A Truth Universally (Un)Acknowledged: Ally McBeal, Bridget Jones's Diary and the Conflict between Romantic Love and Feminism

Jessica Lyn Van Slooten

© Elwood Watson 2006

I used to watch Ally McBeal with glee. Here was a show that featured a young, professional woman whose romantic struggles were depicted with honesty and over-the-top hilarity. I would call my friends outside the acad­emy and we would laugh at how our own searches for romantic love were not that different from Ally's. Talking about the show with my female col­leagues in the English Department, I met with a vastly different response: "I can't believe you like that show —it's so anti-feminist." I started approaching the show and my own life with a great deal of skepticism, because, after all, I wanted to be a "good feminist." My viewing of Ally McBeal waxed and waned along with my ambivalence about the issues of feminism and romantic love. I feared that the two were not compatible after all. I had a similar experience when I first read Helen Fielding's nov­els Bridget Jones's Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and later saw the film adaptation. I realized that there was a greater issue at stake than my apparent affinity for pop-feminist texts. My personal conflict regarding Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary illustrates the conflict between heterosexual romantic love and feminism present in both works. Both Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary are self-consciously aware of this conflict, and Ally's and Bridget's primary struggle, besides finding Mr. Right, is nav­igating the conflicts between the myths of both romantic love and femi­nism. As romance texts, Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary self-consciously critique and question the mythic and revolutionary place of romance in contemporary women's lives, ultimately proving that romance and femi­nism need not be mutually exclusive.

In this essay, I situate Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary within the conflict between romantic love and feminism. The first half of the paper will clearly delineate this conflict by considering the texts' relationships to the romance genre and feminism. The second half of the paper will concentrate on the texts themselves as productive sites of inquiry, looking more closely at the conflicts raging within Ally and Bridget, followed by a vision of "marriage" between romance and feminism. Following Modleski's sug­gestion that the cultural analyst needs to include herself to provide "a place for the feminist textual critic who recognizes her commonality with other women," I draw on my own relationship to Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary throughout the essay (345).

True Love Awaits: The Romance Genre

I have always been drawn to romantic novels, movies, and television programs. From Wuthering Heights to When Harry Met Sally, romantic texts stir my imagination and heart. In writing this essay I realized that during graduate school, I developed an academic skepticism of romance, and espe­cially popular romantic texts. Having been told on several occasions that I am too sentimental, too soft, I cultivated a critical exterior that scoffed at romance. Yet I remained a sentimental romantic on the inside. My experi­ence with Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary, as well as my reading in feminist criticism pushed me to explore the conflicts between these outer and inner attitudes both within myself and within these texts. Ally and Bridget are my comrades, as they too search for romantic heterosexual love in a culture with a barrage of conflicting messages. We are romantics in the various senses of that word — imaginative, hopeful, dreamy, and wistful. And we are critics too — comparing our worldly experience with our ideals, and reacting accordingly.

Both Ally McBeal and the Bridget Jones's Diary texts can be located in the romance genre. Like many of the romances that pioneering romance scholars Janice Radway and Ann Snitow studied, both works are part of a "series." One of the benefits of the series convention is the continuation of the story over a period of time; we can witness the characters' continued escapades, and watch them evolve. Also, the series format provides glimpses of the dailiness of Ally's and Bridget's lives. This is achieved through both formats — the weekly television series of Ally McBeal and the diary structure of Bridget Jones's Diary. Moreover, the overarching plot structure of Bridget Jones's Diary echoes that of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice, which many consider the quintessential romance. Beyond struc­ture, both Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary are romances because the search for romantic love suffuses the texts.

While Radway and Snitow studied romance novels in the 1980s, seri­ous feminist criticism has tended to shift away from romance as a genre. As Barbara Ryan has noted, heterosexual romantic love does not bear the political and politically correct weight of other feminist issues (465). For many women, the romance genre best articulates their private everyday desires and anxieties. Much of the highly publicized attention that Ally McBeal, and to a lesser extent, Bridget Jones's Diary has received trivialized the texts, focusing on Ally's short skirts, Calista Flockhart's weight, Brid­get's incompetencies, and actress Renée Zellweger's weight gain for the role of Bridget rather than engaging with the real conflicts the show was address­ing, or failing to realize that these issues were inextricably linked to the larger issues the texts explore. To fully uncover the texts' significance, these conflicts or contradictions (in the romance genre) "must be brought to bear in any attempt to understand the full complexity of women's relation to culture" (Modleski "Feminism without Women," 344).

Scholars debate the validity of romance, alternately proposing romance as a mythic construction or as a biological need. According to Willard Gaylin and Ethel Person, romance flourished with the increasing popular­ity of the novel during the nineteenth century into a "sentimental love reli­gion" (XII). However, Susan Ostrov Weisser notes that "some anthropologists and other social scientists argue [that romance] is possibly a cultural uni­versal or part of our biological inheritance" (4). While the origins of romance remain debatable, the results of romance are clear. Weisser rightly states that "romance bears a good deal of weight, some of it laden with tangles of meaning difficult to separate and see clearly" (3). In creating ideal worlds, relationships, and characters, romance has the potential to transform the world as we know it, or at least the lives of the women who read or watch its texts. On the other hand, the escapist quality of the genre remains one of its most attractive features. These works promise to deliver a world where a happy ending is of utmost importance, a world we can escape into. Rad­way explains:

Despite such internal variation within the genre, however, all popular roman­tic fiction originates in the failure of patriarchal culture to satisfy its female members. Consequently, the romance functions always as a utopian wish-fulfillment fantasy through which women try to imagine themselves as they often are not in day-to-day existence, that is, as happy and content [Reading the Romance, 151].

Romance will necessarily never fully reflect reality; instead, it lies somewhere between fantasy and reality.

The popular press seems torn about whether Ally and Bridget bespeak realism or fantasy. Characters like Ally and Bridget are realistic in their embodiment of the struggles, anxieties, desires, and ambitions of "real life" women. Yet they remain fictional creations of David E. Kelley and Helen Fielding. As such, they are not bound by the same reality as real life women. Hence, the characters can experience alternate world and extreme adven­tures, experiences not bound by reality. The fictional characters embody the range of fantasies and nightmares of real life women; readers and viewers can then safely play out their own conflicts through these fictional charac­ters. To critique Ally and Bridget for being unrealistic is to simply over­look this complex relationship between reality and fantasy at the heart of the romance genre.

Radway sees romances as "compensatory fiction because the act of reading them fulfills certain basic psychological needs for women that have been induced by the culture and its social structures but that often remain unmet in day-to-day existence as the result of concomitant restrictions on female activity" (Reading the Romance, 112-113). Romance, then, would seem to exist because current social systems do not meet women's needs. Ironically, however, this very system also creates those needs, if one follows Radway's reasoning, making romance a cultural construct. The cross-cultural proliferation of romance suggests that the romantic impulse is part of the human desire for the connection and validation that come through love. Romance is the stylized trappings of that deeper need for love. And when those needs are unmet, romance texts offer consolation. They can also be a way for women temporarily to meet those needs while not settling for a love less than what they truly desire. Ally and Bridget would attest to this fact. Both women have rich imaginations, where they create scenarios or visions to express their unmet yearnings. The infamous dancing baby of Ally McBeal and Bridget's daydreams about her wedding to Daniel Cleaver are two key examples. Both women also turn to other outlets to fulfill their needs. For part of the show, Ally sleeps with an inflatable doll; Bridget turns briefly to vodka and Chaka Khan in the face of her break-up with Daniel Cleaver. While these may not be the most psychologically healthy avenues, Ally and Bridget are adept at using their romantic energy to assuage their feelings of loneliness.

The search for romance motivates Ally and Bridget. Both already have careers, friends, and successful lives by conventional standards, yet they seem particularly troubled in the arena of love. Veronica Chambers writes that "like Ally, many of the women who watch the show find that romance is much more elusive than professional success." With their professional lives more or less in control, both women then focus their attention on romantic relationships. However, Ally and Bridget both, despite their var­ious romantic entanglements, want more out of a committed relationship than what is offered by most of the men they encounter. Ally's numerous but brief relationships attest to this fact, as does Bridget's final conversa­tion with Daniel Cleaver in the film:

DANIEL: If I can't make it with you, I can't make it with anyone.

BRIDGET: That's not a good enough offer for me. [She pauses.] I'm not willing to gamble my whole life on someone who's well, not quite sure. It's like you said, I'm still looking for something more extraordinary than that.

Both Ally and Bridget want an extraordinary man who will be their equal and their "top person." Despite dating numerous men and even pursuing relationships with them, Ally and Bridget ultimately refuse to settle for men who do not embody the right characteristics. Ally's attractions to the man she rear ends at a stoplight, a new young, attractive co-worker, and even her closest and equally eccentric friend John Cage don't last because these men's quirks do not match Ally's and ultimately, the spark of attraction dis­sipates. Women of my generation, like Ally and Bridget, have been raised to demand equality and exceptionality, and some of us refuse to settle until we find our Mr. Darcy.

"Independent Women": Feminist Critiques of Romantic Love

As a Generation X feminist, I find myself, in Kathleen Newman's assessment: "Torn between the more radical, bra-burning feminism of our mothers' generation and the sassy 'girl power' rebellion of our younger sis­ters, we are faced with the problem of reclaiming feminism for ourselves" (320). I take my feminism personally and seriously, and want my choices to match my philosophy. Yet when that philosophy is confused by contra­dictory messages and desires, my personal life becomes as chaotic and messy as Ally's and Bridget's lives. I find myself carefully weighing my decisions (both romantic and otherwise) against the various "isms" I identify with. This becomes particularly volatile in the arena of romance. As a self-avowed romantic, am I betraying feminism's key goals every time I daydream about my elusive Mr. Darcy?

One significant problem in many feminist responses to romance is the disjunction between academic feminism's ideology and the lived realities of most women. In the 1970s while feminists like Kate Millet, Ti-Grace Atkinson, and Shulamith Firestone strongly critiqued heterosexual love and romance, the romance novel business was booming, according to romance critics Radway and Modleski. This disjunction between the academic and popular response to romance persisted and became particularly heated with the debut of Ally McBeal in 1997. The June 29, 1998, Time cover story on the death of feminism featured a photo of Calista Flockhart-Ally McBeal alongside feminist icons Gloria Steinem, Susan B. Anthony, and Betty Friedan, implicating Ally in feminism's purported demise. The media uproar was focused on whether or not Ally McBeal's particular brand of "feminine appeal" symbolized the transformation of a feminism concerned with the oppression of women into an apolitical and frivolous movement. In one of the accompanying articles, a transcribed discussion between aca­demic feminist Phyllis Chesler and journalist Gina Bellafante typifies a hos­tile attitude towards the show:

bellafante: I think feminism worked long and hard to erase stereotypes of women as neurotic incompetents unconcerned with matters of public life, Ally McBeal, in my humble opinion, is helping undue that work.

chesler: I agree.... And I would say that if Monica Lewinsky goes to law school and continues to behave in the same fashion, she will turn into Ally McBeal — obsessed with men and sex and love and short skirts, and not with children being beaten to death in their own homes and not with women losing child support. These are not Ally McBeaPs fantasy concerns.

Chesler and Bellafante's conversation illustrates a prevailing critique of Ally McBeal, which dismisses the show, basically for being a romantic comedy and not a serious legal drama series. Moreover, Chesler and Bellafante sug­gest that women's fantasy concerns should be serious political matters to be considered feminist. This discussion also connects to the contemporary political question of women like Monica Lewinsky using their sex appeal to connect with powerful men, as well as powerful men's use of their polit­ical influence to engage women sexually. Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary arguably touch on these "deeper" political issues via the world of comic fantasy, urging readers to think of the greater implications of short skirts in the workplace.

Academic feminism, of course, continued to flourish despite the media's pronouncements of its demise.³ The 1990s saw the publication of a string of texts that discussed the "betrayals" of feminism and the creation of a culture where academic feminisms were being challenged by popular, conservative texts that sought to prove the emptiness of feminism's prom­ises. In Backlash, Susan Faludi dispels these popular myths: "These so-called female crises have had their origins not in the actual conditions of women's lives but rather in a closed system that starts and ends in the media, pop­ular culture, and advertising —an endless feedback loop that perpetuates and exaggerates its own false images of womanhood" (XV). Faludi sees the messages in popular texts as promoting myths that undermine and blame feminism for women's ailments when in fact these symptoms are fabricated by alarmists. The popular media undermines feminism by preying on women's fears and uncertainties about love, marriage, and independence. Yet, as Heywood suggests, feminist criticisms, like Faludi's, can also backfire, creating their own backlash: "[Feminist criticisms] may even exasperate Ally's fans so much that they create a kind of antifeminist backlash" (B9). Because so many women identify with Ally's and Bridget's anxieties, the failure to take these fictional characters seriously is a failure to take real women's similar anxieties seriously.

Despite the validity of Faludi's powerful critique of the popular media, she fails to take into account the reality of these fears for many women. Women do face conflict when cultural expectations clash with feminist ide­ologies, and the media often does insidiously exploit these fears. Popular texts like Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary provide dialogue between cultural myths and expectations and feminist ideologies. They also illus­trate the effects of these often contradictory messages on women. Fielding even alludes to Backlash in the novel Bridget Jones's Diary, in the first awk­ward conversation between Bridget and Mark Darcy:

"I. Um. Are you reading any, ah ... Have you read any good books lately?" he said...

I racked my brain frantically to think when I last read a proper book... I'm halfway through Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, which Jude lent me, but I didn't think Mark Darcy, though clearly odd, was ready to accept himself as a Martian quite yet. Then I had a brainwave.

"Backlash, actually, by Susan Faludi," I said triumphantly. Hah! I haven't exactly read it as such, but feel I have as Sharon has been ranting about it so much. Anyway, completely safe option as no way a diamond-pattern-jumpered goody-goody would have read five-hundred-page feminist treatise.

"Ah. Really?" he said. "I read that when it first came out. Didn't you find there was rather a lot of special pleading?" [13].

This self-referentiality to a key feminist text like Backlash clearly places the novel in dialogue with feminism's ideas. It also illustrates several significant points: first, that Mark Darcy is well-read, open to feminist ideas, and would make a suitable boyfriend for Bridget because he is ostensibly not misogynistic; and second, Mark's critique of the Faludi text allows Fielding to include her own subtle critique of Faludi's message. Ironically, Bridget hasn't read Backlash, because doing so would invalidate or trivialize many of her concerns about love, marriage, and companionship. Reading this text might help Bridget dispel her neuroses, and channel her energy into the meaningful tasks at work. However, Faludi's text could just as well alienate a woman like Bridget, whose concerns are, to her at least, immensely valid. Instead, Bridget reads John Gray's problematic bestseller, which will confirm her fears but also give her outdated, stereotypical, prescriptive relationship advice that will eventually lead her astray. This interchange between Brid­get and Mark may seem to undermine feminism's goals; however, Fielding engages the conflicting messages about gender and romance via a humor­ous and realistic situation. Fielding subtly takes feminism (Faludi) to task for dismissing Bridget's concerns and driving her towards a seemingly sym­pathetic but ultimately anti-feminist alternative (Gray).

Both David E. Kelley and Helen Fielding, answering accusations that their protagonists are either pre- or postfeminist throwbacks, have stressed that Ally and Bridget are fictional characters. Fielding says: "It is v. [sic] funny to think of people in the book being ultimate representations of any­thing, as they were just meant to be funny. But maybe, it is quite end-of-this-century to be confused about life, really trying to get it right, but not exactly sure what 'it' is." While the creators of these characters claim no specific agenda, cultural critics rightly argue that mass cultural texts are both a creation of culture, and create culture. Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary concern feminist critics precisely because of their cultural influence. Such critics dismiss the sense of identification viewers and readers share with the text. Dismissing the texts, one dismisses the viewers and fur­ther alienates them from the feminist movement. Snitow astutely assesses the role of Harlequin romances in the 1970s: "The ubiquity of the books indicates a central truth: romance is a primary category of the female imag­ination. The women's movement has left this fact of female consciousness largely untouched. While most serious women novelists treat romance with irony and cynicism, most women do not" (321). This comment could eas­ily be redirected at some feminist critics, like Elaine Showalter, who dis­misses the film version of Bridget Jones's Diary as "a charming and frothy fairy tale with no feminist consciousness whatsoever." I am among the numerous women who do not dismiss the film so easily. As a good friend of mine states: "Bridget is us," meaning that she is single, professional, independent, struggling with issues of romance, and self-image. She wants to have it all. Women like Bridget are concerned with feminist politics; however, for most women, these issues play out in their everyday lives of working with and relating to others in our residual patriarchal society. Seemingly trivial matters like fashion, diet, and romantic love are significant arenas of women's daily struggle. Navigating the conflicting messages from feminisms and patriarchy can make many women feel as incompetent as Ally and Bridget feel.

Many of the mass media reviews of Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary label the texts as post-feminist, a troublesome concept that indicates the death of feminism. Tara Zahra reads this post-mortem of feminism as a problem of definition: "What the right is doing its best to bury belongs not to feminism but to a caricature of it created by both the media and the right's own propaganda machine." The standards for defining feminism are not generated by feminists themselves, but by the media who oversim­plifies the feminist project. The conservative media, in Zahra's view, tells us that "Women's enthusiasm for 'postfeminist' fictional characters such as Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones is supposed to represent feminism's bank­ruptcy, the selling out of feminist elders by all young women." Yet the con­servative media are not the only ones involved in this line of criticism — so too are academic feminists like Showalter and Chesler. The "rightist" media and feminist critics both need to heed Zahra's reminder that the primary goal of feminism is "to expand choices and opportunities for large num­bers of women." The plurality of feminist voices and experiences will con­tinue to create heated debate and, ultimately, attest to the strength of feminism. As Zahra explains: "No matter how much the pundits would like us to think otherwise ... Ally's popular success does not contradict well-documented majority support for essentially feminist views on equal rights, child care provisioning, welfare, education, and abortion." Ultimately, then, women's engagement with "serious" political issues and popular concerns should not be seen as a contradictory impulse, but instead as representing the plurality of concerns faced by contemporary women.

Wanting It All: Ally and Bridget
Navigate Romance and Feminism

In clarifying what I find so appealing about Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary I have discovered that the characters' ability to examine and laugh at their own flaws keeps me connected. Ally and Bridget are dedi­cated to self-improvement and self-awareness, and both remain optimistic despite the dire warnings about declining fertility, decreasing desirability, and inevitable aging in a youth obsessed culture. This emphasis on self-improvement and introspection also makes Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary powerful sites for exploring the intersections of romantic love and feminism. Ally has a series of therapists and "visions" to help her puzzle through her life, and Bridget has a trusted diary and friends to aid her process of self-awareness. Self-improvement remains an elusive goal because of the barrage of contradictions the women face. Rosemary Johnson-Kurek suggests that these contradictions are a byproduct of the feminist movement:

The women's liberation movement and the sexual revolution left confusion in their wake. Models of gender roles are still evolving and the issues — expecta­tions in employment, relationships, marriage, and reproduction — re being worked out in contemporary romances by authors, some of whom were not yet born and some of whom were teens and young women in the early sixties, when these movements began [142].

Certainly David E. Kelley and Helen Fielding are playing with the tensions that thirtysomethings face as their generation comes of age.

One of the biggest tensions professional single, thirtysomething women face is whether to accept their independence as "Singletons" or to continue searching for a fulfilling romantic relationship. Despite their suc­cessful careers, both Ally and Bridget desire the companionship of a rela­tionship to enhance their lives. Both are aware that they could survive as independent single women. As Bridget says to her mother: "But if you're a feminist you shouldn't need a — " (Fielding, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Rea­son, 299). Yet, both characters earnestly desire to combine romantic love with a successful career, and they represent many women who want the entire package. Ally and Bridget embody the conflict between wanting to "form functional relationship [s] with responsible adult[s]" and "sulk about having no boyfriend, but develop inner poise and authority and sense of self as woman of substance, complete without boyfriend, as best way to obtain boyfriend" (Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary, 3, 2). Bridget succinctly clarifies the crux of the conflict: developing a strong sense of self complete without a romantic relationship and continuing to desire a romantic relationship. Although seemingly flippant, her assessment that the route of inner poise will be the best way to obtain a boyfriend matches much con­temporary thought about ideal relationships. Ironically, Bridget's contin­ual lack of inner poise defines her, and it is this less-than-perfect woman who Mark Darcy falls in love with. Ultimately, Bridget learns that simply being her own conflicted self is the best way to obtain a boyfriend, dis­pelling the pressure created by "Cosmopolitan culture," which has con­vinced Bridget "that neither [her] personality nor [her] body is up to it if left to its own devices" (Fielding, Bridget Jones's Diary, 52). Bridget need not be a supermodel with cellulite-free thighs to win the heart of Mark Darcy. Ally too discovers that a blatant honesty about her neuroses ulti­mately connects her with Larry, the man with whom she experiences a seri­ous relationship in season four. Both women discover that being themselves garners the love they desire.

One key difference between Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary is that Ally's quest for marriage dominates the series, whereas Bridget is more skeptical of becoming a "smug married" and would be content with a com­mitted boyfriend. While all romantic relationships can be fraught with anxiety, marriage continues to be the primary site of conflict between romantic love and feminism because of its deep traditions, symbols, and cultural weight. That marriage permanently eludes Ally indicates her inability to successfully wed her desires for romance and feminism. Bridget has much more success in her relationship with Mark Darcy, although their relation­ship is strained by a series of misunderstandings.

Yet many popular reviewers of both texts believe that the contradic­tory and neurotic tics of these characters undermine feminist conscious­ness. Rick Marin and Veronica Chambers describe Ally as "beautiful, smart, successful... [an] emotional train wreck." Another tactic is to speak of Ally and Bridget as teenagers — thirtysomething embodiments of the "not a girl, not yet a woman" status of which pop diva Britney Spears croons. Alyssa Katz describes Ally McBeal as a "lite dramedy about the self-destructive neuroses, childish foibles and desperate romantic needs of a female char­acter who appears to be fully grown, even if she does weigh about 100 pounds. In her many wistful moments, McBeal appears to be channeling 15-year-old Angela Chase from My So-Called Life." Jane Rosenzweig explains: "American pop culture has become preoccupied with our collec­tive inability to grow up. People are staying single longer, and the beauty industry is constantly coaxing us to make ourselves look younger if we want to stay in the romantic business." She suggests that "the packaging of female adulthood as an extended adolescence" is in direct contrast to shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer that showcase "more assertive, more independent" teenagers. The infantilization of adult women is, to Rosenzweig, a function of the relentless, biological clock driven search for a mate. The younger tel­evision characters like Buffy simply are not concerned with such matters, and are, according to Rosenzweig, more realistic, more self-possessed, and more feminist than the older women.

According to such critiques, thirtysomething women should be mature, self-possessed, focused on their careers, and not primarily con­cerned with settling down. Or, as Rosenzweig states: "Television's message: only when they're not worrying about their biological clocks can women have fully developed characters." Such a statement trivializes Ally's and Bridget's desire for fully developed lives containing careers and romantic love. This modern conundrum causes the neuroses and tics of Ally and Bridget to reach a fever pitch. They are products of their culture, a culture which on one hand tells them that having a career and being independent is the path to true success in a male-dominated professional world. On the other hand, they are constantly reminded that youth, beauty, and the "tick-tock" of the biological clock work against them. Ally and Bridget's over-the-top scrapes and anxieties are directly linked to these contradictory messages about their ages.

The final season of Ally McBeal is particularly pertinent to this discus­sion because, as Sarah Blustain states, "One thing we know is that in the last season, Ally grew up." Ally achieves ultimate professional and personal success when she makes partner in the law firm, buys a house, is surprised by a 10 year old daughter she didn't know she had, and finds a house "hus­band" in handyman Victor. Blustain links this evolving plot with the even­tual demise of Ally — the viewers gave up on her because, for one reason, "the old Ally and the issues that engaged her were simply more interest­ing — more true to our lives — than the new, improved version." Ally's strug­gle to "get it together" was more entertaining and also, according to Blustain "more engaged in questions of feminist politics than the I've-got-it-together reincarnation, who makes being a single working mom look like a piece of birthday cake." The new Ally has succeeded by feminist standards, but this flawless success diminishes the opportunity for real dialogue about the pro­fessional and personal issues that contemporary women must face. The neat resolution of the series in a fantasy of the woman who has it all ultimately fails to resonate with the audience, who recognizes this as a myth.

Bridget Jones remains in that tumultuous, messy, "adolescent" world and remains conflicted throughout the novels. Awash in a sea of self-help books like the ubiquitous Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, Brid­get attempts to understand the complicated relationships between the sexes in order to succeed with her unreconstructed and blatantly misogynistic boss Daniel Cleaver. While some critics would chalk this relationship up to Bridget's own unreconstructed feminist consciousness, readers know that her infatuation will not last. Daniel Cleaver obviously epitomizes all of the qualities Bridget despises in men, summed up by the concept of "fuckwittage" — the  emotional  gameplaying and manipulation  often employed by members of both sexes. Bridget rebounds from Daniel's betrayal by finding a television job at quirky Sit Up Britain, and successfully escapes the awkwardness of continuing to work with Daniel. More importantly, Bridget's new job better suits her personality and allows her to focus more seriously on her career. Bridget temporarily concentrates on her career: "It is great when you start thinking about your career instead of worrying about trivial things — men and relationships" (Fielding, Brid­get Jones's Diary, 193). We know, as does Bridget, that this singular focus will not last because she is committed to a well-rounded life, and does not really believe that men and relationships are trivial matters.

Significantly, both the Bridget Jones novels and films and Ally McBeal include a significant amount of direct commentary on the conflict between feminist ideology and romantic love. Sometimes the conflict gives women increased options. Mrs. Jones, for example, realizes that she was "like the grasshopper who sang all summer" and needed to do something for herself like Germaine Greer, the feminist icon of her generation, would suggest. Feminist ideology, as often spouted by Bridget's outspoken friend Shazzer, strengthens Bridget's resolve to stay away from misogynistic Daniel Cleaver, who is much more demeaning and despicable in the book than the lovable cad played by Hugh Grant in the film version. The film, however, removes some of the tension Bridget faces in the book and replaces it with a less com­plex and clearer plot.

Ally McBeal, as Heywood astutely notes, "has a refutation of all the standard feminist critiques built right into its script. It has anticipated our arguments before we can even make them" (B9). From the infamous uni­sex bathroom to Richard Fish's misogynistic "fishisms," and the bizarre legal cases of love and loss, Ally McBeal constantly engages in gender pol­itics. Ally and her colleagues at Cage and Fish often disagree about issues of gender and romance in their law cases, providing a space for open debate within the context of the show, and also in the culture at large. Richard Fish's notorious ogling of women and skewed logic allows the other characters to create opposing positions. Ally's enduring search for love, the overarching theme of the series, includes an active critique of romantic relationships in contemporary society, delivered with postmodern comedic twists. While Ally McBeal does not always engage in the deeper complexities of the issues, it nevertheless does important cultural work by introducing these issues to a large audience.

Finally, Ally and Bridget demonstrate a resiliency and determination to pursue romantic love, professional success, and sustaining friendships despite the grim struggle and dizzying conflicts. While both characters have indeed "bought into" the dream of romantic love, they do not sacrifice other aspects of their lives to that dream. Both characters attempt to cre­ate balanced lives of love, friendship, and work, arguably what most indi­viduals desire. Their failures, flaws, and goofiness make them all the more human, endearing, if sometimes aggravating.

"Made for Each Other": Towards a Happy

Marriage between Romance and Feminism

Ultimately, the endings of works in the romance genre illustrate the level of feminist consciousness. Many films and books end neatly, with all the loose ends resolved with only the promised ring of gold. In such end­ings, the women relinquish a key aspect of their independence. This capit­ulation to the happy ending can be a major stumbling block for me. In the recent film Kate and Leopold, for example, the heroine Kate (played by romantic comedy darling Meg Ryan) literally walks away from a significant career promotion to time travel to 1876 to reunite with her beloved Leopold (played by the dashing Hugh Jackman). Such a "romantic" ending asks the female protagonist to abandon her success in the career world in exchange for the perfect romantic relationship. Such a choice reflects an either-or choice that is not satisfactory to most women, who don't want to relinquish either one for the other.

The traditional romantic text ends with a marriage, which many fem­inists read as a patriarchal ending. As Modleski notes in "Feminism with­out Women: Culture and Criticism in a 'Postfeminist' Age": "For feminist criticism has, of course, rejected the ideology — purveyed in romance and many other forms of popular and high art — that holds marital commit­ments to be women's chief goal and greatest desire" (47). Yet neither Ally nor Bridget stands at the altar herself at the conclusion of their texts. The heroines' more ambiguous endings suggest that marriage does not always ensue from contemporary romance texts. While both women desire mar­riage, it is not their ultimate goal, as they discover along the way. And even if both texts emphasize the protagonists' search for love, it is because this quest proves most difficult.

The material conditions to ending a television series like Ally McBeal make analyzing this ending difficult; the storyline must account for the ending of the series itself. Ally McBeal's series finale "Bygones" addresses several key concerns for both romance and feminism. First, love and mar­riage triumph, albeit between the misogynistic Richard Fish and the post-feminist Liza Bump. This ultimate love revelation is all the more powerful because it is made between two people who are, as Richard states in his wed­ding vows: "Outwardly dismissive of [love] but inside just as desperate for it." Furthermore, Richard credits Ally with his increasing capacity to love, as she was always committed to this ideal. However, Ally's imminent depar­ture to New York, a move precipitated by daughter Maddie's emotional problems, necessitates the ending of the show. The Ally who once confessed that her problems were more important than everyone else's because they were hers leaves a successful career and an "urban family" out of concern for her daughter. Admittedly, the sudden move jars viewers and seems, dare I say it, rather forced. This ending moves Ally in a different direction — one in which the ultimate fulfilling relationship is between mother and daughter. Ally, as to be expected, follows her heart. The ending is problematic because it leaves Ally's future outside of Maddie ambiguous. Ally says "there are law firms in New York," but she makes no concrete professional plans. I was pleased that the series didn't magically marry Ally off to one of her departed loves even though Kelley does include a typical Ally daydream about her own marriage to "Billy, Larry, Victor, whoever" during Richard and Liza's wedding. Yet I was disappointed that her life seemed similarly skewed in another single direction — her role as a mother.

The conclusion of Bridget Jones's Diary is more satisfactory to me because Bridget emerges triumphant in both her career and her relation­ship. Both novels end with her reunited with Mark Darcy, and with her positive career goals intact. Although in the second novel she is planning on traveling to Thailand with Mark, her career as a freelance journalist allows her mobility and continued professional evolution. The film version concludes, interestingly enough, with Mark Darcy capitulating a job offer in America in order to return to London and pursue a relationship with Bridget and presumably stay on with his old firm in London. The conclu­sion of the Bridget Jones's Diary texts are also more satisfying to me than the conclusion to Ally McBeal, because the texts assure me that despite my contradictions, my insecurities, and incompetencies, I can maintain a suc­cessful career and be in a relationship with someone who loves me for those very flaws. In the film Bridget Jones's Diary', Mark's declaration of love includes a list of Bridget's "flaws" — which he then follows up with, "I like you — just as you are." In this romance, the protagonist is loved simply for being herself. And Bridget in turn loves Mark just as he is — even with his too long sideburns. Also, notably in the film, Mark buys Bridget a new diary for their fresh start, after reading a few entries in the old one that described him as "dull" and stiff. Mark recognizes the importance of this self-aware, independent space where Bridget writes herself.

When I began writing this essay, I was admittedly trying to justify my affinity for popular romance texts like Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary; since I was looking for a justification, it is safe to assume I myself thought of Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary as suspect texts. That suspicion is a byproduct of being part of the academic system, and the suspicion of romantic love is more specifically a byproduct of being an academic femi­nist. Suspicion or skepticism can serve us well, and can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of culture and texts. But part of me wants to stop justifying these texts, wants to stop being suspicious of every deploy­ment of romantic heterosexual love. Some evenings I want to curl up on the couch and pop in a tape of Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary, or dive into one of Fielding's novels and feel connected to the emotional lives of these women. I want to put suspicion aside and laugh as Ally throws an elegant leather pump at some man's head, or laugh when Bridget tells Daniel Cleaver that she would "rather have a job wiping Saddam Hussein's ass" than work with him any longer. I want to cheer as Ally finds love with Victor, and Bridget finally kisses her Mr. Darcy. Yes, the texts are contradictory, and these protagonists often bumbling through their days. But in their verisimilitude to my own experience, they bring me a great deal of laugh­ter and comfort, and give me ways to explore my own thoughts and expec­tations about my life, in and out of love.

Following the model of Radway's study of Harlequin Romance read­ers in the late 1970s, questioning how real women relate to these texts would provide greater insight into the feminist consciousness and concerns of this constituency. As Radway writes in 1994, "The romance is now, and has been at least for the last 15 years, a principle site for the struggle over feminine subjectivity and sexuality and, I would argue, over feminism as well" ("Romance and the Work of Fantasy," 395). Taking the texts more seri­ously, we could then ascertain whether or not these women see feminism as obsolete, or if their definition of feminism renders it inapplicable to their own lives. If romantic love is seen to be antifeminist, then certainly a great percentage of these women will be hesitant to be part of the movement. Also, although many women might not label themselves as feminists, their values and behaviors might be decidedly feminist. Academic feminists should ultimately make a place for critical discussions of romantic hetero­sexual love, the texts that explore this issue, and the real women who are affected by it.

Additionally, much of the available criticism of romance as a literary genre is dated; while the scholarship establishes a foundation for studying the romance genre, the works fail to address the concerns of contemporary romances like Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary. "Chick Lit," an ever-expanding genre, exposes new twists on age-old questions of romance, sex, and power and poses many new questions for scholars to explore. While some scholars critique the romance genre for perpetuating the necessity of marriage and compulsory heterosexuality, many texts explore more non-traditional and contemporary arrangements. Ally McBeal in particular has presented a variety of alternative relationships for a mass audience —from the recurring character of Claire played by Dame Edna, to the transgen-dered relationship between Mark and Cindy, to power virgin Kimmy, to interracial and intergeneration relationships. While these relationships are treated comically in some aspect — what on the show is not? — the variety of romantic love speaks to our more progressive times, and Ally McBeal suc­cessfully brought these alternative versions of romance to mass audiences, Romance itself is in a state of transformation, as the heirs of Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary suggest.

As I conclude this essay in 2005, Ally and Bridget's heirs are numer­ous, and they provide new twists on this conflict between romance and fem­inism. Television heroines like the character Elliot on Scrubs display a quirky mixture of vulnerability and tenacity, while agent Sidney Bristow on Alias uses her sexuality as yet another tool in her arsenal of toughness. Now, Ally and Bridget seem quaint in comparison to the much analyzed foursome on Sex and the City. Novels like Jemima J. by British journalist Jane Green fol­low in Fielding's footsteps, introducing readers to "flawed" women they can identify with. Even Harlequin is following Fielding's success; published under the Red Dress Ink label, Harlequin's newest series features novels with young urban professional women who search for romance to comple­ment their professional lives. Flyover States, a novel in this line, humor­ously depicts young women navigating romantic and academic pursuits in an English literature graduate program. This novel, in particular, illustrates the ability of these "chick lit" texts to be smart, asking those tough femi­nist questions while also displaying a concern with the trappings of mod­ern romance, strappy sandals and all. Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones's Diary helped create the climate for such incarnations by showcasing women of my generation struggling with their choices as women, and the role of romance in their lives. In the words of Bridget Jones, I hope that "the wil­derness years are over" and "Singletons" like Ally, Bridget, myself, and numerous other women will find a place where romance and feminism will be happily married.

Jessica Lyn Van Slooten is an assistant professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric and American Culture at Michigan State University.