Mothers, sons, and sex; the three major components of one of Hollywood’s favourite film and television tropes from the last two years. While origins of the acronym are difficult to pin down—most point to the 1990s—the definition of MILF has shifted over the last two decades or so. No longer must one be a mother to get that label, now, any woman who is older than her admirer could fall into the ‘fuckable mother’ classification. Pornographic categorization could be to blame here, as consumers of explicit MILF content rarely know if the actress is truly a mother or her real age.
In the last two years, there has been a revival of the All-American MILF. Now they’re more than a comedic punchline, doting parent, or ‘evil hag,’ MILFS now appear in dramatic romances with boys young enough to be their sons, on both cinema screens and your home television sets. Some of today’s most notable Hollywood actresses star in such stories like; A Family Affair (2024), The Idea of You (2024), No Hard Feelings (2023), May December (2023), and even bleeding into the reality television realm with MILF Manor (2023). The recent spike of this trend is likely caused by an amalgamation of things, including the global increase in sex positivity, hyper-awareness of grooming and pedophilia, and media conglomerates’ financial interests.
Since the dawn of cinema and television, age-gap relationships have been a staple of comedic, dramatic, and romantic genres. Most contemporary depictions of these relationships focus on men with power reeling in young girls with their affections. This dynamic has been prominent for over a century, appearing in various media from anime targeting adult men to teen hits like Gilmore Girls (2000) and Pretty Little Liars (2010), which are aimed at young women themselves. Films like Pretty Baby (1978), Lolita (1997), Buffalo ‘66 (1998), and most recently, Miller’s Girl (2024), delve more into the dangerous dynamics involved when young girls enter relationships that cross widely accepted boundaries with adult men.
Have we become so dulled from the constant visual of men touching and pulling at young girls on screen that media culture has decided to bend our familiar age-gap relationship perceptions in the name of shock factor? MILF Manor—arguably one of the most provocative and horny reality dating shows from the last few years—couples mother-son pairs with other mother-son pairs in what they refer to as ‘intergenerational relationships.’ In season one, the largest age-gap was between April Jayne, a 60-year-old former model, and 20-year-old Joey Buford, utilizing the forty-year difference to incite viewers. One of the most painful moments of the series depicted 51-year-old surgical nurse, SoYoung, revealing to her 26-year-old son that she previously had sex with his best friend, exploiting the traumatizing effects this information had on him for entertainment.
The critical response to MILF Manor Season 1 was exceedingly bad. Miles Klee of Rolling Stone described it as, “psychological torture,” while Pajaba writer Alberto Cox Délano dudded it a “Freudian Horror.” In response to the backlash, Season 2 shifted its approach by introducing young men unrelated to the older women, and instead bringing in their fathers to maintain the show’s incestual overtone. Despite poor critic reception, audience engagement has yet to falter. The shock value captivates the audience, leaving them strangely craving more, causing TLC, the network behind MILF Manor, to keep renewing the show. It balances the line between deeply disturbing and excitingly tantalizing by positioning mothers in positions of power as opposed to fathers. TLC egregiously favours their financial interests, knowing that reality television audiences need deranged and taboo plotlines that can be promoted as nonconformist fun. Monetary gains take precedence under the premise that sex sells, and it appears that the weirder the sex, the more it sells.
A Family Affair details the secretive, supposedly exhilarating relationship between Brooke Harwood (Nicole Kidman) and Chris Cole (Zac Efron), as Brooke keeps the sixteen-year age-gap relationship hidden from her daughter. The film fails itself, even with such little promise to begin with. It features an Academy Award-winning actress in a role that offers little challenge, failing to push Kidman to use the acting chops that earned her previous accolades. This makes A Family Affair a dreadfully light-hearted film to its own detriment. Refusing to be taken seriously, this movie allows the age-gap relationship to test the waters of society’ boundaries.
Strikingly similar, The Idea of You also refuses to challenge its award winning lead actress, Anne Hathaway, in her role as Solène Marchand opposite Nicholas Galitzine’s Hayes Campbell. Hathaway’s Solène, sixteen years her love interest’s senior in the film (nineteen years in the original book) wins Hayes over with promises of sandwiches and a blend of both sexual and intellectual maturity—a combination quintessential to the MILF conceptuality. While the film borrows music from acclaimed artists in an attempt to emulate the story’s maturity, sincere moments throughout the film leave the audience laughing where they shouldn’t be in the same key as A Family Affair.
Neither A Family Affair nor The Idea of You promised to be groundbreaking, which makes the assigning blame on their shortcomings rather difficult. Both 2024 films sit firmly in the romantic comedy genre, leaning into a lighthearted approach as the female leads assert they’re mature enough to be their love interests’ mothers—an act of anti-ageism. While many production companies have largely moved away from positive portrayals of older men in age-gap relationships, older female characters are evidently not yet receiving the same scrutiny. Talking to People magazine about the stigma surrounding age-gap relationships, Kidman states, “The problem is we’ve not had the equivalent from all different viewpoints, with women telling the stories.” MILFs are able to engage an audience in a way that feels daring, yet entirely appropriate. Boundaries are merely being grazed in A Family Affair and The Idea of You, but their lighthearted nature ensures they don’t push too far, keeping their viewers comfortable. Akin to TLC’s actions, media giants Netflix and Amazon are quick to profit from these films without upsetting their audiences.
The element of subversion in MILF films is obvious; it’s no longer just the young girl’s plight to be a victim, a shift that’s been slowly happening throughout Hollywood history. No Hard Feelings feels different from MILF Manor, A Family Affair, and The Idea of You. Relying only slightly on the raunchiness from classic MILF characters of early-2000s comedies, 32-year-old Maddie Barker (Jennifer Lawrence) is arguably a more fleshed out character than the obnoxiously sexualized Jeanine Stifler (Jennifer Coolidge) in American Pie (1999) or the grey-haired Ms. Haver (Cynthia Fancher) in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder (2002). Opposite Lawrence is 19-year-old Percy Becker (Andrew Barth Feldman), narrowing the age-gap to thirteen years—less than in the previously mentioned MILF stories.
In this modern, sex-fuelled comedy with a satirical edge, Lawrence’s Maddie is paid by Percy’s parents to seduce their son and provide him ‘worldly’—or rather, sexual—experience. Lawrence offers viewers full-frontal female nudity in tune with American Pie and National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, but unlike the MILFs of twenty-years ago, her character is not just a prop; she’s fully developed as the film’s protagonist. Percy’s opinion of Maddie does not waver her self-esteem. In fact, Percy’s self-image is actually improved by the validation of an older woman, directly reversing common age-gap relationship representation. No Hard Feelings leans farther into comedy than A Family Affair and The Idea of You, allowing it to sit better with the audience than its 2024 equivalents. Regardless, this movie is able to subvert traditional power dynamics by giving its 32-year-old female character agency over her sexuality and confidence.
No longer relegated to punchlines in teen comedies or background noise in their children’s stories, women over thirty are given the chance to yield power over their intimate relationships in both fiction and non-fiction media. Hagsploitation—the act of portraying older women as scorned by aging and driven to malevolent behaviour as a result—has persisted through Hollywood’s timeline, from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) to X (2022), and most recently The Substance (2024). As a declaration against the long-standing hagsploitation trend, the women in the new league of MILF movies—including Kidman’s, Hathaway’s, and Lawrence’s characters—are not portrayed as evil. However, every trend must garner a few exceptions.
While the other MILFs of the 2020’s vehemently reject the concept of hagsploitation, May December toys with the concept of immorality with a more nuanced perspective on the wide-spread grooming discourse. Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore) is a 59-year-old woman married to Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), a 36-year-old man. The film reveals that the pair started their relationship when Gracie was 36 and Joe was a 13-year-old school friend of her son. This film divulges the grotesque sympathy often given to sex offenders regardless of gender, as well as the legal and social consequences derived from receiving such status. May December neatly fits into the hagsploitation definition, however rumours stating its inspiration came from real people allow it to get away with what is often deemed a harmful, fictional trope.
May December and MILF Manor hold a commonality that A Family Affair, The Idea of You, and No Hard Feelings don’t—they are dramatically uncomfortable to watch. MILF Manor relies on pure shock factor entertainment to disturb, while May December uses a stark critical lens at the predatory elements that can take place in these dynamics. Contrary to the other MILFs within this onslaught, a film like May December can bring about darker yet important discussions on what constitutes an inappropriate relationship, and where we are increasingly arriving at the consensus that women too can be sexual violence perpetrators. As an inspection of the power dynamics allowing such relations to reach fruition, this film releases a cautionary message that doesn’t exist in its lighter counterparts.
All MILF media plays with age in distinctly different ways—some involving fully grown adults, some with just freshly over-18 adults, and some involving minors. The discussion regarding how this trend came about is more nuanced than one might assume. The recent decline in secrecy around dangerous relationships in popular culture have made audiences less susceptible to the mystique of such covert dynamics previously depicted on screen. However, this trend also allows artists to comment on such topics through subversion. By flipping traditional tropes associated with age-gap relationships, the recent MILF content aims to empower older women in their sexuality while supporting global movements for sex positivity. Contrasted against those twenty years ago, the modern MILF comes with a serious quality upgrade in tone, nuance, motivation, and story.