through the first half of the show and decided it was a waste of time. I guess I am not into the sitcoms that have come out in the last few years, although I enjoy the detective comedies on USA network. I guess I’m looking for shows that are more than how Character A finds a way to sleep with Character B.