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AIBU?

To think that Bridget Jones is a terrible role model for women?

259 replies

malificent7 · 22/10/2020 05:31

I quite like the films...they are funny... but they do make me cringe.
Bridget overhears Mark Darcy slag her off. ( calling her a spinster- terrible sexist word) then ends up obsessed with him.
She has a perfectly lovely figure but we are led to believe she is fat as she permanently struggles to loose weight and become like her "stick insect" love rivals..
She is quite inept and bumbling....adorable but useless.
That bloody song " all by myself!"

I know as women we can probably all relate to Bridget on some level ..especially her insecueities but bloody hell...we should not want to be like her!

Am I missing the point here? Are the films/ book sexist or are they trying to highlight sexism? Either way...Bridget Jones is anti feminist .

OP posts:

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malificent7 · 22/10/2020 05:31

Insecurities

OP posts:

Mulderitssme · 22/10/2020 05:35

YANBU, I enjoyed the first film as an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and I don't mind the second. They're both silly and a bit of fluff. The last one annoyed me as it was clear that the character had no development and was still making the same mistakes as she had fifteen years prior.

CutToChase · 22/10/2020 05:36

The books are 20 years old. Times change.

orangejuicer · 22/10/2020 05:37

This isn't exactly new OP. Have you just discovered Bridget?

malificent7 · 22/10/2020 05:38

No of course not but back in the day she was upheld as a heroine...wow 20 years already!! Life goes too fast!

OP posts:

malificent7 · 22/10/2020 05:39

But in the year 2000 feminism was a thing....even way back then!

OP posts:

KihoBebiluPute · 22/10/2020 05:39

She's not supposed to be a "role model" though.

Sparklingbrook · 22/10/2020 05:40

I am not sure fictional characters are meant to be role models. I enjoyed the films back in the day.

Vello · 22/10/2020 05:41

She's not supposed to be a role model. It's not for five year olds.

actiongirl1978 · 22/10/2020 05:42

I felt the way she felt and identified hugely when I was 21 in 1999. Feminist or not, lots of women would have felt the same as me.

CutToChase · 22/10/2020 05:45

These days she would be addicted to the gym and Insta rather than wine and chocolate. Definitely no fags, massive no no!

She would be embarking on waist training and booty bootcamps rather than dieting.

rainkeepsfallingdown · 22/10/2020 05:52

She's not supposed to be a role model.

With that said, I would have been quite pleased to have a young Colin Firth and Hugh Grant fighting over me. The very thought is enough to make anyone put their feminist principles to one side.

Graciebobcat · 22/10/2020 05:53

She isn't meant to be a role model, she is meant to be quite a flawed character. Literally the whole point is that she isn't fat and doesn't need to lose weight and she's fine just as she is and the books are about finding out who she is, becomimg more comfortable with herself and growing up, somewhat belatedly, but we all mature at different speeds.

I actually found her quite annoying as a character when I read the first book not long after it came out, though I enjoyed it. I was about 20/21 at the time and wondered how a woman more than ten years older than me could have her shit far less together than I already did? But when I saw the film Renee Zellweger made me absolutely love the character. And I love all the films, they make me laugh like a drain.

StrictlyAFemaleFemale · 22/10/2020 05:56

I felt a lot like she did. Thought the workplace dynamics were rather good too.

AuntieStella · 22/10/2020 06:00

Since when was she meant to be a role model?

I though she was Ms Typical of that generation

Doryhunky · 22/10/2020 06:02

The whole point is that she wasn’t fat, she was just worried about being fat. The film missed that point completely. But the film did get the central point when Darcy tells her he loves her “just the way you are”.

garlictwist · 22/10/2020 06:05

I read the book when it first came out. I must have been about 12 and remember thinking "oh so this is what it's like to be a grown up". It made me a bit scared for the future!

flaviaritt · 22/10/2020 06:07

I don’t think everyone in books and films has to be judged as a ‘role model’. She’s meant to be funny.

malificent7 · 22/10/2020 06:09

I guess I did miss the point a bit...I am 40 but it it did make me cringe....even back then!
I guess i'm thinking about is as she was a much loved character by many while i came of age...girls used to say they were Bridget Jones when single for 10 mins.

OP posts:

SexyGiraffe · 22/10/2020 06:09

The book came out at a time when women were talking about 'having it all' (horrible phrase) and women's media was full of pieces about how women were incredible could achieve everything they wanted. Bridget was supposed to be an antidote to that, giving women permission to not be perfect and have everything together. Yes, they are dated but that was the point.

Searchesforhipbones · 22/10/2020 06:11

It’s actually 25 years old!

I always love it because in a way I think of it as a feminist statement of the 90s after a massive era of blockbuster novels like A Woman of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford, jackie Collins, Jilly Cooper, and their many competitors. It is so hard now to remember how refreshing it was to be ‘yes, and in books women can not get married, not be ravishingly beautiful and thin, and piss about in a flat with friends in a shit job and not rule the boardroom while producing perfect infants’.

Also, it’s just so, so funny (the book). It’s a bit like saying yeah, but is Bertie Wooster a good ROLE MODEL for young men?’

The films are great but lost the comedy edge, the books (the first two anyway) are works of comic genius and I love them.

Searchesforhipbones · 22/10/2020 06:11

@SexyGiraffe

The book came out at a time when women were talking about 'having it all' (horrible phrase) and women's media was full of pieces about how women were incredible could achieve everything they wanted. Bridget was supposed to be an antidote to that, giving women permission to not be perfect and have everything together. Yes, they are dated but that was the point.

Yes, this!

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BrizNiz · 22/10/2020 06:12

Did you know that Helen Fielding based the Mr Darcy character on Keir Starmer and she knew him in real life? Little early morning something to chew on for you...

I know what you mean about BJ but it was a book written 20 years agp. Not every character has to be a feminist role model.

ValancyRedfern · 22/10/2020 06:17

She's not supposed to be a role model. She was a character a lot of women identified with. She was in no way meant to be something to aspire too!!

WomenAndVulvas · 22/10/2020 06:22

I enjoyed the books and films, but in general I dislike the way many women are depicted in novels aimed at women - they're often disorganised, insecure, messy, incapable of getting anything done, don't stand up for themselves etc.

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