Why I Love Bridget Jones  

Rosamund Dean | Red Magazine – September 6, 2016  

Can we stop telling women they’re bad feminists?

As Bridget Jones’s Baby is set to be released this month, opinion pieces have flooded in to criticise Bridget’s neuroses, her clumsiness and, most of all, her apparently unfeminist attitude. Bridget is pathetic, they cry, all she cares about is being thin and getting a man.

The Bridget of the new film actually has her shit together. She’s got great friends and enjoys her job as a TV news producer. However, like many (but, chill out, not all) women, Bridget had expected to have had children by the time she is in her 40s. The morning of her 43rd birthday brings a run-in with her ex, Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) and his wife. Then babysitter disasters mean that her friends have to bail on her birthday night out. Under the circumstances, it’s perfectly reasonable for her to feel a bit down.

Bridget pulls herself together by going to Glastonbury, getting drunk, and having sex with Patrick Dempsey (not a bad way to move on from a depressing birthday). The only point during the film when she worries about being fat is when she can’t do up her jeans because she hasn’t realised she’s pregnant yet.

But, anyway, why does Bridget Jones have to set an example for every woman? She’s just a woman. It’s 2016. We have Amy Schumer, Sharon Horgan, Lena Dunham, Michaela Coel. We have Fleabag. We have funny, flawed female characters, written by brilliant, clever women. There is a place for Bridget in this mix.

It’s OK to be broody. It’s OK to long for a loving relationship. It’s OK to want to look good. And it’s OK to feel sorry for yourself if life isn’t panning out as you hoped. Perhaps the reason that some women have trouble identifying themselves as feminists is because of this bizarre idea that a strong woman shouldn’t feel that way. There is a scene in Fleabag in which Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character whispers to her sister during a political talk: “We are bad feminists.” The joke is about the feminism police, with their rules that it’s so easy to unknowingly break.  

Bridget doesn’t need a man. As her obstetrician (a scene-stealing Emma Thompson, who also co-wrote the script) tells her at one point, “You’re perfectly capable of doing this on your own. I did.” But the Bridget Jones films are romantic comedies. They’re fantasy. There’s really nothing wrong with dreaming of being swept off your feet by a fictional, perfect Mr Darcy every now and then.

Last night, on stage at the premiere of Bridget Jones’s Baby, I loved seeing writer Helen Fielding, director Sharon Maguire and producer Debra Hayward lined up alongside Renée Zellweger, Sarah Solemani and Emma Thompson, to introduce the film.

“A lot has been said about sexism in the film industry,” said Maguire, before turning to producer Eric Fellner, one of the few men involved, and adding: “Eric, you look fucking hot tonight, but maybe a bit more flesh next time, yeah?”

And that’s Bridget Jones: funny, sweary and quite inappropriate. Which is totally fine with me.