ZEE
JLF 2018 | Young girls now face such so much pressure to be perfect, says
Helen Fielding
Gargi Gupta | DNA India – January 28, 2018
It’s 21 years since the first Bridget Jones book came out. A lot has
changed, but even today young girls continue to identify with her. Why do
you think that is so?
There’s obviously something in Bridget, which continues to speak. I
think her appeal skipped a generation. Young girls now, the social media
generation, seem very interested in her. It must be because there is so
much pressure to be perfect, more so than when I first wrote Bridget in
1996. This constant pinging of Instagram, the next perfect shot, the sense
of other people having a better time than you, doing things better than
you – these have only got stronger. The gap between how you’re
expected to be and how you present yourself, and how you really are –
the original idea of Bridget – has only got wider. That’s maybe why
younger girls are coming back to the original.
How do you see the character of Bridget Jones evolving? She was in her 50s
in the third book, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.
Just as there is an oppressive stereotype about single girls in their 30s,
there is another really oppressing stereotype about women over 50. That
they’re all really unattractive and no one is interested in them. The
horrible expression – “women of a certain age” – which implies
they’re so deluded that you can’t even say their age to them. In Mad
About the Boy I was [trying to address that].
How far did you succeed?
There was a lot of fuss when it came out, a lot of petty nonsense about
Bridget’s age, that she was old and wearing reading glasses. I thought
it was very telling – people had such a strong image of what a woman
who’s 50 looks like – it’s ridiculous. The book sold a huge number
of copies fairly quickly though.
You’ve lived with the character for 21 years – don’t you get tired
of her sometimes?
I retain a sense of enormous gratitude that I wouldn’t be here at this
festival if I hadn’t written Bridget. It’s amazing to come here and
sign all these books after all this time. I think it would be very
ungracious to complain about Bridget. Besides, I am under no obligation to
continue to write her. I will do it if I have something to say, a story I
wanted to tell.
What about writing non-Bridget books?
I do want to write other things. But it has proved rather difficult
actually. I think I write best in the first person, because if I write in
the third person it all comes out badly.
When’s the next book out?
I don’t know because I haven’t written it yet. I’ve three ideas
I’m working on. I’m waiting to see which one takes off. There’ll
probably be another movie about ‘Mad About the Boy’, and then
there’ll be a musical about Bridget. And yes, there’ll be a novel. I
don’t know whether it’ll be a Bridget one.
The men in your books – Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver – come across as
somewhat two-dimensional.
I suppose I’m more interested in writing about women. There’re lots of
books written about men. Often, the female characters in movies are
underwritten. They fall into all these stereotypes – the resentful wife,
the sacrificing mother, the horrible ex. There’s carelessness in drawing
female roles. So it makes sense if you are a woman to focus just on women.
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