Is It's Complicated Simply Twilight for Older Women?

The Objectification of Men

New Moon may have been directed by a man, but the onscreen Twilight saga was created by two women (Stephenie Meyer on the page, and Catherine Hardwicke on the screen), and it's intriguing that the romance they devised may be one of the few to swathe its lead female in layers of flannel and a parka. It's the men in Twilight who are objectified, from Robert Pattinson's gratuitous, glittery shirtless shots, to the Native American Chippendales revue that is most of New Moon.

So, too, does It's Complicated keep its heroine not just clothed but overclothed -- even after having sex with Baldwin, Streep (holding those bedcovers as high up on her body as possible) makes him turn around before she'll get out of bed to don a bathrobe. Baldwin, by contrast, is as barechested as he's been since his matinee idol days. Even the throwaway sight gags objectify men: one morning, as Streep's family enters the kitchen for breakfast, her daughters are all clad in oversized pajamas while son-in-law John Krasinski swans in wearing a comically tight baby doll tee that he apparently borrowed from his wife (though only this film's putative villain -- Baldwin's hot younger wife -- would dare to wear such a body-hugging item).

The Constant Praise of the Heroine

There may be some differences between Twilight and It's Complicated (the former actually includes non-whites in its cast, for example), but one constant in each story is how much the other characters live to praise the heroine. In any other school, a shy mumblepuss like Bella would be ostracized, but Twilight posits her as the immediate coolest kid in school, the one boys flip for and other girls can't stop complimenting. Streep gets the same stream of admiration from the kids who practically worship her, the coterie of friends who tell her how amazing she is, the underlings at Streep's workplace who beam as she walks past them, and the two suitors who pine for her attention. In Baldwin's eyes, every move she makes is right-on, every meal she cooks is divine, and every decision she's made to give up on bikini waxes is note-perfect. Want to corner that female audience? Give your heroine two beaus and two hours of blandishments and watch the cash come rolling in.

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