Their roar has become positively deafening.
Cougars, older women who lunge at younger men like they’re elk at Yellowstone, are prowling across our screens again with renewed vigor.
And, in a twist, with the utmost seriousness.
To be a Hollywood coug was once the mockably hilarious stuff of Jennifer Coolidge as Stifler’s mom in “American Pie” or a scandalous romp like Anne Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson in “The Graduate.” On TV, they were risque primetime soap fodder a la Eva Longoria’s Gabrielle on “Desperate Housewives.”
All of them, you’ll recall, were bored spouses having a roll in the hay.
To state the obvious, the ABC and TBS show “Cougar Town” was no deep prestige drama.
Nowadays, however, a more mature woman hopping into bed with a fit 20-something is being portrayed, not as taboo or sultry, but as a great and noble American aspiration.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of Coreys.
Take last week’s “A Family Affair” on Netflix, in which Nicole Kidman plays a widowed California writer and mother named Brooke who unexpectedly hooks up with action star Chris Cole played by by Zac Efron — 21 years her junior.
While there is some comedy that emerges from a quirky situation — her daughter is the hunk’s personal assistant — the film is, for the most part, about a drifting woman whose husband died 11 years earlier and is closed off to finding love again.
She has, erm, quite the change of heart when she feverishly rips off Efron’s shirt and marvels at his abs as though she’s just encountered the Great Pyramid of Giza. We’re meant to rabidly applaud this personal victory as if it’s our own and maybe even shed a small tear.
Proving the movie’s more than pure frivolity, Kathy Bates is in it.
A similar headline-maker, “The Idea of You,” debuted in March on Prime Video, and it’s sincere as a saint.
Anne Hathaway, 41, stars as a Los Angeles art gallery owner who starts a fling with a world-famous, 24-year-old British boybander despite the prying lenses of the paparazzi and their decade-and-a-half age difference.
Based on Robinne Lee’s popular novel, the story is said to be modeled after Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles’ high-profile, two-year romance.
Hathaway’s Solène — what a name — is depressed about being over the hill. Adding to the torment of the calendar, she’s stymied by a jackass ex-husband and is the lonely mother to a teen daughter who’s close to leaving the nest.
Then lucky Solène acts as an unwitting chaperone on her kid’s trip to an iconic music festival, and leaves with an A-list singer being infatuated with her. Call it “Coachella Enchanted.”
Her whirlwind courtship with sexy Hayes is shown as a deeply meaningful sharp turn in life rather than some bubbly fun set to pop songs. The pair cry rivers, deal with social media backlash and have focused conversations about their future.
There’s not a second of the movie where viewers don’t root hard for Solène and Hayes’ relationship to work out in the end. Earning our approval is not always the chief goal of age gap stories, but this “Idea,” the film insists, is a superb one.
I am all for the cougs’ bold new era. The movies allow appealing Academy Award winners like Kidman and Hathaway to escape the narrow confines of Oscar bait. And the films entertainingly turn an old joke on its head.
Forget “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.” Right now, Hollywood is the Planet of the Cougars.