Being Jealous of Bridget Jones Fabulous Low Life

To get into the holiday spirit, my dad pestered about seeing a silly Christmas movie. I suggested Bridget Jones, a wholesome comedy movie he likes and I can laugh at as well.

This is not a re-watching of Bridget Jones through more modern eyes by the way, this is a re-watch of the movie with more mature eyes, when the watcher reached her age and can relate to her more than when it was released.

Plenty of pieces have pointed out how damaging it was to young girls knowing they weighed more than her, ate more than her, and in other ways failed more than her. I will not go into how problematic the movies were in terms of building women's self esteem in terms of diet culture. A tired and boring aspect of her story in my opinion. It is not a discussion of anything beyond the first movie either, because nothing else exists in my world.

Aging Past Characters on TV

Unmarried women over 30 were funny once upon a time. Her body weight were considered fat and lazy, and an office job at an editor company were you bump into Salmon Rushdie at the office party was ridiculed. Oh, Bridget, what a loser you were.

The opening line went something like: "It all began on New Years day, in my 32nd year of being single. Once again I found myself on my own and going to my mother's annual turkey curry buffet. Every year she tries to fix me up with some bushy-haired, middle-aged bore, and I feared this year would be no exception."

I didn't think of her as a mirror, more as a fun friend you would listen to go on and shake your head at. Now, closing her age, I finally see how successful she was in life, and if she was the blueprint of a silly failure of a woman, then what the fuck is going on in my own life?

As a little background information, my career stalled so much I kind of forgot about it for years as I was figuring it out. Now I work in a dead end job, living with my parents because the bank won't give me a loan because of my low paying job. Been single all my life and decided to stop being the first friend to text to see they would make the first move. Still waiting.

So when I was sitting, sipping my parents wine on their couch, waiting to laugh about her silly antics and life, another feeling hit me. Seething jealousy about how great her life was, and if hers was laughable, mine was simply just sad.

The Difference Between Life and Life:(

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces.”

Every time it does fall to pieces though, those pieces lead to something spectacular. How she quits her job at the editing company to just pole dance into a TV-presenter job. She doesn't really do anything wrong herself. Her parents split up, snobbish people around her look down at her enjoying a drink and singing karaoke, and she doesn't get credit for her hard work in her career. This is things true to life, but so life like that you can't really call it bad, it's just something life happens.

The rest of her life really looks great from someone her age. The framing of how she has two men fighting over her is somehow made to make her seem unpopular is shallow and even her silly parents get together again like destiny. Her friends is a close knit group ready to hang out whenever and although she sings a sad song about being alone and being eaten by dogs, she sings it from her own apartment she doesn't share with anyone in London.

Never mind her sexual harassment treatment from her boss that would never fly in the modern work environment, right? (Let's just pretend we are over this, right?) It's a part of her growth and I respect her self respect when she tells everyone to sod off. I myself is sitting waiting for a reply from a similar kind of guy as Daniel Cleaver, except for his money, looks, position, wit and charm. It has been two weeks and I just know I will answer when he finally remembers me.

In some ways I beat her, especially when it comes to her quitting smoking and drinking. I can't have a cigarette whenever I want, because my poor ass is shacking up at my parents house, a no smoking place and their house, their rules. Also, the anti-smoking rules in place the last decades have made me a piranha going out. My plan of getting popular by taking up smoking as the cool kids have greatly backfired. I don't have another drink because I emptied my parents wine cabinet and can't afford to replenish it, because my career never really took off as I believed it would once.

New Years Resolution From a Fuck-up

"New Year's resolution - drink less and quit smoking... and quit talking total nonsense to strangers. Actually, quit talking, full stop."

So I stopped thinking about the story as a frazzled and slightly unhinged English woman. She will be my inspiration for the coming year as the aesthetic has been trending on reels. As long as I don't shag my boss or boil a blue rope in my soup, I will do fine. I will at least do better than last year.

Perhaps one day, I too will live a beautiful life as Bridget Jones does, having her own apartment, working in the world of editing and TV production, surrounded by good friends taking you to Paris for the weekend.

In the meantime I will accept my messiness, failures and loneliness right now is more like a chapter towards the rest of my life, although this is what I try to tell myself every year.

Bridget Jones is not inherently problematic by simply existing and having low self esteem, but a relatable character whose standards are dictated by her environment. No matter how successful, educated, charming, funny and beautiful you are, you can chose to succumb to your insecurities created in your own echo chamber like your diary with no one to tell you to your face: I like you just as you are.

Let us end the year and start the new one with the wise musings of the great thinker that she was:

"I truly believe that happiness is possible... even when you're 33 and have a bottom the size of two bowling balls."