On Anne Hathaway in The Idea of You

She looks 40 and she doesn't look 40

Via Forbes

There’s a voice over recording at the top of this newsletter if you prefer to listen.

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I’ve been mulling over my thoughts about this movie and how it’s forcing us as a collective to question what a 40-year-old woman looks like. These are muddy waters to wade in, so I sat with it for a week, and here’s what I think.

Anne Hathaway looks 40 (or 41) because that’s her age. It’s a fact.

Women who are 40+ are beautiful, desired and sexy. This is also a fact. It’s severely underrepresented in media and entertainment, but that doesn’t make it less true. For example, there has been a significant rise in STDs and STIs amongst nursing home residents over the last decade. Not only are (much) older women beautiful, desired and sexy they’re also getting plenty. So are the men. It seems there’s more action happening in the blue-rinse generation than mine. Empty nesting and retirement has its benefits. Few things are less arousing than the thought of being caught in coitus by your young children, whose separation anxiety flares up if you dare to close the door when you do a number two.

My initial thought watching the film was confusion over the supposed wildness of an age gap romance where the woman is the older party. The ‘what does he see in her?’ trope felt tenuous at best so I did some research. The top two search terms for p*rn in 2023 according to P*ornhub were ‘Mature’ and ‘Supersized’.

Topping this year’s trends was mature p*rn. In 2023, the MILF category gained +1 spot to become the 5th most viewed category worldwide and the Mature category gained +1 to become the 7th most viewed worldwide, growing in popularity by +69%. Mature is now the 2nd most popular category among men, and the 5th for women. - P*rn Hub

Supersized as a search term was quite broad but the prefix ‘big’ was attached to lots of lady part searches (big bewbs, big but) indicating the majority of p*rn lovers want mature, big women. The general vibe of the top search is not Suspiciously Youthful and Very Slender 40 year old. It’s curvy MILF.

“Big bewbs” saw an increase of +78%, “busty” nearly doubled by +94%, and “big natural t*ts” were up +141% in 2023. On the bottom side, “big booty” searches were up +83% and a perennial favorite, “big a** Latina” was +29% more popular in 2023. - P*rn Hub

Isn’t that wonderful? And hot? On a side note the other top 3 searches are s*x machines (robots), uniforms and s*xual healing. It all just seems very appropriate and wholesome to me. I’d never shame anyone’s kink but none of those search terms gross me out. Well done internet p*rn lovers.

Back to Hathaway. She looks 40, and she doesn’t look 40. She has the resources most average 40-year-olds don’t have access to, including money, time, privilege, and genetics. Anne Hathaway didn’t look like an average 20-year-old when she was 20 or an average 30-year-old when she was 30. She won the genetic lottery and has a career to reflect it. She has never accurately represented an average woman's appearance, so I’m mildly curious as to why we’re all kicking up a fuss over this.

Perhaps it’s because it appears millennials are aging a little differently than previous generations.

There’s a TikTok that went viral recently showcasing how Millenials look in their 30s compared to the generations before us. Ed O’Neil was 39 in the first season of Married with Children, Lois in Malcolm in the Middle turned 38 in one of the early seasons of the show and let’s not forget Catherine O’Hara the Patron Saint of Ageing Non-Linearly who was 35 years old in Home Alone and nearly 70 in Schitt’s Creek. Here’s the trick. If you put a 35-year-old woman in a frumpy cardigan and pearls, she will look old. If you put a 68-year-old woman in vintage Balenciaga and style her hair like a trendy mermaid, she will look so enthralling you won’t even think about how old she is.

Via Daily Mail

We need more representation of 40-year-old women (and above) being hot and sexual, I’m here for that. Anne Hathaway was both hot, sexual and 40 in this movie. All the boxes were ticked and I agree with the consensus over this film. It’s nice to see a 40 year old portrayed more accurately than they have been in the past. Most of my mates look far more like Anne Hathaway than Jill Taylor from Home Improvement.

However, the bigger issue is that The Idea of You is blander than cold porridge. I couldn’t tell you why the two main characters were interested in each other outside of their beauty. All I know about Anne Hathaway's character is she’s mainstream hot, has a sexy French name, and gets a bit weepy about art. The main dude is famous but deep because he writes his own songs. That is the full extent of my takeaways from that movie.

And no, I have not read the book but personally I feel a crucial hallmark of good movie adaptations is the audience not having to gap fill the plot with previously acquired information. If I missed anything crucial about Solene’s character it’s the movies fault, not mine.

There’s nothing interesting about this relationship except he’s famous and young and she’s 40 and hot. That’s the elephant in the room. We’re focussing on her hotness and her age because that’s all they gave us.

Habit Nugs (little info nuggets for you to ponder if you’re spiraling over this)

1. 40 isn’t old and women are desired, sexual, beautiful and interesting at every age. As the aforementioned P*rnhub stats prove.

2. Anne Hathaway is a high-level hot 40-year-old. I question the what-does-he-see-in-her storyline when she’s all slinky and perfect. In fact I question the what-does-he-see-in-her storyline period. Young men lust after 40+ women all the time and have fantastic relationships and s*x with them even and especially when they don’t look like Anne Hathaway. As the aforementioned P*rnhub stats prove.

3. Here are a few movies about women over 40 (or near 40) who are hot AND interesting. Fatal Attraction, Thelma & Louise, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, The Banger Sisters, The Proposal, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. And don’t laugh but Grey’s Anatomy is a good space for dynamic/sexy stories about women of all ages, races, persuasions and sizes.

4. For the love of all things holy all we want is a movie where a fat girl falls in love and it’s not a joke. Can I suggest Jessica Gunning because she’s both brilliant and gorgeous? She’s my new Roman Empire. I love her.

I’d love to hear your thoughts - have you seen the movie? What do you think?

Reading 

Rose Madder by Stephen King. My mate Olly just listened to Fairytale and loved it. I was inspired to go back and read some of his earlier work I haven’t got around to reading. I’m enjoying it so far; he really is a fantastic writer. Although there are a lot of descriptions of people’s bodies, especially women and their breasts, it’s… odd. I’ve seen a noticeable decline in unnecessary body descriptions in fictional writing in the last few years, and it’s refreshing. I'm into it.

Watching 

Heavily related to my Stephen King bender, I’ve never watched Dolores Claiborne because it looks boring (seriously, the name and the promo art are a snooze fest), but it’s got 87% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it was a bloody good romp. It’s from 1995, and you can’t go wrong with any film from that year, it was an absolute banger.

Wearing 

My Radical Yes boots and I am eyeing off these ones. I think I really need them.  

Listening

Okay, so I rabbit-holed hard on Stephen King this week. He puts Easter Eggs in his novels, and I froth over it. So the main character of Rose Madder reads Misery books (from his novel Misery), and she gets a job as a voice artist reading audio recordings of novels. Her boss is obsessed with an abridged version of Kathy Bates reading Silence of The Lambs. The moment I read those words I was like ‘Mate you better not be f*cking with me…’ and I immediately Googled it and it’s real. There’s a free version on YouTube. It would have been cruel to invent that.

Eating 

I'm open to any flavour of crisps with pepper. I say ‘crisps’ because if I say ‘chips,’ it’s confusing. I’m not fussy about the complimentary flavour. They just need to be on sale and contain pepper because I’m sure as shells not paying $6 for a quarter full bag. *grumbles in old lady*

Doing 

Planning to get chickens and bees. Researching both. I’ve also booked tickets to see Rent in Canberra with my mate, who has never seen it. I’ve seen it live about a dozen times, so watching it with a newbie will be lovely. I usually get my hair cut on Canberra trips, but my regular haircutter is booked out, so I’m trying someone new. Wish me luck.

What's New

I love this tiger robe, but I haven’t bought it because it feels like a weird thing to do when you aren’t vocally appreciative of tigers. It's almost as if you need to be a tiger fan to buy it. I’m overthinking it, but I do love it.

This is a really bleak look at the death of art and culture and I can’t say it’s wrong.

This memory taffeta dress from Veronika Maine is on sale. I feel like we don’t do statement sleeves as often as we should.

How to make a good impression.

One of my annoying qualities I’ve turned into a core part of my personality is bag avoidance. If I can get away with my phone and a chapstick in my pocket, it’s a good day. I like this Status Anxiety bag for no pocket days. High approval from me.

What we know about The Office spin-off.

Forever searching for long-line cardigans. Love this one from Country Road.

That’s it for today!

Also don’t forget to tap the heart if you liked this newsletter. I’ve published every Wednesday for 17 weeks in a row here on Substack and new people are finding my work thanks to your hearts.

See you next week.

Carly