I’m over the Bridget Jones con job. She’s depressing, hapless and foolish

Battening down the hatches lest carloads of women start pelting my house with big pants, but I’ve had it up to pussy’s bow with Bridget Jones.

Or at least, I’m over not seeing what the appeal is. She’s fictional light entertainment, I get that, but what Bridget inspires seems real. Women love her. I want to know why.

Renee Zellweger is back in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy.

For decades generations have fawned over this neurotic mess created by author Helen Fielding and portrayed by actor Renee Zellweger as if she’s Gloria Steinem in flannelette pyjamas and not a masterclass in convincing women that self-loathing wrapped in “relatable” humour is empowerment.

Move over urban queens – Bridget’s counting calories and waiting by the phone!

Super judgey, but I’m confident that phone is in a home she didn’t pay for herself. I bet her parents chipped in for the starter flat of yore and her current movie pile is likely thanks to Bridget’s highly insured late husband. That’s on brand with her need to be rescued from blunders, trees, Thai jails, life.

Is Bridget the feminist con job we all fell for because we wanted a laugh?

Great sleight of hand if yes. Her feminism wouldn’t frighten my great aunty Sheila. With her enunciated breathiness, need for male validation and political awareness that extends as far as her next wine bottle, Bridget represents feminism with its teeth pulled and given a soothing bubble bath.

She fusses around with that simpering voice and all the affectations. She’s depressing and hapless and foolish.

Actually, maybe what drives me crackers isn’t Bridget but our cultural obsession with resurrecting her like some boozy zombie of bridling self-deprecation. Each film perpetuates the idea that being a disaster is charming rather than exhausting.

In my 30s, I got Bridget. Her stumbling authenticity cut through the façade of perfection we kept up. In a world demanding women be polished and composed, Bridget gave us an alternative vision where dignity was overrated, perfect was boring and messy was where the real living happened.

I still think that’s true. But years of lived and learned experience later, I feel Bridget is a terrible feminist icon.

Colin Firth, Renee Zellweger and Hugh Grant in the second film, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.Credit: Alamy Stock Photo

The Bridget phenomenon repackaged women’s insecurities as quirky entertainment. With every “I WILL NOT drink more than 14 alcohol units” diary entry and calorie count, she normalised the concept of women existing in perpetual apology for appetites.

Her goals revolved around self-improvement or catching a man. Preferably one who treats her terribly until the final act. And Bridget’s romantic history? Sheesh.

The past choice between Mark “Human Used Tea Bag” Darcy and Daniel “Would Definitely Steal Your Identity” Cleaver represented a tempting romantic range: a dullard who won’t empty your bank account or a glittering pants-man who might sell your kidney while you sleep.

Now she has a young fella on the go. What a punish. Imagine romancing someone who’s never heard of the sharpie dance and wants you to hold space or go on a wellness retreat.

Um, I’d choose to be a singleton.

My friends, our mothers, daughters – we’ve fought for workplace equality (still waiting), against sexual harassment (still reporting the same creeps), for reproductive rights (still defending those in 2025).

We’ve schooled kids in lockdown, kept relationships alive through bloody-minded determination and tried to work out where we draw the line in the battle to look fabulous while losing estrogen and the will to go on.

Yet our cultural avatar remains this frazzled, privileged nitwit whose concerns include fitting into old clothes and whether a man who can barely communicate might fancy her? Someone explain how that works.

How much better if our icons were gloriously imperfect like Bridget but were also bolshy, civic-minded, politically aware and genuinely independent rather than performing independence while secretly practising their simpering surprised face for when Mr Right finally proposed.

Want proper pop culture female icons? Try Deborah Vance in Hacks. Ruth Langmore in Ozark. Villanelle in Killing Eve. Bea Smith in Wentworth. Chuck Bridget in the bin.

I’m over pretending those big pants represented sisterhood, even though they’re so comfy they’re all I wear these days. And no, they no longer match my bra. But comfort isn’t freedom, is it? And neither is Bridget Jones.

Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.

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