I was just watching the program where Nick sees Grace's healing scar from the knee surgery and falls down in a dead faint! He also botches making scrambled eggs. . .how ditzy is that?
Well, it's ditzy from our perspective as people who know basic culinary skills, but I took that to mean he was so rich he'd never had to scramble eggs before.
I didn't notice the age difference, which is only 7 years at best, being a major issue. The most important thing about Nick, IMHO, is that he is a rich and successful entrepreneur who is learning that his business acumen doesn't necessarily translate into success with women, especially Grace.
It's not me who's making a big deal of it, it's Grace. Have you seen the one where she confronts him and whips off her hairpiece, false eyelashes, etc.? She wants him to recognize the age difference and make sure it doesn't matter to him. She hasn't taken him that seriously so far because she assumes their age difference will be a problem.
As for movies where the woman was older, Harold and Maude leaps to mind, but there is also Cheri, The Beach, The Good Girl, Unfaithful, Anna Karenina, and about 65 others on this list: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls066983450/
That's what I'm saying, though -- in many of those movies the age difference is a plot point.
I wouldn't think of The Graduate as the most important example of a December/May romance. I would think of Harold and Maude as that. Also, their relationship was not a romance; it was just lust. You listed 3 reasons why their relationship was icky, and I would argue that the age difference was the least icky reason. More icky to me was that Mrs. Robinson was bored and a cougar; also that she knew Benjamin loved Elaine, her daughter. She was a predator, but learned it because she had been preyed on (remember the part about why she and Mr. Robinson had to get married in the first place?) I think of Mrs. Robinson more like Sleeping Beauty's stepmom, in fear of being supplanted as the "fairest of them all" and ready to use diabolical means to feed her bruised ego.
First of all -- and this is really important -- I want to clarify that I'm not saying that I, serious crayons, think it's icky. I'm saying that movie executives and casting directors think it's icky. And IMO it's their attitude that's icky, not the concept of an older woman/younger man romance. And is it surprising that people like Harvey Weinstein and his ilk would have a preference for casting younger women?
So yeah, in
The Graduate there were all kinds of problems with their relationship and her behavior. But you say you think it's icky that she was a cougar. According to Wikipedia, "Cougar is slang for a woman who seeks sexual activity with significantly younger men." That's the whole meaning of the word. What's the equivalent male slur? That's right, there's not one.
I had to skim the list you linked but can look more closely later. Of the ones I noticed, the age difference is often a plot point, as opposed to the age difference when the genders are reversed.
Would we even have heard of
Harold and Maude if Maude were played by a woman the same age as Harold? The fact that she was (much) older was what made the movie stand out.
I'm sure there's a list out there of young women who starred in movies and then were never heard from again once they got a little older. I could name a bunch off the top of my head. It's why you see movie trailers and when they list the stars, the actor is a familiar A-list celebrity and the actress is someone you've never heard of. I think it was Rosanna Arquette (who disappeared herself) who made a whole movie about this phenomenon called
Searching for Debra Winger. Its partly about why Debra Winger, a huge star, sort of disappeared from movies (though I've seen her a few times lately). And they interview a lot of older actresses who talk about how women suffer the sexist ageist problem in Hollywood.
To take another example, when was the last time you saw the actress who played Ferris Bueller's girlfriend? Now when was the last time you saw Matthew Broderick? I can tell you when the last time I saw his friend who was driving his dad's fancy car. It was a few nights ago, watching this new drama called
Succession.
Whenever I think of this phenomenon I think of "As Good as it Gets," in which Helen Hunt (now 55) is romantically paired with Jack Nicholson (now 81). When was the last time you saw Helen Hunt? For me, it's been a few years. How about her TV husband Paul Reiser? For me it was last summer in the hit series
Stranger Things (also starring Randall, BTW). And I'm pretty sure Jack could get a role if he wanted one.
But it's not just movie executives. It's people as a whole. I could go into much more detail about this, but again, couples where the man is older far exceed couples that are the other way around (as in my own marriage). I don't think this is fair or good, but it's part of human nature and I believe it has to do with evolution and fertility.
