The problem with Bridget Jones – and rom-coms in general
A critical look at this Millennial woman’s favourite movie genre - and why our most-loved movies also provided our generation with a subconscious source of post-feminist angst.
I’ve been watching a lot of rom-coms of late. The desire comes in waves for me; when I feel low, rom-coms deliver a kind of calming safe space, a glow of satisfaction that emanates from the predictable hum of a storyline emerging from a meet-cute and fading away with the promise of a happy life – whether that be with or without the love interest from act one.
So it felt like fate that Bridget Jones was back this month, with an update on everyone’s favourite dishevelled, diary-keeping British woman. Did we (and by we, I mean the filmmakers) learn our lesson about the depiction of women as body-hating projections of patriarchal failure? Dear reader, you should know by now that the answer was OF COURSE NOT.
For the movie that Vogue itself declared as the one that ‘made us all hate our bodies’ with the groundbreaking through-line of ‘the worst thing a woman can be is fat’, has now simply moved on to a much more important problem: they’ve realised that, actually, the worst thing a woman can be is old.
If you’ve seen the movie, you might be yelling at me through the screen – No! There’s a beautiful young man who loves her for who she is! That’s groundbreaking! And to you I say (spoiler alert): does she end up with him in the end? The one who is lovely to her and doesn’t care about her age? Of course she doesn’t; he promptly ghosts her as he swallows societal expectations that he, as a young hot man, should be ‘sowing his oats’ rather than settling down with a GASP older woman. And when he returns to admit his faults, ready to move forward, Bridget tells him he’s right and settles down with the guy from the school gate who basically never spoke to her the entire time due to his crippling inability to access his emotions.
That Bridget settles for another version of Mark Darcy doesn’t speak of revolution; it speaks of Bridget doing what she’s always done – living up to other people’s low expectations of her. And isn’t that what rom-coms are all about, anyway?
EXCUSE ME, WHILE I DIGRESS
The problem with the widespread cultural depiction (most often written by men, as their external projection of womanhood upon us) of self-hate, age-shaming, and body shaming as a normal part of the female experience, is that it centres our weight, age, and physical shortfalls as central to our identity as women.
And if you think that you can escape these dangerous confines of womanhood because you happen to be young, attractive and naturally thin, you should think again – lest your patriarchally-approved youthful thinness be your own form of imprisonment. Let me tell you a little story about my own (anti) rom-com.
I had just started university as a Chemical Engineering undergraduate – and yes, please allow your imagination to run wild about exactly how nerdy that made me. For the sake of the story, let me also tell you that I weighed 42kg – which, at 155cm, is considered “underweight or possibly malnourished”. I was, however, very fit; I played hockey, I had a six pack, and I ate whatever I wanted, really. I was young back then, and that’s kind of how it is when you’re young. (Now, at 42, and post-two babies in my late 30s, I have to work a lot harder at staying fit and healthy, unfortunately.)
I was, by definition, one of “those girls” who was naturally thin. Enter: my first boyfriend. He was a jock, in every sense of the word. At 6’3 he towered over me – a professional swimmer who competed in the Olympic trials and disturbingly upped my six pack by another two. And as someone who obsessed with his own fat percentage (he had a pinch test completed with his coach every few weeks), it probably wasn’t a surprise he chose someone whose BMI teetered just above 17.
So, you would think that my tiny frame would appease such a man, right? A tiny frame, that over the next five years of our relationship, never changed? Dear reader, you should know by now that the answer was OF COURSE NOT. Because most of our relationship was spent overshadowed by his fear of my gaining weight.
He talked about it when we spoke of children (“women get fat when they have kids though.”) He talked about it when we visited my family (“Italian women get fat when they get older – so you will too.”) He talked about it when we were at the beach (“you may have a six pack now, but you’ll get fat, like all women do.”)
Did I internalise all of that? Absolutely. Were these ideas confirmed, upheld and reiterated through the media at the time (the early 00s)? Absolutely. Do I hate him for it? I actually don’t. You see, he was part of the system too; he was shit scared that this little trophy he had acquired for himself would one day lose her sheen – in the worst way possible. By being FAT.
In the end, how can you feel anything but pity for someone who would value patriarchal norms so deeply, so inherently, that they would sacrifice love or happiness for a partner that fit the mould? It’s just sad really.
When he broke up with me, he did me a favour; I was finally free of his fear.
ON ROM-COMS AND POST-FEMINISM
I want to take a moment to talk about post-feminism, because – particularly here on Substack – there has been a palpable return to the idea that feminism is toxic, dead, or even just irrelevant to the modern woman.
For those uninitiated with the five hundred definitions of various kinds of feminism, let me take you to just one definition of a post-feminist that I found on the internet whilst writing this article. Today’s post-feminists, it says, are women “who are thought to benefit from the women's movement through expanded access to employment and education and new family arrangements, but at the same time do not push for further political change."
Personally, I would say post-feminism in the 90s and 00s centred around the idea that we had made it – we were now officially equal, and so, we didn’t need feminism anymore. In fact, to declare you were a feminist was not only unfashionable, it was seen as an aggressive attack on all the work that had been already done.
We were girl bosses! We had the right to a bank account without our husband’s approval! Being fat was the fault of your own lack of motivation, not a damaging, gender-specific way to punish women! You get the idea.
For me, as a Millennial, this self-flagellation formed part of our identity.
Post-feminism was, in some ways, the cornerstone of the Millennial woman’s upbringing – and our resulting self-hating psyche – the essence of which was to achieve as much as men did, whilst still pursuing the perfect relationship and having a banging body to boot, but also in the denial of the societal structures that still subjugated us. Any failure within that structure was now entirely our own fault.
But don’t worry! Rom-coms taught us through a proliferation of makeover montages – ironically, through the post-feminist gaze – that being hot was a legitimate pathway to success, and an essential part of upholding the expectations of society’s ever-increasing Girl Boss era (Sliding Doors, The Devil Wears Prada).
No one was telling us to have a makeover anymore – instead, internalised sexism was now fully integrated into our persona. Now, we were telling ourselves to get a makeover. Progress!
Whilst attempting to prove that women can be just as powerful as men, somehow these women still centred their entire being around how they looked, what they were lacking, and, of course, still seeking the one man who can make it all better (Sex and the City, Bridget Jones). At the same time our favourite rom-coms mind-fucked us into thinking that the women who could be ‘one of the boys’ were the best version of a woman that a woman can be (There’s Something About Mary, How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days), whilst also normalising woman-on-woman crimes to win the prize of the ‘perfect’ man (My Best Friend’s Wedding, Bride Wars).
The ultimate Millennial boy’s girl was thus; a woman who looked hot, curvy and thin, dressed in feminine clothing but wore their favourite team’s sports jersey to bed (and memorised all said team’s stats for adequate date night chatter), had a group of close girlfriends but still prioritised finding a man to partner with, and had her own job she was super passionate about – so as not to leech off a man – but would also quit that job immediately, if so asked, so they could become a wife.
Thus was born the 00s ‘hot tomboy’, mostly iconified by Cameron Diaz and Jessica Alba: a guy’s girl who ‘loved sports’ and was a lady in the streets, but a freak in the bed; a goofy girl who wasn’t too smart, so as not to threaten the man she was pursuing; the ultimate projection of every straight man’s dreams; a Girl Boss© whose job was secondary to finding a husband; the very proof that post-feminism is bullshit. (Oops, did I say that out loud?)
So, Bianca, you may ask me: if rom-coms are so toxic to us, why do we still love them? It’s a complicated question with an answer, I think, that oscillates wildly between Stockholm Syndrome and the severe lack of female representation in other genres.
As toxic as it may be, there’s something to be said about the comfort of seeing a rose-coloured, romantic depiction of our own subjugation play out as positive affirmation. It’s cultural brainwashing at its finest.
Did watching this new wave of post-feminist romcoms empower Millennial women? I think for my generation in particular (ahem, ‘elder’ Millennial), there were some aspects of the representation of women in the workforce that were helpful – seeing young women making their own decisions in their career (Devil Wears Prada) was what I would call ‘empowerment-lite’ – a kind of soft, patriarchally-approved empowerment that still sees Andie (and Miranda) realise that she can’t have it all, like a man can.
It’s important to note that the 90s ‘girl power’ climate did deliver some great depictions of female friendships above all else, often within the working woman’s environment (The Sweetest Thing, Legally Blonde, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days). But it also has to be said that so many of these depictions of working women also routinely placed men above them in the work-power structure (You’ve Got Mail, Pretty Woman, Bridget Jones).
Perhaps it is the overwhelming lack of three-dimensional female protagonists in so many other movie and TV genres – particularly female protagonists that spend so much time talking to other women – that drives our interest in rom-coms, rather than the notion that, deep down, we’re all obsessed with the fairytale of heterosexual romance. The depiction of female friendship in the rom-com genre – and the time spent on female-led discussions – is something relatively unique to the genre on-screen.
Perhaps we like rom-coms because we identify with their plight – however subtlety hidden, however buried below the sheen of the patriarchal ideal. Perhaps we like rom-coms because it is female representation – even at its most un-feminist, and problematic, and intersectionally narrow.
But I suspect, most of all, that we like them because they’re us.
Bianca O’Neill is a freelance journalist with bylines at Rolling Stone Magazine, Refinery29, The Age, Herald Sun, Yahoo Lifestyle, and more. Follow her on Instagram at @bianca.oneill.