From Friend to Cougar
While commenting on a blog tonight, I was reminded of something that has been bugging me. Courtney Cox has (had?) a new show this season called Cougartown. I watched it once. I didn’t watch it again for a few reasons: it is on against something else I watch, it wasn’t that great, and GAH what the hell do you mean Courtney Cox is old enough to be a cougar?
Friends came out a couple of months after I graduated from college. It felt like it was about me – if I was hot and living in NYC with great friends and could afford an amazing apartment and clothes while never seeming to go to work. (Seriously, Rachel was the only one who seemed to work the for first few years because she was bringing them all coffee.) They were all around my age – maybe a couple of years older. They were single. They were funny. They were friends. Awesome. Anyway, thanks to denial and reruns on cable Friends lives on. The friends, much like me in my own head, haven’t aged much.
Then the new fall line up starts. I catch 1 episode of Courtney’s new show – Cougartown. I spent the first 23 minutes of the 30 minute show trying to wrap my brain around the fact that this gorgeous woman who is essentially my age can possible be a COUGAR with a TEENAGE SON worrying that she is TOO OLD to date the hot guy she is sleeping with. I can’t identify with that. I want to continue pretending that my life is closer to her single, carefree life in NYC than her single mother life in the ‘burbs. I resent TV for making me face the fact that I am getting older. Stop it. Now.
And someone please make a decent sitcom again.
If it makes you feel any better, Courtney Cox was thirty years old when Friends began. I’m only a few months older than her, and my oldest child is 24 and I have a grandchild. You are clearly much younger. . . practically from a different generation than Ms. Cox!
Courtney Cox went to high school with my husband and was in the same class as his little brothers — just 18 months younger than me. My oldest daughter is 26 and I have a 6-year-old grandchild. I just wished I looked as young as Courtney! Well … maybe with a makeup team, high-priced hairdresser and personal trainer?? No … probably still not.
I know how you feel though. I certainly don’t feel like a cougar! I have a two year old. I feel like I’m still a young mom. But I’m not. I don’t think I want to face that fact either!
So. with. you.
She’s a good ten years older than you, Michelle. I’m the same age as Friends (our prom dresses looked the same, plus my college bf went to HS with Jennifer Aniston). She’s one of the older ones in the cast (I think Lisa Kudrow is older). While she is old enough to have a teenager, I think the entire premise of the show is annoying. She’s made to look foolish, like a teenager herself in pursuit of men. Plus, there was another show on TVLand about a “cougar” who was younger than me! (I’m not even 40 yet, so technically I’m a year younger than Jennifer Aniston.) I don’t know how they are defining “cougar,” but it’s a bit ridiculous to think that a woman dating a man ten years younger is borderline-inappropriate but a woman dating a man 20 years older is by some means commonplace.
If you REALLY want to be offended by a show about an older woman / younger man (that really isn’t a huge age difference), watch Accidentally on Purpose. Not. good.
I think the networks are very clever in their scheduling, though. They put these shows on right after shows that “normal” 30-somethings would watch.
(And FWIW, Doug appreciates “Cougartown” because he likes watching Courtney Cox…)
Someone who I went to high school with has a son who will be graduating this year. GRADUATING HIGH SCHOOL. Granted, she had him when she was fifteen, but still. OMG. The first of “our kids” is graduating high school.
for good new sitcoms, check out “the middle” and “modern family.” both funny and clever with fairly consistent good writing.
I looooove me some Community—have you seen it?
That said, Im a McHale fan from way bizzack 🙂
the husband? loves Cougartown.
shocking I realize 🙂