On a societal level, and for a number of reasons, MILF Manor is a deeply distressing series. Are we all going to stand by and watch a series that seems to have tricked a bunch of twentysomething guys and their mothers into showing up on an island to date one another? If the world of reality TV has taught me anything, it’s that the answer is definitely “Yes—absolutely, yes.” But are we also going to stand by and let this misuse of the term “MILF” stand?
MILF Manor—a reality nightmare from TLC—is a dating retreat in which a gaggle of dudes and their mothers unwittingly show up to date one another. That is to say: the so-called “MILFs” are here to date guys their sons’ ages in the presence of their sons, and vice versa. But are these women actually MILFs? Or are they cougars—or jaguars, or pumas?
As The Daily Beast’s Obsessed’s own Fletcher Peters pointed out in her review, “MILF” is a notorious acronym to describe a mother who is also physically attractive. Cougars, on the other hand, are older women who actively pursue younger men. A MILF might have no interest in the dudes who pine after her, and cougardom is a state of mind more than anything else.
If we really want to break it down, however, MILF Manor has made an even bigger mistake by using “cougar” to describe women of all ages who date younger men. This pays no respect to the Feline Scale—which, as laid out by Urban Dictionary, breaks women who pursue younger men into categories that are grouped by decade. “Cougar” describes women in their forties; “jaguars” are in their fifties, and “pumas” are in their thirties. Imagine if we had such advanced vocabularies to describe the specific kinds of men who pursue younger women!
It’s hard to imagine how anyone could conflate these two terms, both of which have such rich cultural histories. Does no one remember when John Cho—years ahead of his superstardom—showed up in American Pie to explain what makes a MILF? His character, literally called ‘MILF Guy #2,’ informs us that a MILF, as exemplified by Jennifer Coolidge as Stifler’s mom, is an “M.I.L.F.—Mom I’d Like to Fuck.”
And who could forget Cougar Town—the Courteney Cox comedy whose title turned out to be a major turn-off for some prospective viewers? In 2011, Cox told Harper’s Bazaar that the term “cougar” didn’t offend her. A year later, she told Anderson Cooper that she believed the title was a mistake nonetheless. “We started out being Cougar Town because it was a good way to get people to be shocked by the title.” She said the name also referred to her son’s football team in the show, but ultimately, she added, it was “a mistake, you know. Sometimes we make mistakes.”
In a Friends-related twist of irony, pop culture obsessives might remember that Cox’s pal Jennifer Aniston once found herself embroiled in the cougar-MILF-puma discourse as well.
Soon after Cox began executive producing and starring in Cougar Town, Aniston signed on for Pumas—a romantic comedy in which two women in their thirties “make a habit of romancing younger men” and embark on “a French skiing vacation that challenges their romantic expectations,” Variety reported (per MTV News) in 2009. Around the same time, Entertainment Weekly asked: “Isn’t Jennifer Aniston Better than This?” (This was also the year when Mike Fleiss debuted The Cougar—a reality series about twentysomethings dating a 40-year-old woman that ran for one season on TV Land.)
As MTV News noted in its post about Pumas—a project that seems to have never come to fruition—the “cougar” discussion had grown stale by this point. But then, in 2010, in swooped Demi Moore—who flipped the dialectical table by declaring herself a puma while in her forties, during her marriage with Ashton Kutcher.
“Cougar has become so distasteful,” Moore told Harper’s Bazaar that March (via CBS News). “I really hate that expression.” She said she preferred the term “puma” because it “has a sweeter quality, more elegant.
“And then somebody said to me, ‘Pumas are only for people in their thirties.’”
Undeterred, Moore told the magazine that she classifies herself as a “puma” anyway. And why shouldn’t she? If MILF Manor has taught us anything, it’s that labels are flexible—especially when another term is better for your brand.
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