|
The
secret Bridget within us all By Cherry Potter
ONLY
SOMEONE who has flown in from the Sahara desert could be forgiven for
not knowing that the Bridget Jones sequel, The Edge of Reason, has just
been released. But
why is the whole nation so obsessed with this most unlikely romantic
comedy heroine? Bridget
Jones first appeared in The Independent in 1995, in the form of a
fictional diary of an insecure, overweight, heavy smoking,
thirtysomething singleton. According
to her author, Helen Fielding, she was "the embodiment of the
banana-skin joke". Fielding was convinced that the column would be
dropped within weeks. Instead,
two years later, when the paperback novel came out, it was a sensation,
largely due to word of mouth. Since
then the novel has sold more than 10.5 million copies in 35 countries
and the movie released in 2001 grossed $280. In other words, something about
Bridget struck a cord with contemporary women (and men sneakily reading
their partner's copies). A
glance at the history of romantic comedy shows how the most popular
heroines encapsulate something about women's own situation and their
most pressing relationship dilemmas at the time the movies were made. Take
the war-torn Forties, when women were proving their abilities by doing
men's work. The top box-office stars Rosalind Russell and Katharine
Hepburn brilliantly portrayed tough, ambitious women in a man's world.
Not only were they devastatingly sexy in their high heels and
wide-shouldered power suits but they could also give as good as they got
when it came to witty repartee. But
the message underlying these movies was loud and clear: if a woman
becomes too confident and, worst of all, successful, she will threaten
her man's masculinity and must be taken down a peg or two or risk ending
up a spinster. By
the Cold War Fifties, men were back in charge at home and in the office.
The
two stars who summed up the position of women were Doris Day, famous for
being the "girl next door", the sensible virgin who promised
to become an ideal housewife, and Marilyn Monroe, the simpering,
childlike mistress who offered men the ultimate in sensual delight with
no strings. The problem for real women was
that men wanted both types, but it was impossible for women to be both.
The Sixties slogans marked a new era of hedonism and protest. But
even in the groundbreaking movie The Graduate the gorgon Mrs Robinson
and her sweet, vacillating daughter continued to see themselves through
the eyes of men. It
wasn't until the Seventies, when Diane Keaton's Annie Hall appeared,
clad in baggy trousers and floppy brown hat, with her weird mix of
assertiveness and self-doubt, that at last women had a heroine who
encapsulated how they felt about themselves. Annie Hall instantly became
a role model for a whole generation of feminist baby-boomers who were
loudly proclaiming that the solutions to women's problems were no longer
men and marriage; men and marriage were the problem. But
what goes around, comes around. By
the Eighties, Forties-style power-suited, ambitious heroines were back
in vogue. In Working Girl Sigourney Weaver played the high-flying, but
unfortunately ball-breaking, boardroom woman. And,
of course, she loses handsome Harrison Ford to her secretary Melanie
Griffith, who is equally scheming, but disguises it behind her childlike
Monroe-esque vulnerability. Meg
Ryan, the smart but vaguely kookie, suburban girl next door, was the
rom-com heroine of the Nineties. She
first touched a chord in 1989 in When Harry Met Sally, which captured
Sally's plight as a singleton worried about "the Man Shortage"
and her ticking biological clock. The movie also presented a new
problem that had arisen for both genders - they knew how to do
friendship brilliantly, but had they forgotten how to do old-fashioned
romance? Friendship
(exemplified by the TV sitcom Friends) and nostalgia for old-fashioned
romance were the dominant rom-com themes of the Nineties. So,
what does the enormous popularity of Bridget Jones, a "verbally
incontinent spinster who drinks like a fish and dresses like her
mother" (as described by her suitor Mark Darcy) say to the present
generation about aspirations and relationships? Bridget
Jones could be described as the first rom com anti-heroine. On
the surface she appears to be part of a long tradition of wonderfully
embarrassing screwball comediennes who are forgiven anything they do
because they are portrayed by the world's most beautiful women. But Bridget, with her big knickers and her self-esteem
problems, is a celebration of imperfection in an era when aspiring to be
perfect and the accompanying fear of failure is dominant in most women's
lives. An even bigger clue to her popularity is that, despite her flaws,
she achieves the dreams of many women; the two most desired men in the
land, morally upright Colin Firth and the exciting philanderer Hugh
Grant, are fighting for her favours (a complete turnaround from the
Fifties, when men were torn between two women; the wife and the
mistress). But
finally I think the key to Bridget Jones's success is that she is just
not scary. Women
can breathe a sign of relief and be themselves – because Darcy likes
Bridget "very much, just as you are". And men can admit that,
while they may want to be seen in public with a stunningly beautiful
female clothes-horse-style accessory, what they secretly long for is to
cuddle up to comfy, playful Bridget. Then, just maybe, they can
fantasise together. Cherry Potter is author of I Love You But ... Seven Decades of Romantic Comedy
|