Male directors have endlessly projected their sexual fantasies in films starring child actors having relationships with older men. Does #MeToo mark a watershed for the creeps?
The pairing of the older man and younger woman, in movies as in life, enjoys relative respectability. Somehow, daddy figures are more acceptable than old-enough-to-be-your-mother lovers, France’s current president notwithstanding. The latter is usually played for the grotesque – Sunset Boulevard, The Graduate – while the double standard of ageing allows older men to exude a sex appeal not offered to their female counterparts. But how young and how old? And will the leniency afforded such pairings survive the scrutiny of the #MeToo movement?
It is no longer possible to rationalise as consensual certain egregious pairings, or to accept with equanimity the sexualisation of underage performers. We have begun to take a second look at the smarmy overtones of movies such as Woody Allen’s...
The pairing of the older man and younger woman, in movies as in life, enjoys relative respectability. Somehow, daddy figures are more acceptable than old-enough-to-be-your-mother lovers, France’s current president notwithstanding. The latter is usually played for the grotesque – Sunset Boulevard, The Graduate – while the double standard of ageing allows older men to exude a sex appeal not offered to their female counterparts. But how young and how old? And will the leniency afforded such pairings survive the scrutiny of the #MeToo movement?
It is no longer possible to rationalise as consensual certain egregious pairings, or to accept with equanimity the sexualisation of underage performers. We have begun to take a second look at the smarmy overtones of movies such as Woody Allen’s...
- 2/16/2018
- by Molly Haskell
- The Guardian - Film News
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