The Other Man: Why “Cougar Town” Is Actually Good For Us

First of all, save your breath — I agree with you, Cougar Town isn’t a good show. It has its moments, but 30 Rock this ain’t.

A teacher of mine once told me that you can’t judge anything properly without finding its saving grace.

It took a little digging (“Scrubs is cancelled?”) but I think I’ve got it.

Cougar Town is one of the first shows in history that explores in detail how women over 40 can have normal lives, including have sex, just like everyone else.

By this I mean that Courteney Cox’s character, Jules, can have a relatively healthy dating and sex life without being either the brunt of jokes for being too old, or legitimately crazy. Until unbelievably recently, over-40s were otherwise asexual moms.

A few shows have been able to get around this by deliberately omitting the actual age of their lead female characters, but strongly implying these women were still in their 30s, so (psst) they can still have some fun before the mom-disease closes up their nether regions a la Barbie.

Marge Simpson is the best example of this I can think of, but even shows like Desperate Housewives and Sex and the City stoop to it.

But it isn’t nearly just about sex. Look at those old photographs you have of the women in your family from 30, 40, 50 years ago. Many of the women in their 30s and 40s look, dress and hold themselves exactly the way they do today – despite being elderly women now. I’ve chosen to illustrate this in bad-album-cover form:

This woman is most likely in her 30s or very early 40s. And if Mrs. Cooper is still around today, she’s probably wearing the same types of clothing.

But thanks to improvements in health care, personal fitness and the globalization of the world, 40 really is the new 25. And sometimes it’s nice to see a show that candidly reminds us of this. Cougar Town does that for me.