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CellarDweller:
Katherine's post reminds me of the TV theme of heavy husbands with much thinner wives, which I never understood.
We had Ralph and Alice (Honeymooners)
Doug and Carrie (King of Queens)
Philip and Vivian (Fresh Prince of Bel Air)
Jay and Gloria (Modern Family)
Jim and Cheryl (According to Jim)
It's even evident in animation.
Fred and Wilma, Barney and Betty (The Flintstones)
Homer and Marge (The Simpsons)
Peter and Lois (Family Guy)
Bob and Linda (Bob's Burgers)
Jeff Wrangler:
You know, of course, that Fred and Wilma Flintstone were built that way because Ralph and Alice Kramden were built that way.
But that doesn't explain Ralph and Alice.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on August 01, 2018, 05:37:59 pm ---I will need to study your excellent reply more before replying to it, but before I forget, I wanted to answer your question:
It's called "robbing the cradle" or "jailbait".
--- End quote ---
Though note that neither is quite the equivalent of "cougar."
Jailbait refers to the younger woman, not the older man. It's implicitly unflattering to both, I guess, but it focuses more on the woman in a scornful dismissive way. Same with robbing the cradle. It's the woman who's in the "cradle." And it's not even a name, it's a verb. Again, implicitly unflattering to both but not a slur per se.
Also, either of these terms could apply to either gender. A woman dating a younger man can be "robbing the cradle." It's not a gender-specific insult, unlike cougar.
I have a book called He's a Stud, She's a Slut about the double standards and misogyny built into language. Each of the 50 chapters is one of those comparisons, along with a brief analysis of the reasons for them.
I just skimmed through the titles, and there are several that apply to this conversation. One is "He's dating a younger woman, she's a cougar." The author, Jessica Valenti, theorizes that older women-younger men pairings make people uncomfortable because it upsets the expected power dynamic. That makes sense, although I think it's more than that -- I think it also has to do with biology and evolution. (Valenti doesn't agree because sperm declines with age, too. But aging sperm is not the same as menopause.)
(I don't really mind cougar, myself. A friend and I were talking on Facebook and realized we had really different taste in hot men, and she said that's good because when we go out cougaring we won't have to fight each other. :laugh:)
Another chapter, relevant to Chuck's comment, is "He can be a beast, she must be a beauty."
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: CellarDweller on August 01, 2018, 06:57:25 pm ---Katherine's post reminds me of the TV theme of heavy husbands with much thinner wives, which I never understood.
--- End quote ---
Wow, I've always wondered about this but you came up with many more examples than I'd even considered. But here's one more: Tony and Carmella Soprano.
Do you ever go to TV Tropes? It's a gigantic database of things like this. Each entry describes the trope, then readers contribute examples of it in all kinds of media (movies and TV, animated and non, but also comic books etc.).
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UglyGuyHotWife
Beware, though, it's a total rabbit hole! Each trope has a bunch of links to other tropes that also sound interesting.
The site says the phenomenon exists (they say ugly/hot as opposed to fat/thin) because actresses generally have to be attractive to get a role, whereas male actors do not. Of course there are exceptions (Roseanne), but that makes sense. And it also fits my point about age differences.
CellarDweller:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on August 02, 2018, 10:16:11 am ---The site says the phenomenon exists (they say ugly/hot as opposed to fat/thin) because actresses generally have to be attractive to get a role, whereas male actors do not. Of course there are exceptions (Roseanne), but that makes sense. And it also fits my point about age differences.
--- End quote ---
Very true! I seem to remember there was a bit of an uproar when Harrison Ford and Julia Ormond worked together in Sabrina,and everyone was talking about how much older he was.
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