The remaining "isms" are subtle. Mature women are often allowed to be "powerful" only if they are also "wealthy" (think Succession ’s Shiv Roy, who is 30-something, or Gerri Kellman, who is allowed to be smart only in corporate settings). We need more working-class older women. We need more disabled mature women. We need more women of color over 60 leading rom-coms and horror films.

By the 1980s and 1990s, the "Mommy Wars" of cinema began. Meryl Streep, one of the few to survive, famously noted that after 40, she was offered only "witches or harridans." The industry admitted a dirty secret: audiences, they claimed, didn't want to see older women falling in love, having adventures, or struggling with existential crises. They wanted ingénues. As cinema lagged, prestige television stepped into the breach. The long-form series allowed for character depth that film could not afford. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, shows like The Sopranos (Edie Falco as Carmela) and Six Feet Under (Frances Conroy as Ruth Fisher) offered mature women roles of Shakespearean complexity. Ruth Fisher was not a "cool mom"; she was a repressed widow exploring her sexuality and rage in her 60s.

Look at the European front. (70) gave a terrifying, erotic performance in Elle (2016) that no 25-year-old could touch. Juliette Binoche (60) continues to play romantic leads with men her own age and younger, without apology.