Bridget Jones

[aprilfools19]

I saw this on Instagram today

“In Bridget Jones’ Diary, We’re supposed to believe that she‘a a failure and overweight when shes 10 stone, Got dead good mates, walks her way into a TV job, owns her own flat in central London and is fancied by Hugh Grant and Colin Firth.”

So true. I recently watched the first one for the first time in years and I noticed the weight thing right away! In one diary entry you can clearly see “weight: 133lbs” 😂😂

Still absolutely love the books and movies. It’s interesting watching them all again in my late 20s seeing how much my perceptions have changed. However it’s not aged terribly well considering the only reason she’s a “failure” is that she’s single. Not sure a movie centred around that would go down terrible well in 2020😅

The books are GENIUS and MASSIVELY critically underrated and if a man had written about his 30something life in such a sharp, hilarious, memorable and observant way he’s win every lit prize going. The dismissive ‘oh no I never read it, I don’t really read things like that’ brigade really piss me off when it comes to bridget Jones. The bit at the beginning comparing mark darcy to a man called heath cliff spending all night in the garden crying at a party is fucking brilliant on its own!

Yes the books are better ,and Rebecca in Edge of Reason is a totally different character in the book , I agree Mad about the Boy is crap ,but I thought it was written before Bridget Jones Baby ,Is Bridget Jones Baby actually a book or just a film?

@Notonthestairs

Oh I loved the first book! Bridget Jones was a serial and then published as a book (1996). I was 25 when it came out. I received a copy in the post from a friend. It was a bit of a revelation to me - I'd been reading bonkbusters full of super glam characters or put upon women setting up internationally successful businesses 😂 The book is better than the films (although I enjoyed those) and an interesting record of its time.

I'd like to think young women are much more confident and aware of their own value these days.

Yes it’s so hard to remember now 25 years have gone by that she was a deliberate foil to the Emma Harte type heroines! (EH ever capable heroine of a woman of substance)

Endlessmizzle- banging his head against a tree iirc. That was one of the first laugh out loud moments for me.

Mumsnet was very scathing about BJ about ten years ago. Not Bloomsbury intelligentsia enough. Everyone preferred to read Dostoevsky.

I use Bridget in my diary writing lessons with my teens. They love her.

I also remember when first reading it, not knowing what an "instant" was (she has several a day) of course, it was the early days of the national lottery as well !

The first book is great, sharp, witty, sad, just great. I must read it again.

renee was gorgeous (said in Jude's voice) in BJD,

very overweight in EoR (although that may have been deliberate too small clothes)

normal looking, but older in BJB

I wish Hugh Grant was in BJB but Patrick Dempsey did a fair job.

@Endlessmizzle yes! I was always skint in my 20's and borrowed lots of books from my bookworm mother - A Woman of Substance, Catherine Cookson, Danielle Steele, Maeve Binchy, The Thorn Birds etc. Women in peril but creating empires!

BJD read as if it was aimed at making me and my friends laugh and wince.

Who cares!?

Its a bloody good film you have to watch every single time its on!

Love the first book. I was an aspiring writer (have since admitted defeat and come to terms with my general mediocrity) when it came out and my mother read it and phoned me to ask if I had written it.

I bloody wish.

Entertainingly, she managed to sound exactly like Bridget’s mother throughout the entire conversation.

Bless her @Armi. It’s one of those books that has united 3 generations of my family , DM, me and DD.