It Was Just a Favorite ’90s Movie—Until Midlife and Perimenopause Made It a Mirror

How Fried Green Tomatoes gave me language for perimenopause.

By: Autumn Backhaus, PhD

Before the age of 18, I’d watched Fried Green Tomatoes more than ten times.

Read the book too.

As a teenager in the ’90s, I loved it for so many reasons—Idgie’s rebellion, Ruth’s softness, the quiet power of female friendship, the food, the family you make when the world is unforgiving, the feeling that there were things women knew that the world didn’t always see.

I haven’t actually seen the movie in probably 20 years.

But I can see, hear, and *feel* Evelyn Couch as if it were yesterday.

What I didn’t know then—what I couldn’t have guessed—is how much she would come back to me in midlife.

How her discomfort, her restlessness, her quiet ache for something more would feel so familiar, 30 years later.

And how much her story—funny, awkward, painful—would help me make sense of things I didn’t yet have words for.

The Saran Wrap scene hits different now.

Evelyn tries to rekindle intimacy with her husband by meeting him at the door wrapped in plastic.

She’s hopeful, nervous, reaching for something—herself, maybe.

“Jesus Christ, Evelyn! What if I’d been the paperboy?”

He laughs. She shrinks. That’s it. It’s over.

Played for comedy. But what I see now is a woman trying to find her way back to a body—and a part of herself—she’s never really known.

A woman raised to meet expectations, not explore desire.

To perform “sexy,” not understand what she wants.

To stay appropriate. To be a proper woman. To stay quiet.

We laughed back then. But we recognize her now.

And then there’s the mirror scene.

Evelyn attends a women’s self-help seminar. The facilitator instructs everyone to pick up a mirror and take a look.

A real look. Between their legs. At themselves.

Evelyn panics. Mumbles “Towanda.” And bolts.

The moment is awkward, absurd, and painfully real.

Because the truth is—so many women in midlife have never looked.

Never explored. Never been told that their bodies were worth knowing for their own sake.

Not for pleasure. Not for power. Just for themselves.

No one ever asked Evelyn to look.

And when they did, it was too much.

Because the intimacy of that—not with a partner, but with herself—was almost unbearable.

Evelyn didn’t grow up with a sense of ownership over her body.

She was taught to perform.

To stay small. To be a proper woman. To stay quiet.

And like so many women, she entered midlife with no real relationship to her sexual self—just expectations, disappointment, and confusion.

So when things shifted—when sex didn’t work like it used to, when desire got foggy, when her body felt foreign—she didn’t ask questions.

She assumed it was her fault.

She tried harder. Then she stopped trying.

Midlife didn’t break Evelyn. It just revealed what was always missing.

And that’s what midlife does for many of us.

We keep functioning. We keep showing up. But something beneath it starts asking harder questions.

Is this all there is?

Am I allowed to want more?

What happened to the part of me that used to feel things—or wanted to?

One woman said to me recently: “It’s not that I don’t want sex. It’s that I don’t know what I want anymore.”

Another told me: “My experience and connection with sex has been so elusive and confusing at times over the years—sometimes it felt fake, sometimes like nothing, sometimes like connection. In midlife I don’t know what the hell it is, but I know I want better.”

That not knowing exactly but wanting better… reminded me of Evelyn.

She was braver than she gave herself credit for.

She took risks. She asked questions.

And maybe most importantly—she stopped disappearing and started investing in herself.

She didn’t do it perfectly.

But she did it.

And that’s what makes her unforgettable.

Evelyn’s story—and the stories of so many women we’ve met—inspired the creation of our MIDS3X programming on sexual health in midlife.