Cohen notes that men still have control over the sexual attitudes of the country, as "the mostly male-run film and television industries, as well as the profit-driven medical and pharmaceutical establishment, can aggressively promote their own self-interested standards of beauty, sexiness and normality." Firmly in control of the images and "breakthroughs" coming out of both Hollywood and the pharmaceutical industry, men are able to project a male-centric view of female sexuality on viewers and consumers, who then internalize such messages to the point where, as Cohen points out, women are so painfully aware of their perceived "flaws" and sexual inadequacies that they go so far as to schedule "vaginal rejuvenation" surgeries in order to ensure that their genitals are up to speed with the genitals of their peers.

Women's views on the aging process, and all that comes with it, is also somewhat controlled by men, Cohen argues, as "normal signs of the passing years are erased, so that anyone over 35 still has a whipped-cream complexion and an ice-cream-stick figure. Because viewers are so unaccustomed to seeing faithful renditions of older women, when they do appear, people assume that the characters are older than they really are." Photoshop, digital "enhancing," and the notion that every woman should look 25 or younger to please men, is a running theme with older actresses in Hollywood—not so for older men, as Cohen notes, with May-December couples like Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal being matched up as romantic leads.

It's a frustrating piece in that everything Cohen writes is painfully true, and yet nothing entirely surprising. As Cohen herself notes, men have been attempting to "cure" such things as "female hysteria" and even menopause from an outsider's perspective for years, trying to make excuses or diagnostic criteria for the changes women go through as they age, physically, emotionally, and sexy. It isn't hard to look around and see Cohen's piece in action: with a pop-culture landscape filled with overblown Victoria's Secret fashion shows, television programs about "cougars," and endless commercials on how to stay sexy via "age-reversing" technology, it's clear that women are still being bombarded with the message that they must stay young and obtain the sexual skills of a porn star in order to remain desirable in today's society.
It is a message that is hard to dismiss, as years and years of such imagery has led to the internalization of the "male view," and it's going to be nearly impossible to drown those messages out until women finally, finally get a chance to take control of how that imagery is being created.

From 'Vibrator' To 'Cougar Town', Sex Is Still A Man's World [NYTimes]

• Jennifer Hudson will sing for President Obama, Michelle Obama and their guests at a state dinner tonight.

I love that the Obamas love their Chicago gal. She should always be at the White House. For some reason, I am imagining a scenario in which JHud sings "And I am telling you… I'm not going…" And then actually refuses to leave. [ET]

• Miley Cyrus went for burgers, and when the counter person asked her name to mark the order, the teen dream said: ""Are you serious? You don't recognize me? I'm Miley Cyrus." The counterperson shrugged, having no idea what that meant, and replied: "That's nice for you. Here is your order. Have a good day." [Page Six]
• Wow, Carla Bruni is going to be in a Woody Allen movie! "I don't know for what role but I said yes," she explains. And she admits she lacks experience as an actress: Perhaps I will be very bad." [WSJ]
• Judi Dench was filming a Christmas special set in the 1840s when she lost a crown on her tooth. ''There wasn't time for me to change,'' she says. ''So I was in my wig and bonnet and all my clothes. I went into the waiting room and sat and registered, and everyone kept looking at me. When I got in to see the dentist, he said: 'Are you busy working at the moment?' I was wearing a full wig with curls." [Telegraph]
• BREAKING: Amber Tamblyn got eyelash extensions. [Page Six]
• Jon and Kate might be over, but the Jon Gosselin drama lives on! The breach of contract suit against him — in which TLC claims be took on unauthorized work — persists. Now there are — you guessed it — phone call recordings between Gosselin's manager and (who else?) Michael Lohan. [MSNBC Scoop]
• At the link, you can listen to a recorded Jon Gosselin rant about TLC and say: "I put my kids out there to every pedophile on the planet and they never got paid for it." [Radar Online]
• Mariah Carey was on GMTV in the UK, and the host of the show says: "She had two people to lower her on to the GMTV sofa, in case her dress got crushed, one person to walk in front of her backwards at all times in case she fell over and several people behind the camera making sure she was going to be filmed from the right angle! Oh, and she brought her own toilet roll as well." [The Sun]
• Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds partied all night for ScarJo's birthday, and ScarJo and RyRen looked so in love and everything was wonderful and their life is perfect. [Page Six]
• Regis Philbin will be away from Live with Regis & Kelly for a month while he recovers from hip replacement surgery. Be well Reege! [NY Post]
• Emma Watson has a new boyfriend, Spanish rock star Rafael Cebrian. Allegedly. [Page Six]
• Amy Winehouse spent thousands on "saucy" underwear, perfume and a rhinestone-enrcusted whip over the weekend. According to a source, "Amy loves showing off her new boobs and wanted to get sexy underwear to make the most of them. She couldn't resist getting a few other bits and pieces, like the whip." [The Sun]
• Remember when Nicole Kidman said she'd "explored obsession" and "strange sexual fetish stuff"? She takes it back, sorta: She meant when acting! "That's what I said in relation to my work. In terms of my work, yeah, I'm interested in exploring love and so that comes in all different forms. In terms of my private life, I'd never reveal what I've explored in my private life." [Daily Express]
• Just because Taylor Lautner is on the cover of Men's Health and Taylor Swift was on the cover of Women's Health doesn't mean they're in competition with each other. Jeez. [Page Six]
• A film about Lil' Wayne is controversial? You don't say. [CNN]
• For some reason I hallucinated that Cougar Town was cancelled. Instead it was just on a break while Courteney Cox dealt with a "family matter" and will be back filming on November 30. I would love to do a "when do you think Cougar Town will get cancelled" pool, though. [People]
  
• Neve Campbell talks about living in London, getting ready to film Scream 4, her "terrible" fashion mistakes in the past, her work with an orphanage in African and "working the Sidney bob" for the Scream flicks. [BlackBook]
• Timbaland says he did not delete Chris Brown's vocal from a track called "The One I Love" due to the drama in Chris' life — "Chris is a friend to us," a rep for Timbaland claims. But Chris is missing from the song. [E!]
• 50 Cent settled the lawsuit he filed against Taco Bell after the fast-food chain used his name without permission. The dollar amount has not been disclosed, but 50 was asking for $4 million, which buys a lot of 99¢ tacos. [NY Post]
• Tyler Perry has donate $1 million to the NAACP. [WaPo]
• Spencer Pratt bet some DJs that Heidi Montag's performance at the Miss Universe pageant was the most-watched performance of all time and now he wants his money. [TMZ]
• Jeez, the Aerosmith dramz is never-ending. Joe Perry is not speaking to Steven Tyler and seems generally hostile about the situation. [MTV News]
• It appears that Pulp Fiction writer Roger Avary is updating his Twitter account and Tweeting. From JAIL. [The Wrap]
• Rosie O'Donnell raised money for her Rosie's Broadway Kids charity not by offering trips or prizes or dinners — but by working the room. [Showbiz 411]
• Poor Kirk Cameron. Going to a UCLA to convince students that Darwin's theory of evolution is wrong really backfired on you, huh? The students totally know what they're talking about when they say Darwin had evidence. [TMZ]
• Tila Tequila claims a sex video that recently popped up on a porn site was stolen from her laptop two years ago. She's planning to sue. [TMZ]
• There will be a Susan Boyle documentary on the TV Guide Network? Isn't that the one where the channels scroll all day long? [NY Post]
• Little Richard is recovering from surgery and asks for your wop bop a loo bops and prayers. [USA Today]
• Whatshername would like to apologize for her behavior since her divorce. [BBC News]
• "I knew what tone I wanted for the book, and it was a matter first of coming up with an outline, getting the characters, the ending, and then figuring out how to get from one point to the next. I'd send [a chapter] to [my collaborator]. He'd come back with some notes. If there was something I felt strongly enough about, then we'd talk about it to see if it would work. The book had to sound like I wrote it." — Al Roker, on his new mystery novel, The Morning Show Murders. [The Daily Beast]
• "The difference between you and me is that even when I wash my hands, I can't get it out of my mind that they're not clean. I have to go back to the sink, I can't even continue with my day. I have to leave the party, leave work. Those thoughts are so intrusive and on a continual loop that I can't inhibit it. Everybody has irregular thoughts, but not like this… I'm probably the only guy set up for these book signings hoping no one will show up. I don't want to face anyone, look anyone in the eye. Who, with my condition, would do a book tour right in the middle of H1N1 flu season?" — Howie Mandel, whose book, Here's the Deal: Don't Touch Me, hits stores today. [USA Today]
• "Why are people embarrassed about elderly sex? I hate it when I'm given a script in which the guy's wife is dead. That's just an easy way to dispense with having sex. Audiences don't want to see Big Daddy and Big Mama in bed – but I like to talk about it." — James Earl Jones, who plays Big Daddy in the all-black stage version of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, now in London. [Guardian]
• "We have gotten ourselves into a big, deep hole in the way that we look at healthcare. We are in a system where they get money when we're sick. That's never going to work for us. So when someone says, 'You don't need a mammogram until you're 50,' you take charge of that. I don't trust any of that." — Melissa Etheridge. [People]
• "We were working 12 hours a day, so it didn't leave too much time to eat." — New Moon's Ashley Greene on staying thin. Then her publicist nudged her, and she said: "We had a personal trainer and then we also had fight training." [Ny Daily News]
• "It took us only six months to get married, but it took us five years to commit to making a movie together." — Tao Ruspoli, who made the indie flick Fix with his wife of seven years, Olivia Wilde. [Page Six]
• "I'm all set [with a boyfriend]. But unfortunately not everyone out there is and it's tough to date, to be out there and so I kind of wanted to portray that other side of women's reality and [my song] 'Did It Again' is about making recurrently the same mistake which is something us women tend to do because of our emotional nature, that emotional, romantic and dreamy nature." — Shakira. [AP]
• "He plays guitar and has a great voice. Kids and dogs love him. He loves his mom and sister and girlfriend. He's perfect... too bad he's ugly." — Natalie Portman on Jake Gyllenhaal. I know she's kidding, but I do suspect he's had a nose job. [Mirror]

You've seen it: a middle-aged mom, presumably moving her son into his dorm room, and the son's nerdy roommate, share a Halls Refresh lozenge and a weird moment of sexual connection. Then her menfolk walk in and are suitably appalled. ("Surprisingly mouth-watering," leers an insinuating voice-over.) The American Decency Association has called the ad "perverse" and its founder explains, rather oddly, that "I believe that an advertisement like this really does grease the skids and does further promotion and legitimization of elderly ones with younger ones — and it's like putting fuel before the fire."

"Elderly ones with younger ones" are also the theme of Cougartown, of course, during which the lame ad ran, and presumably the show's fans were neither unduly shocked nor influenced. But the ad is, certainly, problematic, albeit for a number of different reasons. Slate's Seth Stevenson, while he finds the add bizarre and silly, thinks this is a bit of a tempest in a teapot - that it's in the tradition of recent absurdist candy campaigns and too outre to be taken seriously. The bigger question, for him, is who the hell the commercial is targeting: boys or moms? Candy's aimed at kids, but the spot's placement - and its virtuous lack of sugar - suggest that it's playing to mom tastes, which Stevenson finds duly dubious.

In a way, I'm with the ADA, because the continuing perpetuation of the cougar/MILF thing is indeed creepy. If the ad featured a dad and a young female nerd, it would be universally shunned and it's time we stopped pretending that the reverse is always the stuff of harmless fantasy. That said, the ad's a send-up of the cougar phenomenon's absurdity, and if that's a signal of shark-jumping (or, as Hortense has suggested we rename it, "pulling a Scrappy-Doo"), bring it on.

But what bothered me most was sort of exactly this: this isn't a MILF and a strapping stud: it's a frumpy middle-aged woman and an Asian nerd, shorthand for "NOT SEXY!!!" That's why it's funny, you see: these are two groups whom no one would ever find attractive if not under the influence of the cough drop! (Note the action figures and equation.) That, after all, is what the husband and son are reacting to: not just the inappropriate dynamic, but the fact that these non-sexy types are breaking out of their designated roles. "Surprisingly mouth-watering," is after all, the tag-line. One can only imagine what other treats Hall's Refresh has in store!

Of course, at the end of the day, Stevenson's right: it's just a dumb commercial, and these people occupy Commercial-Land, in which all husbands are single-digit stupid, all moms are knowing, all kids are sassy and precocious, and everyone, given their bizarre enthusiasm for fast-food promotions, is apparently stoned, always. All this, presumably, makes us want to buy stuff. And if that's true, Stevenson shouldn't even question the targeting: we are, it would seem, morons. Who eat cough drops for pleasure.

Can Cougars Sell Cough Drops? [Slate]
Halls Refresh Commercial - Mom [YouTube]

Writing in the LA Times, Caramanica bemoans the lot of Alicia Florrick, Julianna Margulies's wronged-political-wife-turned-lawyer on The Good Wife, and Jules Cobb, Courteney Cox's "older woman" returning to dating on Cougar Town. He says,

[B]y the strictures and bylaws of network television, Alicia, Jules and characters like them essentially are incomprehensible invaders: independent, single (or single-ish) older women seeking change in their lives and succeeding (sometimes, at least). As a result, they're treated like fragile, curious creatures that might implode on contact. Or lash out.

No one wants to accommodate them on their own terms.

Caramanica thinks both Cox and Margulies acquit themselves well in trying circumstances — he writes that "there's a winning quality to Cox's readiness to erode traditional boundaries" and that "what saves Alicia from being reduced to cliché is her gravitas and competence, poses that Margulies has had down cold since her time on E.R." And, as The New Yorker's Nancy Franklin points out, The Good Wife does examine what it might be like to be, say, Silda Spitzer. The show "doesn't hinge on headlines and it isn't restricted by what we can see from the outside-the merely poignant, infuriating, sad awfulness of it all." It deserves some praise for focusing on the actual life of a political wife, not — as so many news outlets have done — on her public shame. Still, this life is heavily circumscribed, and it's hard to tell if life is imitating art here or vice versa.

A more extreme example of the middle-aged-woman-as-alien trope was on view in the most recent story arc of Law & Order: SVU. I cringed the minute Christine Lahti appeared as ADA Sonya Paxton, a Ball-Busting Career Woman straight out of central casting. She snapped at people, she used bad judgment, she was ridiculously abrasive and obnoxious — all because, we soon learned, she was damaged and insecure. And then last week we found out she was also a drunk — when she staggered into the courtroom to prosecute a man who claimed, in a piece of very blunt irony, to have alcoholic psychosis. She left for rehab, completely humiliated in front of the other characters and the audience — who, if they were anything like me, breathed a sigh of relief because her character was so totally repellent.

The idea that single middle-aged women must be totally unhinged isn't new on TV — every time an unaccompanied lady scientist of a certain age appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation, for instance, you knew who really planted the evil robots in the Jeffries tubes. Of course, Detective Olivia Benson, played by 45-year-old Mariska Hargitay, is allowed to be sexy and appealing as a single woman on SVU — but there's also a suggestion that her continued torment over her mother's rape and alcoholism have prevented her from forming lasting relationships. Rather than hookers, victims, and doormats, unmarried women over 35 on TV are either irrevocably fucked up, irrevocably fucked up and downright evil, or beset by enemies on all sides.

The last category — into which Alicia Florrick falls — may be the most interesting, and the most true to life. While you don't have to be an insane villain to stay single in your 30s, 40s, and 50s, you do have to contend, if you're a woman, with a lot of increasingly nasty criticism. And while few women are publicly humiliated by lying spouses — Florrick and her husband aren't divorced on the show, but he's in jail for his dalliances with prostitutes, and she's forced to support the kids on her own — the challenges depicted on The Good Wife may be a more extreme version of the ones middle-aged women face every day. It will be interesting to see how Margulies meets these challenges as an actress. Luckily for her but unluckily for us, other shows have set the bar pretty low.

Images via gilmoregirlsnews, NBC.

'The Good Wife,' 'Cougar Town': Outsiders In A Man's World [LA Times]
Screwed [The New Yorker]
Episode 11004 Recap [Law & Order: SVU Official Site at NBC]

There's a piece today on Salon asking why in God's name the appalling Cougartown is a hit. Well, I see that and raise you Glee.Yes, I know. It's a classic high school underdog story and, hey, who doesn't love a musical number? It's got Ned Ryerson - with a Ryerson last name, no less. It's got the peerless Jane Lynch. It's got rapturous reviews. What's not to like, you say?

Some of my gripes are personal. I've never been a big fan of Desperate-Housewives-style broad "satire" nor of the po-mo-atmo of such favorites as Pushing Daisies. The super-produced aesthetic and the overtime Fox-hype-machine have always struck me as a cynical contrast to its alleged support of the Aw-Shucks Other. Also, I don't find it remotely funny. These are matters of taste with which people are allowed to disagree, and clearly do. That it's a smug, G-rated Election on uppers with 2-D characterizations would not, in itself, prompt anything more dramatic than a Tivo thumbs-down.

What gets me most is the portrayal of female characters. Yes, everyone's a cardboard cliche - it's supposed to be "playing with" stock types - but I think things get nefarious where the dames are concerned. We've got Shrewish, Lying Wife; Sweet Perky Neurotic; Bitchy Cheerleader; Tracy Flick-esque Nerd; Strong Black Woman. Sure, Lynch's over-the-top psycho-coach is watchable, but only because she is, not because there's any more nuance to her. And all of whom orbit around Main Guy, who is apparently perfect, and a saint. Also saintly: football QB. Both are being manipulated by women in their lives while worshipful Perfect Women wait in the wings to ease their burdens.

I also think it's becoming irresponsible to reiterate high school cliches, thereby reinforcing them. Nerds = glee club. Popular kids = cheerleaders. A show like Freaks and Geeks or Friday Night Lights plays with these ideas with a lot more nuance and sensitivity, whereas Glee simply adds another brick to the status quo. It's cheap and it's disingenuous. And portrayal of the world of the Dramatic Underclass was done a lot better by the movie Camp, which you may not have seen - but I'm guessing this show's creators did. That film was flawed, but it had ambition and heart. Glee makes a pretense of this, but I never feel it.

Cougartown and Glee are both hits because people watch bad shows all the time. In the case of Cougartown, though, it wears its offensive, repulsive trashiness on its sleeve. Look at the title; this isn't a program that's going to advance women's position in society. Glee pretends to be more, but in its way I find it just as offensive. And the more so because it pretends to care.

High-Fiving 40-Year-Olds? Get Out Of "Cougar Town"! [Salon]

• Frances Bean Cobain has written an open letter to Ali Lohan. Would you like to know what it says? Here goes — and consider it to be [sic]-filled:

"This is my open letter to Ali Lohan.
Your not entitled to anything simply because your sister has a recognizable name. Your idea of fame isn't fame. It's infamy. You want to be famous? Work your ass off and make decisions that could potentially catapult your career into a lasting one. Notariety for who you are and notaritey for the work you produce are two completely differnt things. I understand that you have been brought up in an envirtoment where the idea of fame is easily achievable but, that's not an excuse. You lack the talent, social understanding and credibility to be anything other then infamous. Your careere choices, thus far, will transcend a future career as someone who attempted to be famous, but never quite achieved it. And if you do, it will be the formality of fame that puts you on the covers of tabloids, while the public idly watches you plumit into the murky abyss shared with the likes of Spencer Pratt & Jon Gosslin who, i'm sure, will steal your money whilst there. Fortunately for the world, there are people who have and don't have recognizable names, who have obtained artistic integrity and will one day, hopefully, bring that tangible artisticness into light again. Though, its hard to think thats achievable when people like You ali lohan are rendering the world of true talent by attempting to make your entitled ass noticed. How is this fair to the people who HAVE artistic integrity, or a mind? How is it fair to those who truly have something to offer the human race other then a dwindling last name and a few shitty films, both of which, solidified the idea that your just a celebrities sibling. I recognize that i might come across as harsh and no, i don't personally know you, but its the actions that you take, that speak for you. You blatently don't care how your recognized, its the objective to get famous and that is what makes you replaceable and a recycled idea .Well, im ashamed to have to be grouped into the same category of person as you. I would rather die a most painful death the be assoicated with the kind of careere your trying to make for your self. I hope i'm wrong because generally i'm not a very judgmental person, but in the case of you, that is MY entitlement." Phew! …And scene. [ONTD]

• Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston had a "secret meeting" in New York, yet somehow the Daily Fail knows that the rendez-vous took place in a hotel and that Brad "unloaded his emotional baggage" on Jen. [Daily Mail]
• I wish I'd seen the Madonna and Lady Gaga dance off on Saturday night after SNL; sources say Madonna seemed to be the winner. [Page Six]
• "Madonna and her toy boy Jesus Luz had a bust-up following the pop queen's admission she'd rather get hit by a train than get hitched again." He supposedly feels like a fool and is heartbroken. [The Sun]
• OMG Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart went out for dinner (with friends)! They ate and enjoyed themselves! They were acting like a couple! All together, now: TWILIGHTISREALSPARKLEVAMP4EVA. [People]
• After being in a car accident on Monday, Nicole Richie's been checked out at the hospital, visited by her mother at home, and hired a lawyer. Hope everything is okay. [People]
• Jon Gosselin on that missing $230,000 from the Gosselin's joint account: "I never took any money." [TMZ]
• Lamar Odom has met with his lawyer regarding a prenup in his wedding to Khloe Kardashian, and word is, he will not be giving her half his earnings. [TMZ]
• Spoilers! You know this pic of Kim Cattrall in a wedding dress for Sex And The City 2: Electric Boogaloo? It's supposedly a fake-out; the ones getting married are Stanford and Anthony. More spoilery details at the link. [JustJared]
• SHOCKER: Mariah Carey has been acting like a diva on her new tour. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Click for a pic of Kate Hudson in a wedding dress, modeling for a Bazaar photo shoot. [NY Post]
• Organizers "worked overtime" to keep feuding singers Lily Allen and Katy Perry away from each other at the Chanel show in Paris. [The Sun]
• Kevin Federline's former landlords want $110,661 in unpaid rent and damages — which include spit marks on the exterior paint, gutters full of cigarette butts and beer bottles, broken tiles, a broken dishwasher and dismantled smoke detectors. Popo wow. [TMZ]
• Tyra Banks doesn't drink anymore, and a "source" says, "I guess that's how she ended up dropping 30 pounds." Anonymous weight loss speculation FTW! [Page Six]
• Shannen Doherty is working on a reality show that will highlight her "lighter and funnier" side. [E!]
• Queen Latifah is concerned about the hip-hop scene: "Never in my career do I remember rap being so male-dominated. In videos, women are basically shown as the girl you shake the booty with. They're objectified. There are females out there who can rap, who listen to rap. Missy and Lil' Kim and the young up-and-coming ones need an opportunity to be heard. I think we're all masculine and feminine, and a society can't be right if you don't honor the feminine voice." [USA Today]
• Usher's divorce: Delayed. [NY Daily News]
• "The FBI investigated whether Anna Nicole Smith was part of a plot to kill her tycoon husband's son, whom she was battling for his late dad's fortune, but prosecutors ultimately decided there wasn't enough evidence to charge the Playboy Playmate who died in 2007 from a drug overdose, newly released files show." [AP, LA Times]
• A man who bid in the canceled Michael Jackson auction is pissed he didn't get the stuff he was willing to pay for. He's suing for $5,000,000. [TMZ]
• Honestly, I do not even get why story about Jude Law, Hamlet and someone being upstaged by a skull is "news." It sounds like much ado without nothing. [Telegraph]
• The number of viewers of The Jay Leno Show: In decline. [USA Today]
• Nick Lachey avoided Jessica Simpson while in Vegas and refused to be photographed with on and off girlfriend Vanessa Minnillo. [Page Six]
• No one wants to be on Tinsley Mortimer's reality show. [Page Six]
• "Mel's anti-Jew-spew DWI wiped off books." [NY Post]
• Is Cougar Town a virus? It's spreading. The show will air in territories across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. This is what we export, people. Cougars. Can I go back to bed now? [Variety]
• If you shop at the right consignment stores, you could find clothes worn by Padma Lakshmi, who's given up her pre-pregnancy ensembles for charity. [Page Six]
• Something happened to Tony Roberts during the Sunday matinee of the Broadway play The Royal Family. His daughter reports the actor had a minor seizure and is now "feeling great." [USA Today]
• At the link, you'll find Chris Daughtry's tips for a happy marriage. If you're interested. [People]
• Elvis Presley's grandson Ben Presley, 17, just inked a $5 million record deal but says: "The music will be nothing like Elvis, nothing like him at all." Good luck with that! [NY Post]
• Little Britain star Matt Lucas had tried to get his former husband Kevin McGee off coke, and even paid for rehab; McGee committed suicide earlier this week. [The Sun]
• "I wanted somebody who had a huge presence-charismatic, able to dominate a room [yet] who was very sensitive, whose emotions were right under the surface." — Spike Jonze, on casting James Gandolfini's voice in Where The Wild Things Are. [The Daily Beast]
• "I think the way kids create is so inspiring. They're drawing a picture? They love the picture they drew; they're not tortured about it. But I think that that's only one side of me. Right now, it's a good story because it makes a tie-in with the movie." — Spike Jonze, on getting labeled an overgrown child. [Daily Beast]
• "I have kissed a lot of rock stars in my time but seriously never so many as the last 24 hours." — Courtney Love. [Page Six]
• "Hanging around with Chris, he always has a video camera, and he's like, 'I'm gonna ask you some questions about hair.' I talked a lot, but that turned out to be, uh, funny, I guess… I had a perm and when guys have it straightened, they put the rollers in their head, you know, so you get that Super Fly look." — Ice-T, who is in Chris Rock's Good Hair and, yes, used to wear rollers. [NY Mag]
• "I'd never been averse to any kind of medication, but you get brainwashed. I started reading all these books and doing pregnancy yoga. By the end, you feel you have to go natural in order to be a real woman. I got myself a doula [birthing assistant] and a water tank and struggled on for 24 hours, and then I had an epidural. I can remember saying to the anaesthetist, 'Oh, I love you, thank you so much.' I don't know what I was thinking." — Emily Mortimer, who is expecting her second child in January. [Telegraph]
• "It was important for me to write that, to get it off my chest. And to discuss it with a therapist, and tell my parents — which I did, eventually, though it took me about 20 years. And hopefully it will be helpful to someone out there who has gone through a similar situation. [The incident] left me not knowing how to deal with certain things. Boys can put pressure on you, and I didn't do so well with saying no. I had a lot to figure out, and I did eventually, but it was tough. We have to do a better job of looking out for our young girls, because there are predators out there." — Queen Latifah, regarding a song on her new album, Persona, about when she was molested as a 5-year-old by a male babysitter. [USA Today]
• "I get offered movies on a regular basis, but most of them are terrible because most of the movies that are made are terrible. I don't think anybody saw Adventureland, but they marketed it as a big comedy, so I get sent these really shitty scripts that I think people assume that was like. So many scripts where people are having sex with each other. Every script starts off with sex… [With Zombieland…they were nervous to hire me because I'm not famous. There were other more famous people who were auditioning for it. I think the main reason I got into it was because Sony really likes Greg Mottola, who directed Adventureland, so he vouched for me, because he directed their biggest movie in the last several years, Superbad. — Jesse Eisenberg. [BlackBook]
• "Guns seem dumb. I felt bad holding guns because I don't know what influence it has on people watching movies. You can make the argument that it lets people take out their aggression so they don't do it in real life. You can also make the argument that it makes guns look fun and people are going take them out and play with them." — Jesse Eisenberg. [BlackBook]
• "I normally get recognized as either a guy from Spring Awakening, or there's this other guy that screams at me all the time, Hey Napoleon Dynamite! I don't go to nightclubs, I don't go to nice restaurants. There's no perk that can be had aside from getting a slice of pizza at interviews. But you could. People really could exploit it. I haven't been single for 7 years, but I know people who are maybe my level of attractiveness or less and they can have sex quite often… That's great, because then they'll tell me about it." — Jesse Eisenberg. [BlackBook]

First Kimmel said he wasn't sure if "cougar" was a compliment or an insult. And Courteney agreed. But… Your show is called Cougar Town! Next, she claimed that used to think that "cougars" were women who'd had a lot of plastic surgery, trying to look young, to go out with younger guys… But now she's changed her mind, because she is a cougar. Wait, why is she a cougar? Does this mean she did or didn't have plastic surgery? Or is she a cougar because she's 45 and David Arquette is 38? Right. Okay.

Next, she had some kind of talking point about women reaching their sexual peak in their early 40s. Kimmel questioned the veracity of that theory, and Courteney backed down. But she did say: "I think the whole cougar thing — I'm glad it's come around." Plus: "I think what happens is as women get older — they want to become more sexual, so they're trying so hard to stay young that… probably they're pretending." Yeah, that's it. Older women are just pretending to be sexual... kind of like Courteney is pretending Cougar Town was a good idea.

Earlier: No One Harmed At Cougar Convention
5 Reasons Why Courteney Cox's Cougar Town Looks Awful

In tonight's premiere, Cox plays Jules, a recently-divorced Florida real estate agent who lives with her teenage son Travis (Dan Byrd). Jules criticizes her recently separated neighbor Grayson (Josh Hopkins) for hooking up with an endless parade of younger women and he bets her that she couldn't get a younger guy to go home with her. After discussing her sex life (or lack thereof) with her best friend, Ellie (Christa Miller), her trashy assistant Laurie (Busy Philipps), and most disturbingly, Travis, she takes her neighbor's advice to "go for it" and brings home a guy who isn't much older than her son.

Cougar Town was created by the same people behind Scrubs, Bill Lawrence and Kevin Biegel, but Cougar Town lacks the charm of their previous effort. Most critics say the problem with the show isn't Courteney Cox's acting, but the fact that she's forced to deliver absurd lines like, "I was 19, I started thinking with my coochie-cooch, and then, bam, I had a kid,'' and is too hot to be a cougar. Reviewers note that even though some women in Hollywood have adopted "cougar" as a positive term, (according to critics) there's still something desperate about a woman dating a younger man. They argue that Courteney Cox just doesn't fit in the role: She's still attractive, and thus bears no resemblance to real women over 40. We've already gone over the five reasons we think Cougar Town looks awful, and below, we take a look at what the pop culture pundits are saying.

USA Today

Your first thought is that Cox is too gorgeous to have such concerns, but from her opening scene (as she's unhappily studying her bare body in the mirror), Cox is not only convincing but touching - and unfailingly funny. Her insecurities seem as natural and ingrained as her loving if sometimes tortured relationship with her teenage son, wonderfully played by Dan Byrd of Aliens in America...There's a fragility to Cox that in the wrong show can come across as brittle, but is used here to increase her vulnerability and appeal.

The New York Times

The dialogue, timing and jokes have the madcap pace and anarchic spirit of Scrubs, and it takes a while for Ms. Cox to recalibrate her Monica persona from Friends. To her credit, Ms. Cox is game for anything, and the humor is raunchy and Seth Rogenish. But in the pilot she tends to overact, flattening arch slapstick and sharp-edged dialogue with clownish overkill. It also takes awhile to accept this actress as a lonely divorcee sidelined by middle age. Ms. Cox is supposed to be a 40-year-old Everywoman who is appalled by what society - and the Florida man shortage - has done to her cohort. "I know I'm one of them," Jules says to Laurie as the camera pans Botoxed matrons in leather and low-cut leopard-print bustiers. "I just don't feel like one of them." Ms. Cox's face is so tight and unlined, and her figure so taut, that it's hard to really see the distinction. But as the pilot gets funnier, so does Jules. She is of course the butt of most of the jokes, but she is doughty and not without a sense of humor..."

Hollywood Reporter

The recently divorced Jules, who goes completely mental one morning after noting a few elbow wrinkles and tummy jiggles — is shrill, unappealing (except for the whole looking like Courteney Cox thing), self-obsessed and has no filter between what she thinks and what she says. Things she says: "All the single guys our age are broken, gay or chasing younger girls." And, "I started thinking with my coochie cooch." And don't forget the discussion with her teenage son, Travis, about penis-holding. At least the boy has the grace to be mortified by his mother's sudden need to find the G-spot. To sum up: This is a one-note premise, with a lead character no one could want to spend five minutes with, based on a passing fad.

The Los Angeles Times

This is a real show whose main conceit is that having sex with a younger man is fun and exciting for women over 40. Crude stuff for a family newspaper, but despite the warm-and-fuzzy-celebrity cred that star Courteney Cox brings to it, some funny lines and good acting all around, Cougar Town is a crude show, built on jokes about oral sex and droopy breasts, a show in which words like "coochie" are used with regrettable abandon... Clearly, creators Bill Lawrence and Kevin Biegel (both previously of Scrubs) are trying to take on some legitimate issues, and no doubt there is pathos and insight to be gleaned from a divorced woman staring down her mid-40s as her child prepares to leave the nest, wondering if this is as good as it is ever going to get. But that is no excuse, and I mean whatsoever, for having that woman look at a shirtless young man and say, "I want to lick him."

Travis (Dan Byrd of Aliens in America) is Jules' teenage son, whose actual adolescence is being preempted by his mother's second go-round. Jules seems to take pride in her lack of boundaries, giving their relationship an ick factor that even Byrd's quietly hilarious performance cannot overcome. He does his very best, though, stealing every scene he's in. "Why don't you laugh at my jokes?" his mother asks after she cracks one about the fact that, in an attempt to prove her attractiveness, she flashed a neighbor kid. "Because they make me sad," Travis says, giving voice to us all.

New York Daily News

Jules also chats about her sex life with her teenage son, Travis, which may be the truest indication of what a shallow humor pool the show is drawing from. And that's even before Travis walks in one evening to discover his mother has not only snagged a kid who isn't much older than he is, but who is performing a sex act on that fellow in the living room. Now we all know sitcoms face an ever-tougher challenge to offer a sex scene that hasn't been done by, say, Two And A Half Men." But a whole lot of viewers, if they wanted this kind of humor, would simply have gone to Spike in the first place. It's a waste of Cox's comic talents to have her spend the whole show trapped in lines like, "We had sex three times without you needing a nap or a pill or anything."

The Boston Globe

Cox is a funny TV presence with self-deprecating charm, but she's not an everywoman, and she's certainly not a stand-in for a population of women that is experiencing the aging process in real time. And so a show that's meant to be a meditation on gender, age, and insecurity is, instead, a vehicle for marveling at the amazing sculpting power of the Hollywood workout routine.... As a pop culture concept, [cougars are] already feeling stale. Besides, it's unclear that Jules even fits in the category; the lustful older women mocked in American Pie and on Saturday Night Live are well into their 40s and beyond, but by my math, Jules is in her mid-30s. I know this because she tells a potential date in a bar that "I was 19, I started thinking with my coochie-cooch, and then, bam, I had a kid.'' There's plenty of dialogue like that in tonight's premiere, and while it's meant to represent women talking frankly about sex, it comes off as women talking awkwardly about anatomy. When Jules stops her car short in one scene, Busy Philipps, as her younger, hard-partying co-worker, shouts, "Give a girl a warning. My uterus almost shot out!''

The Chicago Tribune

Cougar Town creator Bill Lawrence got a lot right about male friendship in his most notable creation, Scrubs, but this sitcom doesn't really capture much that feels true about female friendships. Women on this show tend to shout at each other, browbeat each other or simply announce, "Wow, you look like a whore." All of that claws-out humor is of a piece with the show's vaguely hostile attitude toward its female characters and their middle-aged dilemmas.

Newsday

We can all perhaps agree that Cox is a good actress. She was good in Scrubs, good in Dirt, good in Ace Ventura, good in Scream - and Friends without Monica Geller would be just about unthinkable. So why, then, is Cougar Town such a painful belly flop? Easy answer: The glaring mismatch between material and starring actress. As the woebegone divorcee with an antic streak and a full-blown need to get down, Cox is not believable. In the opening scene, attempting to forge a winking comradeship with millions of other 40-year-old women in the viewing audience, she pinches rolls of fat, flops bat wings and compares herself to a farm animal. Then, a couple of scenes later, those viewers get a full-body view, and there's not a fat molecule out of place. Cougar Town will get a big number Wednesday, but do not be fooled. It doesn't deserve one.

Cougar Town premieres tonight on ABC at 9:30, Eastern and Pacific times; 8:30, Central time.

Earlier: 5 Reasons Why Courteney Cox's Cougar Town Looks Awful

The New York Times' "Generation B" column profiles a newly-divorced 57-year-old woman who, she says, is finding the dating landscape dismal.

She has tried social networking, going to dance clubs, reconnecting with friends at her class reunion (all married), waiting for something magic to happen and online dating. "When you're 18, you just jump in," she said. "Now, I worry. What do I need to know about him and what do I need to share about myself - with a whole lifetime to pick from?

Where her husband quickly found a new girlfriend, Christine Shiber is having a hard time meeting a man her age. And, says the piece, this is consistent with grim statistics.

According to 2001 census data, 41 percent of women 50 and over who've been divorced have remarried, while 58.4 percent of divorced men that age are remarried. "That's the biggest remarriage gap for all age groups," said Dr. Francesca Adler-Baeder of the National Stepfamily Resource Center at Auburn University. "Among the divorced, the least marriageables in our society are older women, highly educated who make a good salary."..."Studies show men tend to marry down - someone slightly younger, less educated, making less money," Dr. Adler-Baeder said. "Women in their 50s literally don't have a visible pool of eligible men around them."

It's funny that this piece should appear just as we're starting a fall in which network TV seems determined to overturn the stereotype - or at least firmly embed a new one. Says media writer Julie Zied, this fall's TV lineup is all about "the epic battle of female seduction between the mature (cougars), and the young (kittens)." First, and most glaringly, there's Cougar Town, whose premise and title are cringe-inducing enough to send us running to the safe confines of Lifetime. Courteney Cox is a divorced single mom who, with a short supply of men to hand, sets her sight on the legions of young bucks eager for her experience and wisdom. It's not just Courtney: Zied identifies a whole pack of femmes fatales who seem to fall into the 2-D trap of "sexxxy predatory older woman," from Melrose Place's Laura Leighton to Jenna Elfman in Accidentally on Purpose to Elle MacPherson's steely agency head on The Beautiful Life. All of them are set against ingenues whom they presumably eat for breakfast. The "cougar" trope is as old as The Graduate, but the modern iteration - whose mother superior might be SATC's Samantha Jones - is, theoretically empowering. Whereas Mrs. Robinson was a male fantasy, the cougar is supposedly a woman's, what the Urban Dictionary defines as " A woman who is 35+, sexually cunning, that prefers to hunt rather than be hunted."

The cougar is all about using and losing hapless men and besting less wily younger women. This isn't the First Wives' Club, nor even someone getting her groove back - it's an every-woman-for-herself band of Real Housewives and powerful vigilantes whose creators confuse objectifying men with empowerment and maturity. With, as the Times reminds us, an ever-growing pool of divorced women over 35, do the TV execs this this is what the demographic wants? A woman who's essentially an asshole man, but who presumably has more sexual secrets under her garter belt? And is is an empowering fantasy - or more male-engineered cat-fighting? And does setting up equally ludicrous and superficial standards for women of all ages really do anyone a service? Cougar Town would probably suggest women throw back a few drinks, put on a tighter skirt, hire a sitter, and stop thinking already.

In Her 50s, Looking For Love [NY Times]
Fall TV Preview: Cougars Versus Kittens [FanCast]

• Lady Gaga on those nasty hermaphrodite rumors:

"My little vagina is very offended." [News.com.au]

• Celebrities seen attending DJ AM's memorial — designed to resemble a 12-step meeting — include Lindsay Lohan, Robert Downey Jr., John Mayer, Nicole Richie, Samantha Ronson, Eric Dane and Rebecca Gayheart. [AP, People]
• Susan Boyle's album is topping Amazon's bestsellers list, even though it's not on sale until November. Pre-orders have the album out-selling Whitney Houston and the Twilight soundtrack. [Daily Mail]
• So you know how Chris Brown critiqued Oprah for doing a show on domestic violence, dedicated to "all the Rihannas of the world"? He called it "a slap in the face." And he said: "I did a lot of stuff for her, like going to Africa and performing for her school. She could've been more helpful, like, ‘OK, I'm going to help both of these people out.'" A source says: "He's done. Whatever goodwill he had, he's totally ruined it by saying that. What was he thinking? And who the hell goes up against Oprah? It just shows he doesn't think. No one is going to want him as the face of their brand." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Meanwhile: Rihanna has been seen being "touchy-feely" with "scenester" Travis London. [NY Daily News]
• Michael Jackson's burial last night gave Katherine Jackson closure, sources say. "Everyone's been telling her how strong she is, but even she said, ‘It's not always easy to be this strong,'" says Rev. Al Sharpton, a Jackson family friend. [MSNBC Scoop]
• Paris Jackson cried when she stepped into the mausoleum where her father was to be entombed; Katherine Jackson started to go in but turned back, overcome by grief. [AP]
• Lisa Marie Presley, Elizabeth Taylor, Chris Tucker, Macaulay Culkin and Mila Kunis attended Michael Jackson's burial. Gladys Knight sang. [People]
• Michael Jackson was not buried at Neverland — or in Gary, Indiana, because his family wanted a "secluded, dignified resting place fitting for a music legend." His mother, Katherine, wanted to be able to visit her son without fanfare or fans. [Mirror]
• An Australian newspaper mocked Russell Crowe for smoking and eating a big meal during a recent bike ride. Naturally Russell has challenged the paper's gossip columnist to a "duel by bicycle." Apparently Russell's spokesperson called the guy the next day and said: Get on your bike. Russell wants you to go riding with him. Are you ready to die?" [Breitbart]
• Lisa Ling says that when her sister Laura Ling was held captive in North Korea, Diane Sawyer reached out: "She made calls and took meetings on our behalf for which we will be forever grateful." [People]
• We've seen a lot of Jon Gosselin lately, but not a lot of his girlfriend. A source says of Hailey Glassman: "Hailey actually hates the fact that Jon is famous. She doesn't want to be photographed and doesn't like the attention." [Page Six]
• Zooey Deschanel is "scrambling to slim down" for her wedding; she's been taking ballet workouts back to back. Or maybe she just likes the workout? [Page Six]
• Joy Behar is silly. [Page Six]
• Newly released emails from Carrie Prejean show that she and the pageant officials were butting heads way before she spoke out on same-sex unions. In a March 19 email, Carrie wrote to Miss California co-director Keith Lewis: "I WILL NOT BE VERBALLY AND EMOTIONALLY ABUSED ANYMORE BY ANY OF YOU. I HAVE A COMPETITION TO PREPARE FOR. I WILL NO LONGER BE DEALING WITH ANYONE WHO IS GOING TO BRING ME DOWN AT THIS POINT. I WILL ONLY SURROUND MYSELF WITH PEOPLE WHO MAKE ME HAPPY. AND RIGHT NOW, THAT IS NONE OF YOU. I WILL SEE YOU ALL IN APRIL. PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT ME AT ALL FROM THIS POINT FORWARD." [Fox News]
• "Donald Trump is such a hands-on boss that he personally helps pick six of the 15 finalists in the Miss Universe pageant each year — because the preliminary judges often overlook the most beautiful contestants." [Page Six]
• Check out this "commercial" for "Fecalux," starring Roseanne. It makes you poop. [ONTD]
• All About Steve "is an oddly creepy, sour film, featuring a heroine so desperate and peculiar that audiences may be more likely to pity than root for her." [Rotten Tomatoes]
• Jake Brockman, a former keyboard player with Echo and the Bunnymen, was killed in a motorcycle crash Tuesday on the Isle of Man. [BBC News]
• Whatshername says Whatshisname has a "secret lover." [The Sun]
• "I hope this show is a huge hit and that people love it. Because I like playing this character more than any character I've ever played." — Courteney Cox on upcoming show Cougar Town. [LA Times]
• "The older I get, the younger the leading man gets." — Michelle Pfeiffer. [Telegraph]
• "I've always said I believe in good music and bad music. ...I like music. My next album, which I'm working on now — that's exclusive, no one knows that — is gonna be the album that really ...it's not gonna be a #1 album. That's where I'm at right now. I wanna make the most experimental album I ever made." — Jay-Z. [MTV News]
• "People often look for deep psychological and emotional reasons why people eat, and I'm sure for many people those exist. But other people, and I would include myself, are just fucking greedy bastards who like eating. It's nice – it's a nice feeling. Eating chocolate is nice, right? Chocolate's fucking great. So I don't think it was a horrible self-comforting thing, I think it was just lack of self-discipline. Most people want a load of chocolate, but they stop. They think, if I do that I'll get fat. Whereas I just thought, I don't care." — Little Britain's Matt Lucas, who has recently lost weight because his doctor had warned him he was at risk of becoming diabetic. [Guardian]
• "You can live a very normal life if you don't actually look for things. Someone said, 'Oh, I saw a picture of you on the Internet, that was a really pretty hat.' Not hat, I don't wear hats. 'That was a really great dress!' I was like, 'Oh, I just wore that the other day, how did you know?' 'Oh, well, on blank-blank-blank-dot-com.' I wouldn't know. I don't know whose movie made money — I haven't seen a movie. I don't know who's famous and who's not, I don't know any young people that are coming up. I'll see somebody, and I'll say, 'That girl's really pretty.' And someone may say, 'Oh, of course, she's on "The Hills" or something.' Is that a show? I've got strong opinions, and I can get short. But I'm just not that high-maintenance. So the whole world knows I had miscarriages. And yes, I've done in vitro however many times — three times. Yes, I've said that David and I go to therapy. Yes. Nothing's too precious for me. For some reason, I don't care. I wish I could be a little bit more, like, 'You're trying to dig something out of me,' and me being like, 'I'm not going to talk about that.' What do you want to talk about? I don't care." — Courteney Cox. [LA Times]
• "I don't enjoy being looked at. But that's part of being successful, doing magazine covers. It's very masochistic – the one thing you're so afraid of you become addicted to. I'm addicted to being uncomfortable." — Megan Fox. [NY Daily News via Wonderland Magazine]

[Los Angeles, July 29. Image via INF]

Here are the glaring problems with what we can see so far:

• 1. The use of the word "cougar." It's clichéd, it's lame, it's undignified. It smacks of predatory desperation. As Salon's Rebecca Traister wrote in April, "How sad and backward that we have to give it a nickname, animalize it as if it's outside the boundaries of civilized human behavior, make it a trend, pretend that Demi Moore invented it. That's not progress, and it's not a step forward for women." 'Nuff said.
• 2. Bad jokes. From the tiny bit seen in clips below, Cougar Town is not funny! Courteney's character says to a friend over the phone, "Why so pissy?" The woman answers: "I'm fat." UGH. Really? Courteney says: "No, you're not," and the woman replies, "I am. I woke up fat!" "I don't buy it," Courteney says, and then goes to the window to look at her friend who lives next door. She sees the woman in a purple nightgown and deadpans, "Wow, you look like a whore." "Thank you!" the woman enthuses. This is just the beginning. Said neighbor is super reluctant to have sex with her husband. Ha? Later, Courteney's son thinks she is hitting on him because she is talking to him while holding wine. Hilarious?
• 3.Where's the empowerment? Courteney's character makes this speech to a male neighbor: "You know what drives me nuts? Your wife moved out what, a week ago? And you're already sexing up sorority girls. But nobody cares, because when a 40-year-old guy gets divorced, all your friends are like, 'Way to go, tiger.'" She's making a point — albeit one that been made TIME AND TIME AGAIN, that there's a double standard for how older men and older women are seen. But there's no new twist, new insight, or skewering of this double standard. Maybe it's coming later? Still, one of the rules of writing for the screen is show, don't tell. Oh, and in this scene, the man replies her rant by asking, "When's the last time you got laid?" Instead of kneeing the dude in the nuts or saying, "Right, because if a woman is angry she clearly hasn't gotten enough dick," Courteney's character seems to think that yes, maybe this is the problem. Groan.
• 4. Preposterous casting. Courteney Cox is 44 and gorgeous. Beautiful face, amazing body, and in possession of millions of dollars to designate solely for upkeep. As Allure blogger Erin Flaherty points out about Brooke Shields: "Sometimes an attractive woman is just an attractive woman." When you look at Courteney, do you think, "That's what a typical American 'cougar' really looks like"? When the male neighbor says, "Maybe what really drives you nuts is that you couldn't bag a young stud if you tried," you have no choice but to roll your eyes so hard they get stuck up in your brain. She looks almost exactly like she did when she was on Friends, which is to say: Hot. The only way a "young stud" wouldn't find her sexually attractive would be if he were gay. And even then, second base seems like a possibility.
• 5. There is a way to present older, desperate, needy, messy women and have it be funny — and it's been done, on a show called Absolutely Fabulous.

But judge for yourself: Two Cougar Town clips below.

Giving It Another Go! [Perez]
Related: Sometimes An Attractive Woman Is Just An Attractive Woman [Allure]
Earlier:How Do We Survive The Cougar Attack?

"How sad and backward that we have to give it a nickname, animalize it as if it's outside the boundaries of civilized human behavior, make it a trend, pretend that Demi Moore invented it. That's not progress, and it's not a step forward for women." She continues:

Cougars. Pussies. Foxes. Faster pussycat! Kill! Kill! Active, aggressive female sexuality is always talked about as feral, often feline. When it's older, apparently, it develops sharper claws and teeth. Unless, that is, it's exhibited by a primmer and more contained MILF. That's just a lady with kids who men want to fuck. It's impossible to tell, until we get closer to the specimen, whether she has any interest in doing the fucking herself.

But what about women of a certain age who want to feel fierce, sexy, powerful? Haven't older women historically been stripped of their sexuality? Instead of making them feel like their "best" years are the fertile ones, shouldn't we allow them to celebrate a healthy sexual life?

Traister says yes. "Communication of the fact that women have sexual motors that run far into their retirement years is of course valuable." But: "turning those revelations into mindless characterizations of va-va-voom youth seekers who wear too-tight animal prints and talk like children about stalking men as prey is not important, valuable or empowering in any way."

Also, she recalls, "When Cher used to date Rob Camilletti, I think they called him a 'boy toy,' and they called her 'Cher.'"

The problem is that this country loves a buzzword, and right now, "cougar" is it. In addition to the new TV Land show The Cougar, and several cougar-themed books, there's an indie film called Cougar Hunting, a website called UrbanCougar, and Courteney Cox-Arquette is producing and starring in a pilot for an ABC sitcom called Cougar Town. The question is, are we allowed to be glad that women of a certain age are in the spotlight as sexual beings and not as dried up spinsters? Or does hating the term "cougar" mean not supporting any cougar-themed projects? Let's just say, for instance, that Courteney Cox's show (about a newly single 40-year-old mom with a 17-year-old son) was called something like Aging Disgracefully or Back In The Game? Would you watch it then? Or are you willing to give it a chance with the word "cougar" in the title? Is there a dignified way to survive this cougar attack?

Hot Cougar Sex! [Salon]

[Los Angeles, March 26. Image via INFDaily.]

• Madonna and Jesus have broken up, if you believe that she Twitters, which this paper does. Meanwhile, she's allegedly on her way to Malawi to adopt another kid. [Daily Mail]

• According to the papers, her Madgesty is 2 days away from adopting a second child from Malawi. That seems… speedy. [The Sun, Mirror]
• Lindsay Lohan's latest flick, Labor Pains, will never hit theaters: It's going to premiere on ABC Family, then go to DVD. This is the flick in which LL plays a woman who fakes being pregnant to keep from being fired. Hilarious? [Access Hollywood]
• Rihanna was seen "smiling and flirting" with a group of guys — including Brody Jenner — at Nobu in New York on Wednesday. She also has a blond, female security guard, which is kind of awesome. [Page Six]
• Last night, Rihanna was seen dancing at a Hollywood night club. [TMZ]
• Amy Winehouse's latest Facebook status reads "If you love him, let him go." [The Sun]
• Warning: Celebrities have Twitter ghostwriters. Where do we apply? [NY Times]
• Wow, Shawn Johnson is making quite a bit of cash to appear on Dancing WIth The Stars — if she goes all the way she could take home over $350,000. [E!]
• Speaking of DWTS, Holly Madison has been experiencing pain in her rib area. Bad enough that she's on meds. This show is dangerous! [E!]
• Kate Middleton, Prince William's girlfriend, has a pal named Emma Sayle. Apparently Emma runs sex parties called Killing Kittens, for single women and couples. Racy! [The Sun]
• Courtney Love versus a designer on Etsy: Guess who called someone a "vile horrible lying bitch"? Hint: The rock star. [E!]
• The designer also claims Courtney Love called her an "asswipe nasty lying hosebag thief." [TMZ]
• Jennifer Hudson has set a date for her wedding, but it's a secret. [Mirror]
• Queen Latifah has been cast in a romcom described as modern day Cinderella story; she'll play a physical therapist who falls in love with a basketball player while helping him recover from a career-threatening injury. [Variety]
• What the world needs now: A Ben Hur mini-series. [Variety]
• Rapper T.I. will be sentenced today for weapons possession; he will probably get a year. He's already done 1,000 hours of community service. [CNN]
• Donna Martin, aka Tori Spelling, returns to 90210 on Tuesday. Plus: Diablo Cody drops by. Stuntcasting means someone really really wants you to watch. [E!]
• Seriously, what is Courteney Cox's Cougar Town show really about? Every shot we ever see is CC in a robe. [Socialite Life]
• Something stinks: NBC is yanking cooking competition show Chopping Block off the air and replacing it with repeats of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. [Yahoo via Reuters]
• Survivor winner Richard Hatch wants to get out of jail. [Yahoo via AP]
• So you know that shaggy coat Pixie Geldof wore? She had a matching dress underneath. [Daily Mail]
• A witness claims to have seen two dudes get off of rapper Flo Rida's tour bus, kill a rabbit, and then get back on. Now Flo Rida is being questioned by police. [Socialite Life]
• Former Eight is Enough and Charles in Charge star Willie Aames is broke and having a big garage sale in suburban Kansas City; he filed for bankruptcy last year and his home is in foreclosure. I want Charles in charge of me? [Yahoo via AP]
• Eddie Cibrian, recently accused of cheating on his wife with LeAnn Rimes, was photographed holding hands with his wife at Miami airport yesterday. Damage control? [TMZ]
• Got $150 million? You can buy the late Aaron Spelling's mansion: 56,500 square feet of space on more than 4.6 acres. There's a bowling alley, wine cellar, wine tasting room, gift-wrapping room, a humidity-controlled silver storage room, China room, library, gym, and, of course, screening room. [Yahoo via AP]
• Green Day is back, with an eight studio album out May 15th. [EW]
• Blind item! Which A-list hunk got elbowed in the face by a girl after demanding she get him a bag of blow? The damsel clocked him after he called her a few (unprintable) names. [Gatecrasher]
• I like any job where you can just shut yourself away from everybody." — Robert Pattinson. [Mirror]
• We schedule it out. We force ourselves to do it. There's always an excuse for a couple not to take time for themselves, but it's really short sighted. The first thing you'd better do is make a date as soon as that baby comes. You'd better make a date and take your wife out within a month - whether you want to, or not - and you can't talk about the kid. And you'd better have a romantic weekend within two months because it tears couples apart, these babies do. Felicity and I have been really good about finding time. We'll go away for two days - for one day, even - and we try to do it four, five, six times a year." — William H. Macy, on keeping a marriage alive when you have kids. [Mirror]
• She has the partying part down right. But I don't think she's got the focus. I mean, it requires a lot of focus and a lot of people think they can do it, but they really find that it's a lot harder. Ask anyone - it's a lot harder than it looks. I guess that's why they call us supermodels - we make it look easy. But it's not as easy as it looks, so I wish her all the best." — Tyson Beckford on Lindsay Lohan. [Perez]
• "Because I got high, I forgot to pay. It was stupid. I'm an idiot for that." — Method Man, on owing back taxes. [Gatecrasher]
• "I think the last thing I should be doing right now is planning a wedding. I'd become one of those cracked-out housewives with a vacuum cleaner, hopped up on Dexedrine." — Kelly Osbourne, who just left rehab for her painkiller addiction. [Mirror]