Definitely don’t think we were meant to be horrified at the street fighting etc.
I agree - of course we weren’t meant to be horrified. It’s a comedy scene in a comedy film and, apart from the very realistic way they circle round each other, ineffectually swinging and kicking and failing to make contact, (very much how I imagine a fight between those two would have actually been like) it’s pure slapstick - for example being hit on the head with a dustbin lid and crashing through a plate glass window without any severe injuries being sustained. I can’t imagine a time will come when I don’t find Darcy apologising to diners mid fight and the pair of them politely stopping to join in with singing Happy Birthday funny. The fact we aren’t meant to find this fight horrifying doesn’t mean real fighting and real vandalism were acceptable at the time because they absolutely were not.
Daniel Cleaver was meant to be a horrible creep at the time - as the reader you were supposed to read between the lines and writhe in horror and fascination at what she was doing. It's the unreliable narrator trick and can be very funny..
This is true. I wonder if it’s harder to spot this if you haven’t read the book first? I also agree with the pp who pointed out it’s easier to understand what Helen Fielding was doing with Darcy if you’ve read Pride and Prejudice.
It was possible - just - to own a flat in places like shepherds Bush, inner south London, inner East London etc on a low 'professional' wage at that point..
At the time I was doing a similar level job in the same industry as Bridget. There’s no way she could have afforded that flat based on what her salary would have been but there’s any number of reasons someone like her could have had the funds. She’s from a fairly well to do family. I know a few people like her who inherited substantial sums from grandparents. It often makes no sense when you try to work out how how fictional characters in films and television afford to live where they do. It’s just make believe and for some reason I find more acceptable in a frothy rom com than I do in a gritty drama.
The emails about the skirt etc would have been inappropriate then as they would be now because they were written on work time and equipment but Bridget loved getting them. I can imagine if she were real she would look back now and cringe at the memory.
It’s of it’s time yes - most things are. There’s actually fair more in Friends that I now see as distasteful and inappropriate in a way that passed me by at the time. I do still think it’s a very funny programme.