Bridget jones diary… what are ur thoughts????

[Emblue1981]

So over Christmas I watched Bridget Jones for the first time.. yes I know, where have I been for the past 20 years.

Anyway, all my friends love the book/ films so I decided to give it a go and can’t believe how disappointed I was. In summary she’s sexually harassed at her work place (Hugh Grant character) which subsequently leads to her leaving her job, she's portrayed as stupid ( political scenes) fat shamed ( she weighs 9 and a half stone for goodness sake !) not to mention the creepy uncle who continuously makes sexual comments to Bridget.

In 2022 do people still really like this movie or is it more a case that, it had its place at the time but let’s move on???

It’s of it’s time.

I watched Pretty in Pink with my teen the other day and while I remember it fondly, many elements of it do not stand up to today’s thinking. She was agog and I was cringing!

Its just life I think - constant progression.

(Let’s not even start on Pretty Woman!!)

It had its place at the time. It was a comedy that has aged poorly. I think a lot of the experiences still happen (women still get harrassed, fat shamed, etc) but the way women handle it nowadays and the internal monologue that made so many women identify with Bridget has changed, so it all feels a bit alien now.

It was always awful

As a feminist, I think it is a work of comic brilliance, and because it was written by a woman, and is about women’s lives, it was and is massively critically underrated as ‘just’ ‘chick lit’.

Also everyone always forgets that it came on the back of a generation of shoulder paddy blockbusters of women being/doing/having it all a la Barbara Taylor Bradford and Jackie Collins etc, so was a refreshing change to all of that, that women could just go to work and go to the bar and hang out with their mates. Like men did.

Highly commended comedy runner up: The Undomestic Goddess.

The book that is, I don’t like the film.

I always thought in the book the writer was taking the piss out of those vapid meeja types and their empty lives. Read that way, it's an excellent bit of satire.

Have not seen the film, however.

Yeah it’s of it’s time. I worked in a similar office when the book was published & really related to it. I married my Mr Darcy too

It sounds like most of the things the OP is complaining about (other than the political 'stupidity' ) were realistic then, and unfortunately still are now.

A programme called Being Bridget Jones was on BBC over Christmas and the author, friends and feminists were discussing this. A lot was based on her experiences and that of her friends it may be worth a watch to see her reflections.

It’s on iplayer

'Bridget Jones' was originally a man's idea: the then features editor of the Independent, Charles Leadbeater, wanted a younger version of the Guardian's Dulcie Domum column and gave an outline of the characters to Fielding to develop and write.

The book is genius. It’s satire. Yes her boss sexually harasses her and gas lights her into feeling excited and flattered and then it all goes wrong. The boss is the villain and the book is mocking him. She ends up with the quieter awkward guy eh. And yes her uncle is awful. Again: SATIRE.

The film totally missed the point of the book and is rubbish.

I really really dislike this trend of people - and it tends to be people below the age of thirty - who think stories are there to show a perfect world and anything bad in them must be denounced or patronised as “of its time”. The messages of Bridget Jones the book are still very relevant today.

Go read the book.

I think the film is definitely a product of its time and has aged poorly.
I watched it as a young teen and just accepted it uncritically, and I’m able to enjoy it if I turn my brain off a bit, but parts of it are pretty “yikes”.

I do like Colin Firth, though.

@Thirtytimesround

The book is genius. It’s satire. Yes her boss sexually harasses her and gas lights her into feeling excited and flattered and then it all goes wrong. The boss is the villain and the book is mocking him. She ends up with the quieter awkward guy eh. And yes her uncle is awful. Again: SATIRE.

The film totally missed the point of the book and is rubbish.

I really really dislike this trend of people - and it tends to be people below the age of thirty - who think stories are there to show a perfect world and anything bad in them must be denounced or patronised as “of its time”. The messages of Bridget Jones the book are still very relevant today.

Go read the book.

I agree.

I thought this at the time when there was the whole thing about Renee Zellweger putting on weight for the role. Bridget is not supposed to be fat, she's just on that permanent diet to lose three pounds that all women under the age of 40 are supposed to always be on. That's the point.

There's a great scene where she and her male BF are talking about food and she says that she basically knows the calorific value of any food and he finds that absolutely astounding. I remember reading that and thinking, 'God yes! Every. Single. Item. Of. Food. Actually that is weird!'

I remember when Bridget Jones first came out finding it hilarious (she's a really good comic writer) and some things were excruciatingly accurate (for instance the self improvement lists and the way Bridget and her friends head off to the winebar to slag off their useless boyfriends) . But the obsession with getting a boyfriend and getting married seemed old fashioned to me even then. Just not accurate to most of the women I knew.

Interesting what someone said upthread about the difference being the internal monologue. If you compare Bridget Jones with, eg, Fleabag how different is the sense of being a woman in the world?

I watched it many years ago. Couldn't watch it in December. It hasn't aged well. Especially the 3rd one. I was like wtf get on with it.

I was a bit uncomfortable reading the book at the time (as funny as huge swathes of it were) but thought it must just be me womaning wrong.

Then I read Cause Celebre by the same author and it made a lot more sense that she was holding up a mirror not issuing manual

Tbh, I'd be delighted if young women couldn't relate to Bridget Jones because they were mystified by the idea of being obsessed by your weight or having to negotiate your way around pervy bosses and predatory boyfriends. But I get the impression we're not quite there yet.

I don't think Helen Jones was saying it was a good way to live I think she was more reflecting how many of us behaves at the time to as upsetting as that may be to acknowledge

@Thirtytimesround

The book is genius. It’s satire. Yes her boss sexually harasses her and gas lights her into feeling excited and flattered and then it all goes wrong. The boss is the villain and the book is mocking him. She ends up with the quieter awkward guy eh. And yes her uncle is awful. Again: SATIRE.

The film totally missed the point of the book and is rubbish.

I really really dislike this trend of people - and it tends to be people below the age of thirty - who think stories are there to show a perfect world and anything bad in them must be denounced or patronised as “of its time”. The messages of Bridget Jones the book are still very relevant today.

Go read the book.

While maybe the film wasn't as good, I do think that it was intended as satire too. It's possibly a failure if it didn't manage to communicate that to viewers, though like you say, the generation behind the millennials, and even some millennials, often don't seem to understand satire or comedy very well. Or even stories without a clear morality pitch.

Tbh it always bothered me that her weight was perceived as fat!

Read the books as a teen and did enjoy them at the time but always thought 9st was far from fat...!

I think part of the problem with the film is that Hugh Grant was released from his usual slightly drippy posh character for the first time, and had lots of fun playing somebody bad!

In the book he's obviously awful and you can't really understand why Bridget is so keen on him, but in the film he was probably more appealing in some ways that Colin Firth.

I presumed that was the point of the book, that she isn’t fat in the slightest. It’s a realistic portrait of how many women feel about themselves and I think a fantastic character piece - don’t we all know a friend like Bridget who gets into bad relationships, thinks she’s fat, criticises herself? I found her quite relatable!

I think people all too often expect books to be a bit like Little Women and show upstanding moral characters and carefully point out ‘Bridget said she was fat but of course we know this is because of societal pressure telling her how she should look.’ I find books that do that (so many modern books have started, they’ll like show something sexist or racist then have characters carefully explain why it’s unacceptable) and I just find it preachy. If you do it sensitively and correctly the reader should be able to draw their own conclusions.

While maybe the film wasn't as good, I do think that it was intended as satire too. It's possibly a failure if it didn't manage to communicate that to viewers, though like you say, the generation behind the millennials, and even some millennials, often don't seem to understand satire or comedy very well. Or even stories without a clear morality pitch.

Yes - it’s definitely satire/comedy, not realism! But the fun of it was that it had elements of realism. I was a bit younger than the Bridget character but was also in that phase of living in London working in crappy media jobs when it came out - lots of friends worked in publishing and found the satire of the publishing world funny. Though of course it was a fluffy, silly feelgood film - like the characters in Friends and SATC, there’s no way Bridget could have afforded her flat, been that rubbish at work without getting fired, acted so dumb for her apparent age, and so on. It was always twee and fantastical as well as fluffy, a bit like Sliding Doors with added comic whimsy.

Yes, it was not meant to be particularly realistic! It's a bit of a fantasy.

That's another area where maybe some viewers struggle. I notice it for instance when people talk about something like Pretty Woman. Now there are lots of things you can say about whether it was effective or its underlying message, but what I have never understood is why people criticize it for being unrealistic. It's meant to be a fairy tale and the viewer isn't supposed to think it's in any way a reflection of real prostitution.

Quite a lot of films are like that, but they look realistic, you don't have fairy godmothers or talking wolves.

Though there is a lot more magic realism around in film and tv now - I wonder f that's because audiences like that stuff signposted more?