Kerry Parnell: New movie sparks claims Bridget Jones is a disgrace to feminism but the joke’s on us

Social media is abuzz with how Bridget Jones is a disgrace to feminism but while I‘m glad to see the back of the fat-jokes we shouldn’t be outraged by every attempt at humour, lest we are left with nothing to smile about, Kerry Parnell writes.

Did we ever think Bridget Jones was fat? We did not.

As the movie Bridget Jones 4 takes shape – pun intended – with Renee Zellweger currently filming in the UK, here’s the thing, nobody really thought she was overweight, in the nineties and noughties. But I’ll defend her right to joke about it.

This week, Bridget is back in the news, as Australia’s newly-single Isla Fisher is announced as joining the most famous singleton in the world, alongside Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Chiwetel Ejiofor and man-of-the-moment Leo Woodall as Bridget’s toyboy. Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent Celia Imrie, Neil Pearson, Sarah Solemani, Joanna Scanlan, Sally Phillips and James Callis are also reprising their roles.

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, revisits our hapless heroine, who is now in her 50s and a widow, navigating single-parenting, work and dating. And so, inevitably, social media has lit up once more about how Bridget is a disgrace to feminism, because she was always on a diet, had it off with her boss and was afraid of dying alone and being eaten by Alsatians.

We are no longer allowed to do any of those.

Actor Renee Zellweger in Melbourne promoting the 2004 film Bridget Jones:The Edge of Reason. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, revisits our hapless heroine, who is now in her 50s.

“Bridget Jones was regressive, problematic and symptomatic of a toxic, pre-Me Too time and the dangerous and devastating diet culture of the noughties,” slammed Glamour magazine in the UK, recently.

Funnily enough, I was the deputy editor of Glamour, when the first Bridget Jones movie came out, in 2001. I remember being interviewed about whether all women thought like her and were permanently on a diet, and laughing about it. In fact, I thought the weight part of her diaries was irritating, at the time.

At 61kg, it was clear Bridget wasn’t fat, instead deeply-insecure and a disaster-zone. Helen Fielding wrote the original columns as a parody. That’s the part I don’t understand with all the anti-Bridget sentiment, she wasn’t meant to be all women – why should she have been, she was just one character. Can’t we enjoy – or even, understand – flawed characters? I’m not sure we have the same expectations, or outrage, over male characters supposedly betraying all men.

Actress Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones in the 2001 film Bridget Jones's Diary. Bridget’s antics have seen her labelled “a disgrace to feminism” by some.

What Bridget was, was funny. Remember that?

Now, the joke’s on us, as nothing much makes us laugh any more, as comedy is increasingly outlawed by The Office of Offence Taken. Undeniably Bridget Jones has dated – the first book is almost 30 years old, it’s of another time. Even the third book, which this film is based on, is over a decade old. Like the original Sex and the City, many of the storylines jar today.

But they still make you laugh – and often gasp, with the realisation there could never be anything made like it, today.

And while I am extremely glad to see the back of the fat-jokes, we shouldn’t be in too much of a rush to be outraged by every attempt at humour, lest we are left with nothing to smile about, at all.

I’m here for 50-something Bridget, big pants, menopause years and all. At least she’s guaranteed to be hot. After all these years, she’s like family: you don’t have to like her to love her.

Originally published as Kerry Parnell: New movie sparks claims Bridget Jones is a disgrace to feminism but the joke’s on us