Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding
114 Plays24 days ago
What if Pride & Prejudice was a story about the "confused ramblings of a pissed 30-something"? What if there were two Mr Wickhams and Mr Darcy was a renowned human rights lawyer? Stefanie and Melinda discuss the cultural fixation on women's bodies from a time when society was obsessed with women dying alone and being found half eaten by an Alsatian through the lens of Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding and the companion movie of the same name, directed by Sharon Maguire.
Links & Mentions
The original meaning of the term "slut" can be found here.
If the Bridget Jones musical has been added to your mental list of Roman Empires as well, here is the 2014 update on why Lily Allen left the project, and here is a 2024 (!) update on the musical that we found after we recorded.
Learn about the "real" Mark Darcy, human rights lawyer, here.
You can read Sophie Vershbow's article Did Bridget Jones Make Us Hate Our Bodies? here on Vogue. While Alex Light's article Growing Up On Bridget Jones Damaged My Body Confidence is here on Grazia UK.
If you want to listen to a very entertaining if a little demoralising podcast episode on why the BMI is garbage, you can find it over on pod fave Maintenance Phase's feed here.
If you want to watch Bridget interview Colin Firth, you'll find it here.
If you need subtitles or a transcript, these are available through Apple Podcasts. Please note, they are auto generated so we apologise in advance for it not correctly understanding our accents on certain words.
As always you can find us (and our memes) on Instagram @janeaustenremixed and you can contact us via janeaustenremixed@gmail.com.
Join us every second Monday to hear all about a new adaptation of our favourite classic novel. Next episode we will be openign our DMs and answering listener questions, as well as reflecting on the good, the great and the unhinged moments of season one.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Content Warnings
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey all, before we start this episode of Jane Austen Remixed, a content warning for this week's text, Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding. Our discussion of this adaptation contains mentions of disordered eating, calorie counting,
00:00:14
Speaker
and restrictive dieting. There will also be very brief mentions of sexual assault and suicidal ideation. These concepts will only be referenced as they relate to the book's plot and themes.
00:00:25
Speaker
If any of these topics might be uncomfortable for you, please feel free to give this episode a skip. We'll be back again in two weeks. Editing Steph here. So it turns out technology hates us.
00:00:36
Speaker
We did absolutely everything we normally do to record, but you'll notice that some of the audio is not up to our usual standard. We've done everything we can to fix it. So please bear with us through a few ups and downs in the sound quality.
00:00:49
Speaker
Many apologies. Let's begin.
Bridget Jones: A Modern Pride and Prejudice
00:00:52
Speaker
Hey, Melinda. Hey, Stephanie. What if I told you that Pride and Prejudice was actually about a hapless, chain-smoking singleton named Bridget, who became a cultural phenomenon, and even after 30 years, women can't get enough of her story?
00:01:11
Speaker
Well, I'd say I think that we like her very much, just as she is. Music
00:01:29
Speaker
Welcome to Jane Austen Remixed, where we investigate the calorie counting and verbal incontinence having World of Pride and Prejudice adaptations. I'm Stephanie.
00:01:40
Speaker
And I'm Melinda. And today we'll be examining the decade-spanning phenomena that is Bridget Jones's diary. now Melinda, I know you said way back in the introduction that this is the first adaptation you ever read and or saw. And I feel like that's probably a very common experience amongst our readers too. Did you read it before or after seeing the movie?
00:02:02
Speaker
I saw the movie first, so I have very strong, vivid memories of seeing the movie and then read the book much later. i have not retouched the book in a very long time because I remember liking the movie more and I'm going to be fascinated to see how this goes because there is very little I remember from this and I haven't been allowed to re-watch the movie because we've been doing this, so i think as soon as we finish here, up i am throwing in that Blu-ray and I am watching Bridget Jones' Diary.
00:02:31
Speaker
Fantastic. ah Hopefully I don't ruin it for you over the course of this episode. So for me, I have hazy memories of borrowing it from the library and really loving it. And it was actually a version with the original cover.
00:02:46
Speaker
The version that I own is actually the film cover. And I don't know if the OG also came with a warning, but my version does. I'm not sure if I ever noticed it before.
00:02:58
Speaker
Surely did. But when I fished it out of my bookshelf as we prep for the podcast, I noticed an incredibly alarming bit of text on the front cover that says in all caps, health warning, followed by regular text reading, adopting Bridget's lifestyle could seriously damage your health.
00:03:15
Speaker
Wow. Is that... Do we think that's a joke or do we think it's real? don't I don't know. where Well, my goodness. Hang on. Do we need to pause the
Bridget's Lifestyle and Plot Overview
00:03:26
Speaker
recording? I have the original cover.
00:03:29
Speaker
I'm pretty sure in my bookshelf. Do I need to go get it? Go get it. There is no health warning on the cover. Oh, interesting. This edition was published in 97.
00:03:42
Speaker
So. Oh, yes. That's like one of the OGs. That was like when it was actually published. This one was published in 2001, just before the movie came out. Right. Yes. This one does have a calorie counting diary entry on the cover though, which is probably, oh boy. Yep.
00:04:00
Speaker
Yeah. ah This one, this one on the cover says, it's Monday morning. Bridget has woken up with a headache, a hangover and her boss. This one has the alcohol units she's consumed, the cigarettes she's consumed, calories, and then it says Helen Fielding is one of the funniest writers in Britain. Richard Jones is the creation of a comic genius.
00:04:22
Speaker
Wow, what an intro. Oh, my God. I would like to point out from my recent deep dive that diary entry is actually just before she hits her goal weight, and we will come back to that time specifically in this discussion. Oh, boy, yeah.
00:04:37
Speaker
All right. I had put in my notes here that this is simply hilarious to me that they would have this warning on the cover when this was published in 2001. The height of skin and bone size zero actresses and celebrity magazines hounding young women like Jessica Simpson for being obese when she was at best a US size two or an Australian size six actress. It was an awful time to be a teenage girl. And I think that a lot of us have just simply never recovered from living through that. And we're going to get into a lot more of this and
00:05:13
Speaker
Up front, I just wanted to lay out that this episode will be a little different to some of my previous episodes. I'll do a recap for those of us who missed the cultural juggernaut that is Mark Darcy's Christmas sweater. But the focus of my analysis will be on the book's place in culture rather than how it functions as an adaptation, which it does really well.
00:05:31
Speaker
I'll just say that up front. It does really well. it hits most of the story beats and it has two Wickhams for the price of one Deadbeats goundrel. Two for the price of one. Who knew? i do not remember there being two. So that's got to be a book thing.
00:05:43
Speaker
And I'm very excited to relearn this because until I pick that book up, I have not touched that in many, many years. I'll point them out as we go through. The movie does brush over the second Wickham. oh It's much more in-depth and much more Wickham-ish in the book. Now, Melinda, to kick us off, I want you to read the blurb for our listeners because I have thoughts.
00:06:07
Speaker
Dazzling urban satire of modern human relations. An ironic, tragic insight into the demise of the nuclear family. Or the confused ramblings of a pissed 30-something.
00:06:19
Speaker
Okay, listeners, that's my third attempt trying to read that blurb because every time I got to a new word, I'm like, what is that doing here? Every word of it is like a punch in the face. I do not remember this blurb at all. I am torn between thinking it's ghastly. And thinking that is a really genius troll.
00:06:41
Speaker
Also, I checked the Pan Macmillan website and the blurb appears to be unchanged on later versions. And they've just stuck with it the whole way through. So to me, this smacks of criticism that Fielding may have received for her column before writing and publishing the book. It sounds like the kind of cringing conservative hand-wringing about the collapse of society that newspaper columnists today are still rolling out, like that horrendous Did Women Ruin the Workplace op-ed that the New York Times thought was a great idea to publish in the year of our Lord 2025. Oh, yeah.
00:07:13
Speaker
oh yeah If for some reason you wish to avoid spoilers for a 30-year-old book that is based on 213-year-old book, now is the time to jump out.
Adaptation and Cultural Reception
00:07:24
Speaker
So while I was convinced that absolutely everybody would be familiar with the book and the movie and the fact that it's based on Pride and Prejudice, Melinda, you quite rightly pointed out that that is probably not the case.
00:07:35
Speaker
I have had a couple of run-ins with people, not like sort of personally with people, but creators online in the last sort of 18 months where people were shocked that Bridget Jones's Diary was a Pride and Prejudice adaptation.
00:07:49
Speaker
All I remember about Bridget Jones's diary was it was a Pride and Prejudice adaptation, which makes me think maybe it was something to do with the marketing, particularly maybe in Australia and maybe in Britain, because a couple of these creators are based in the US and I just wonder if maybe it just got skipped. Or potentially because it's now 30 years old, people just know it as Bridget Jones's diary in its own right rather than, oh, this was actually an adaptation. Yeah.
00:08:16
Speaker
It could be either. I mean, i don't think the BBC 1995 version was quite the cultural juggernaut that it was in, for the US, that it was in Britain and Australia. And also, you're right.
00:08:29
Speaker
The book is 30 years old. The movie is 25 years old. And the three subsequent films have little to nothing. I know, let's not think too hard about that. And like the subsequent three movies have little to nothing to do with Pride and Prejudice, apart from fact that Mark Darcy's name is Mr. Darcy.
00:08:45
Speaker
Yeah, and I still don't understand why Daniel Cleaver is still hanging around given what he was like in that film. They made him way more lovable in the movies. He is awful in the book.
00:08:59
Speaker
Hugh Grant plays an amazing role in the film, but he really did us a disservice by making everyone really like Daniel Cleaver. He is Anyway, I don't understand. I saw some reference to him, like, babysitting her children in the fourth movie and I'm like, that's it. I am never seeing it. I never want to watch that man do anything. Can imagine getting Wickham to babysit your children?
00:09:20
Speaker
Throw them in the lake. Yes. On that note, as we mentioned, it's possible that people have only seen the film and therefore missed a lot of the really overt mentions of Pride and Prejudice that occur in the book, which is shamelessly based on Austen's classic as Fielding herself has readily admitted. She said recently in an interview with the BBC, quote, I shall be eternally grateful to Jane Austen because I stole her plot for Bridget Jones's diary and learned most of what I know about writing by trying to imitate her. Her voice is so strong and funny and perceptive.
00:09:50
Speaker
So there you go. Fielding is a true Janeite. We love her for it. We do, we do. Now, the character of Bridget first came to life in a newspaper column, and I'll read from the wiki here for some background.
00:10:03
Speaker
Bridget Rose Jones is a fictional character created by British writer Helen Fielding. Jones first appeared in Fielding's Bridget Jones' diary, Column, in The Independent in 1995, which did not carry a byline. Thus, it seemed to be an actual personal diary chronicling the life of Jones, a 30-something single woman in London,
00:10:21
Speaker
as she tries to make sense of life, love and relationships with the help of a surrogate urban family of friends in the 90s. The column was, in fact, a lampoon of women's obsession with love, marriage and romance, as well as women's magazines such as Cosmopolitan and wider social trends in Britain at the time.
00:10:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's so cool that this started as a newspaper column. I've never read any of the original stuff, so it'll be interesting to see how much it translates to the book. And the fact that it was lampooning Cosmo is great.
00:10:54
Speaker
Yes, yes. And I think, and I'll address this as we go on, a lot of that really biting social commentary has gotten lost over the years, particularly through the movies.
00:11:06
Speaker
But I digress. Let's start at the beginning. So the book published in 1996 and the movie released in 2001 have similar story beats, but often quite different setups, given that the book obviously has so much more detail.
00:11:19
Speaker
Upon rereading it for the first time in years, I was reminded why I loved it so much. It is so, so funny and not necessarily in the cringe. I want to crawl out of my own skin because I'm so embarrassed for Bridget kind of way. Bridget is genuinely hilarious and likable, and I found myself giggling away despite my misgivings over the obsession with weight, calories, and being, quote-unquote, thin enough to be loved.
00:11:43
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, the 90s. But let's crack on, shall we? The book opens with Bridget laying out her New Year's resolutions, which include reducing the circumference of her thighs and not behaving sluttishly around the house.
00:12:01
Speaker
I do remember teenage me discovering very quickly that that word had a very different meaning in early 90s Britain. What's the meaning in early 90s Britain? She means, like, hang on, let me read you the actual resolution. Okay.
00:12:18
Speaker
I will not behave sluttishly around the house but instead imagine others are watching. She means slovenly. Okay. Weird choice though?
00:12:28
Speaker
Yeah, they don't use it in like the kind of like tarty way that we use it nowadays and had used it since sort of the early 2000s. It started off as a word that meant something completely different.
00:12:41
Speaker
I do love when words take on such very different meanings. it It's so cool. There are a couple, I'm not going to go in, that'll be a whole podcast episode I could go into, but words and meaning changing over time is fascinating.
00:12:56
Speaker
Fascinating. True word notes here. So after her two pages of resolutions, then we're onto the chapters. There is one per month, each of which is broken into entries for various days that almost always start with, as you noted from the cover, her weight, some intense self-fat shaming, a tally of cigarettes, alcohol and calories consumed, as well as other strange asides as the book moves on, like how many scratchies she bought on a particular day.
00:13:21
Speaker
Okay. Note here, the 90s references really are referencing in this book. Her mother is obsessed with buying some wheels to attach to her suitcase, and one of Bridget's other resolutions is to learn how to program her video recorder.
00:13:35
Speaker
Oh, and only her poshest of very posh friends has a portable phone. Ah, ha, ha. Yep. Okay. Yep. Yep. We, of course, open with Bridget off to the infamous turkey curry buffet at, do not know how to say this woman's name, Una Alcanberry's house, where she is routinely groped by her fake uncle Jeffrey, and in response to his dreaded question, how's your love life, comes out with an absolute cracker of an imagined retort that, on page 11, lets you know what you're in for.
00:14:05
Speaker
Stephanie, how much dirty stuff are you going to make me say today? I feel like this is a pattern. This is the worst one, and I apologise in advance. The rest of them are pretty normal, don't worry. From page 11.
00:14:17
Speaker
Everyone knows that dating in your 30s is not the happy-go-lucky free-for-all it was when you were 22, and that the honest answer is more likely to be, actually, last night my married lover appeared wearing suspenders and a darling little Angora crop top told me he was gay slash a sex addict slash a narcotic addict slash a commitment phobic and beat me up with a dildo than super, thanks.
00:14:41
Speaker
Wow. It really yeah sets the tone for the book, I feel. Sure does. The fact that they... What say Gilda in public, Stephanie? I'm so sorry, but not really.
00:14:53
Speaker
I've already said blue balls, don't worry. The fact that they neutered most of Bridget's internal zingers out of the film is honestly a crime. Anyway, two pages later, Bridget is dragged off to meet Mark Darcy and follows up with one of my favourite lines from the entire novel,
00:15:11
Speaker
Which is, it struck me as pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party. It's like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden, shouting Kathy and banging your head against a tree.
00:15:26
Speaker
Yep. And this is where if you just know the films and you don't necessarily know where the inspo comes from. Exactly. And the references will keep referencing. i won't throw in all of them because honestly we would be here for hours and I would end up just reading you the whole book. Anyway, Bridget and Mark talk about books. She pretends to know about a book that she's never read. And then Mark makes a bolt for the buffet to get away from Bridget.
00:15:50
Speaker
Please note here that he is wearing a diamond pattern sweater. And bumblebee socks, not a reindeer sweater. No! That is something that the movie improved, I feel.
00:16:01
Speaker
Yes. Best sight can act in the movie. So Bridget is now back at work and immediately breaks another resolution by floating over the office instant messenger system with her boss, Daniel Cleaver.
00:16:12
Speaker
However, he strings her along and stands her up twice before they finally go on a date. And just when they're about to get busy, he tells her that it's just a bit of fun and not to get too attached. Very impressively, Bridget tells him off and leaves.
00:16:25
Speaker
We're all cheering. This does not last, but I really wish it did. Aww. In the background of all this, Bridget's mother, Pam, is being incredibly toxic and awful to Bridget's frankly bewildered father and announces she is leaving him.
00:16:39
Speaker
It's quite awful, and she kind of blames everyone else for having an unfulfilling life. She blames her husband. She pretty much tells Bridget she never wanted children. It's a lot.
00:16:49
Speaker
Her mother is awful. in this book. Some of that translates to the movie from memory. Yeah, I think she's much worse in the book and they definitely knocked a lot of edges off. She is a more extreme modernised version of Mrs. Bennet with no redeeming features.
00:17:08
Speaker
So, she is also pretending that Julian, the hot Portuguese guy she is now hanging out with, is just a friend. No surprises when it turns out that his name is actually Julio and they're absolutely having an affair.
00:17:21
Speaker
She also gets a job on TV, not as the host of a shopping channel, but as the host of a TV show called Suddenly Single, which features her interviewing other people who have also recently left long-term relationships in the most awful, insensitive, and boomer way.
00:17:36
Speaker
Fun. Oh. She asks this poor woman who is already in tears if she's had any suicidal thoughts. Oh. Linda's got a hand over her face, guys.
00:17:49
Speaker
Oh, no. Remember how I said she's awful? After batting away Daniel's continued attempts to reel her in, Bridget finally gives in and they sleep together. He, of course, goes into F-boy mode and distances himself from her.
00:18:03
Speaker
She finally, finally gets over him. When he turns up her flat, drunkenly confesses his love, and then they spend the whole weekend together. And after that, their boyfriend and girlfriend. Bridget.
00:18:15
Speaker
Bridget. It's going great for a few months until summertime hits and Bridget wants to go away for a mini break. Daniel expresses no interest in going anywhere with her, but she finally convinces him. He behaves like an ass the entire time and is very rude and wants to spend all of their time indoors despite the sunshine with blinds closed watching the cricket with his hand down Bridget's shirt.
00:18:38
Speaker
Oh, okay. I was laughing at the cricket line, not the second line. Okay. And then it's time for the infamous tarts and vickers party. Bridget's mum is still hanging around pretending not to be dating Julio and she gets Daniel to promise over the phone to come to the party.
00:18:54
Speaker
He helps Bridge make the infamous bunny suit from lingerie she already owns and then tells her that he has to work all day on Sunday and he can't come and he goes home to London instead. That part is sounding very familiar.
00:19:08
Speaker
Mark is at the party with Natasha, the thin, awful barrister, who is obviously Caroline Bingley. He tries to be really nice to Bridget while pretending that he definitely is not checking out her bum, and Natasha is an absolute cow.
00:19:21
Speaker
Mark also tells Bridget to stay away from Daniel Cleaver after hearing that they're dating, and he tells her to tell her mum to stay away from Julio.
Romantic Challenges and Relationships
00:19:29
Speaker
She's quite upset by everything that happens at the party. She goes over to Daniel's place seeking comfort, but realises he's hiding a woman in there.
00:19:36
Speaker
She finds the woman sunbaking naked on the roof and Suki drops the line that we all love to hate. I thought you said she was thin. Oh, yes. Yes. That one was terrible. bit remains.
00:19:50
Speaker
Bridget is, of course, a mess, especially after Daniel announces his engagement and random people at their work keep congratulating her by accident because they think it's her.
00:20:01
Speaker
Oh, that's brutal. It's rough. She quits while Daniel begs her to stay, but Perpetua bursts in through the office door, tells Daniel to bugger off and make sure that Bridget goes through with her promise to quit.
00:20:15
Speaker
Months later, Bridget runs into Mark again at his parents' Ruby wedding anniversary, and he manages to corner her outside and ask her out for dinner. She accuses him of being put up to it by their mothers, but he tells her it's because he really likes her because she's herself and not presenting a front of perfection like so many women that he knows.
00:20:37
Speaker
She asks him, don't you have a girlfriend? Natasha's haunting around in the background somewhere and he says, no, no, no, definitely not.
00:20:48
Speaker
This is our first proposal scene, and the revelations of the letter actually happen in a face-to-face conversation, which is very nice. There's obviously a lot less insulting going on in this one, but here Darcy reveals that Daniel slept with his wife two weeks after they were married, and that's why he despises him.
00:21:08
Speaker
Is it two weeks in the movie or is it? Sorry, my shock was for help. I think in the movie it's just not long. Yeah, I don't think there's a time frame given because, oh, two weeks is, oh, that's brutal. That's brutal.
00:21:20
Speaker
I think in the book, ah in the movie, it's also implied that they were like best friends. that they I think Cleaver was his best man. Yeah, in the book it's all just like we just knew each other. And also Daniel never says that Mark slept with his fiance. He never lies to Bridget about that. He just says, oh, I knew him at uni and he was a twat.
00:21:39
Speaker
Right. Okay. Yep. So that's the change from... Yeah, I'll go into a lot more of the changes. They actually make a lot of changes in the movie. I think because they remove a lot of the latent cultural references to Pride and Prejudice from the book, they actually put more scenes into the movie to make it a match and make it more of a direct, like, beat for beat thing. It's interesting.
00:22:03
Speaker
Unfortunately, when it comes to the day of their big date, Bridget thinks she is being stood up because Mark never turns up. Mm-hmm. When she runs into him, while pursuing an interviewee outside the courts the next day, they work out that he was ringing the bell while she dried her hair and she didn't hear it over the hairdryer.
00:22:24
Speaker
Oh, no. So he also thought he'd been stood up. Oh, okay. least they talk about it. Yes, they actually speak in this one. It's great. They reconcile and he gets her the only interview with his client who has just been freed as not guilty after murdering her employer who was keeping her captive as a sex slave in a basement for 18 months.
00:22:46
Speaker
Whoa, that is a very different court case to the movie. Sorry, everyone. I only remember the movie at this point. So all of my reactions are, what? That's in the book. I had forgotten this bit. I did remember when I watched the movie, when they got to the court case bit, was like, oh.
00:23:02
Speaker
But when I went back to read it, didn't remember what the court case actually was. And it's very, it's very salacious. You know, she was actually the children's nanny. i She's from another country. She'd come here to be the nanny and then, yeah. And then she killed him.
00:23:20
Speaker
i just at this point become that meme of the seal blue. Good for her. After this, Bridget gives up waiting for Mark to ask her out again and calls him to ask him to come to her dinner party. He is thrilled and very polite for the blue soup, omelette and marmalade debacle.
00:23:37
Speaker
And that is unfortunately when Bridget gets a phone call from her father. The police are looking for her mother and Julio because they have been conning friends and acquaintances, including Mark's parents, out of thousands of pounds for deposits on non-existent timeshare apartments in Portugal.
00:23:56
Speaker
Right. Here's our Wickham. So now you can see why I'm like, two Wickhams for the price of one. Sure is. Time shares. Oh, that's so 90s. I know they still exist, guys. but It's so It's so 90s.
00:24:12
Speaker
Mark, of course, springs into action, starts making calls and whisks Bridget off to Una Alkenberry's house and starts interrogating all of Pam's friends for answers, all the while blaming himself for not being clearer at the Tarts and Vickers party that Julio was really dodgy.
00:24:30
Speaker
Right, yep. Okay, I can see how that then tracks across onto Darcy yeah and his, I should say Fitzwilliam Darcy, and his relationship with George Wickham.
00:24:42
Speaker
Yes. I feel like he is being a little bit hard hard on himself here, but he's determined to take responsibility. We're in November at this point, so in a whirlwind ending, Pam comes back from Portugal, is not charged by the police, but is also totally in denial about doing anything wrong.
00:24:59
Speaker
Oh, didn't do anything wrong. It's all a big misunderstanding, guys. She moves back in with the father and Julio returns a bunch of money so the bank doesn't repossess the family home. They were a hair's breadth from losing their house.
00:25:10
Speaker
The father being completely homeless because she'd like stripped them of all their money. There's also a weird scene where she calls Bridget at work and it's like, darling, i need some traveller's cheques. Can you lend to me £200? And like that's when she skips the country.
00:25:22
Speaker
Oh, my goodness. she's So she's Mrs Bennett, but she's also very much a Lydia. Yes. Yes, she is both. She is both in the worst possible combination of the two of them.
00:25:33
Speaker
Great. Some other things happen that aren't important, and then it's Christmas Day. They're all at Bridget's parents' house when suddenly Julio appears, drunk and dishevelled, bursts in through the patio doors to accuse Bridget's father of taking his woman.
00:25:50
Speaker
He is followed closely by almost equally dishevelled but very dishy-looking Mark Darcy, who gets Bridget to coax her mother back from downstairs because as soon as the mother laid eyes on Julio, she was like, darling, come upstairs.
00:26:05
Speaker
who He gets Bridget to coax her mother back downstairs, which Bridget does with the absolute genius move of threatening to sieve the gravy. But don't sieve it, you just stir a tuna.
00:26:17
Speaker
That's exactly what happens. Julio is promptly arrested and Mark bundles Bridget off to a posh hotel for Christmas lunch, where he explains that he has been in Portugal ever since he left the house, tracking down Julio and Pam.
00:26:32
Speaker
She asks why, and he says, isn't it obvious? He then tells her that it was all for her and he loves her. Then he sweeps her upstairs to a gorgeous suite before seducing her. I re-round the book out with this scene that should definitely have been in the movie.
00:26:46
Speaker
And I'll get you to read this for me. So Darcy's speaking first. I didn't think you liked me very much. What? Well, you know, you stood me up because you were drying your hair, and the first time I met you, i was wearing that stupid sweater and bumblebee socks from my aunt and behaved like a complete clod. I thought you thought I was the most frightful stiff.
00:27:07
Speaker
Well, I did a bit, I said. But... But what? Don't you mean, but pardon? Then he took the champagne glass out of my hand, kissed me and said...
00:27:19
Speaker
Right, Bridget Jones, I'm going to give you pardon for picked me up in his arms, carried me off into the bedroom, which had a full poster bed, and did all manner of things, which mean whenever I see a diamond-patterned V-neck sweater in the future, I'm going to spontaneously combust with shame. Okay?
00:27:38
Speaker
Again, Stephanie. It's a very different ending. Very different. And my would have loved to have seen this on film. absolutely.
00:27:49
Speaker
I do like the ending in the movie. Yes. i I really like the movie ending, but I can understand why. i i understand why they had to change the end and I think the movie ending is still really good. um Obviously, having taken out the entire Julio and Portugal storyline, they couldn't very well end it in the same way. so Yeah, the end ending to the film is iconic. It is. It is, yes. So what's different in the movie?
00:28:15
Speaker
The opening is much the same, Bridget narrating her resolutions and fat shaming herself, and then packing off to the turkey curry buffet, which is now her mother's tradition. The scene plays out much the same with the addition of Darcy being much less keen to chat at all and Bridget hearing Darcy insult her as verbally incontinent to his mother.
00:28:34
Speaker
So here we start to get the first hints of more beats of the Pride and Prejudice story. but they're much less overt. So I can understand why people who have never red Pride and Prejudice or don't understand that it is a an adaptation would miss all of this.
00:28:52
Speaker
In the midst of the previous mentioned Outrage's Flirting at Work with Daniel, there's a book launch for the publishing house. So instead of Bridget doing a series of small embarrassing things over a few months to sort of give you the impression that she is the way she is, the movie has her acting like a complete Burke giving a welcome speech that insults both Salmond Rushdie and Jeffrey Archer.
00:29:10
Speaker
They have smooshed all of her rigidness and condensed it into one awful skin crawling scene. Yes, there are a lot of very cringy scenes in the movie, which are not great.
00:29:24
Speaker
I don't love them. I find i love the movie, but I do Like I did love the movie when I, the last time I watched it, it just, I find things like that really hard to watch because I just want to like rip my own skin off in embarrassment.
00:29:38
Speaker
Which I know that's why people find things funny. I am in your boat, Steph. I do not find grange comedy funny. Turns out Mark Darcy and the awful Natasha are there at this party as well. Daniel comes to put to her rescue when Natasha is awful to her.
00:29:52
Speaker
This is where we get the addition of even more Pride and Prejudice touches with him telling Bridget that he and Mark were formerly friends, but their friendship ended when he caught Mark having an affair with his then-fiancée. And this is the point where Bridget and Daniel start dating.
00:30:05
Speaker
So you miss all of the months of him stringing her along in the first one. Right. They also go on a mini break in the movie, but they have a lot more fun than in the book. They're rowing on the leg, Daniel falling in, and that all happens in front of Mark and the various nudie Natasha who are staying in the same hotel.
00:30:20
Speaker
Bridget also here tells Daniel that she loves him. She never does that in the book that I can remember or that I remember reading just now. Daniel gets a bit weird. This is where he dips out and avoids the Tarts and Vickers party again.
00:30:32
Speaker
we then get the discovery of a naked woman called Lara for some reason and the awful line about being thin. In the film, she quits right away and the scene is much more public. And Chris Benbon Carter is there.
00:30:42
Speaker
yes yes Yes. For those of you who don't know, he plays Mr Bingley in the 1995 movie. BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. He's also there at the beginning, I'm pretty sure, at the book launch. Yes, he is. Yes.
00:30:57
Speaker
Because it's Pemberley Press. It is Pemberley Press, that's right. And again, how do people not know? He's floating around in a lot of like the office scenes, but they really focus in on him in the quitting scene, which is quite funny.
00:31:10
Speaker
So she quits and then of course she gets her TV role and again proceeds to make a complete perk of herself on television, but the audience loves it and loves her. She does actually do the fire pole thing in the book.
00:31:21
Speaker
Okay. Which to me is very funny because it's Lewisham Fire Station and I used to live in a Sydney suburb called Lewisham as well. Now we get to the first proposal scene. In the movie, it happens at the end of a dinner party she's been at with friends where she's made a fool of herself again. And the scene much more mirrors the original Pride and Prejudice with him insulting her and her mother.
00:31:40
Speaker
But in this one, it's very clear that he's doing it out of nerves rather than a sense of superiority. He also doesn't ask her out. Instead, we skip straight to Mark getting her the only interview with his extremely sought after client,
00:31:53
Speaker
A Kurdish revolutionary leader who is fighting extradition on humanitarian grounds, which is very different to the book. Very 90s. I do actually like that he's a human rights lawyer. Like that's, it's really nice.
00:32:09
Speaker
Yeah. Well, he is a human rights lawyer in the book as well. And he's fighting for the human rights of a woman who was locked in a basement. Okay, let's just skip that reaction. Just delete the whole thing because that makes me sound awful.
00:32:22
Speaker
No, I can understand the confusion. no, no, it doesn't make me sound awful. I can understand the confusion and it is good to clarify because the way I set it up, I didn't say humanitarian lawyer. I just, the way I set it up, it sounds like he's just a criminal lawyer, but he is still a famous human rights lawyer.
00:32:37
Speaker
So this case is based on a real case. and a real lawyer and they got him in to consult on the character of Mark Darcy when they were writing the script. oh I've got an article, I'll link it in the show notes.
00:32:51
Speaker
So in the movie of course the blue soup incident is interrupted by Daniel coming crawling back and Mark challenging him to a fight. Yes! The best fight ever committed to film in my humble opinion.
00:33:07
Speaker
Honestly? The fight scene is as iconic as the 1995 wetshirt scene, let's be honest. Yes. Yes. Because it's just two guys who clearly can't fight trying to fight and it's just it just feels so funny. And then you have tom I think it's Tom running around going, it's a real fight.
00:33:30
Speaker
And all the people in the restaurant involved. And then and the cake and they all have to sing happy birthday in the middle. And then it's raining, man is playing the Jerry Halliwell version.
00:33:43
Speaker
Cinema. Pure cinema. Bridget is, of course, very annoyed at both of them for being childish and leaves. Jumping over here to Bridget's mum, she has a much more overt affair in the movie, this time with a man from the TV channel where she's gotten a job on a shopping channel.
00:33:59
Speaker
But unlike in the book, she's redeemed by coming crawling back and apologising and generally being a lot less toxic, if not less of an embarrassment. In here, she is actually the one to tell Bridget that Mark and Daniel's falling out was because Daniel had an affair with Mark's now ex-wife.
00:34:16
Speaker
So there's no lesser scene in this one either. Hmm. So now, much later in the storyline, we get the Darcy's, Mr. and Mrs. Darcy's, Ruby wedding anniversary. Bridget tells Mark that she also likes him for who he is, but then Mark's loose cannon of a father announces that Mark and Natasha have accepted jobs in New York and that the family is expecting them to be engaged very soon.
00:34:38
Speaker
Bridget, again, acts like a complete twat and tries to cover it up the most embarrassing way. This, I think for me, is the worst part of the movie. Yeah, it's pretty cringy.
00:34:49
Speaker
Her just calling out, no! oh And then being like, we're just going to lose our top person. I am surprised how much of this movie I can quote having not seen this in years. Shocking, shocking amount of quotes you're throwing in here for me.
00:35:05
Speaker
So, of course, in order to pep up her spirits, her friend tried to whisk her off to Paris, but then Mark turns up, she stays with him, and then we all know what happens next with the diary and the knicker-clad dash through the snow and the making out in the streets.
00:35:18
Speaker
That is an iconic ending. and do love that ending. Yeah. Fresh start. And wait a minute. Nice boys don't kiss like that. And I'm not saying the ending. You guys can imagine it if you know the mood.
00:35:32
Speaker
ah ah So there are some pretty big changes and i I'm not sure that a lot of them are for the better. The ending removed from that. Some of them are good. Like removing Bridget making out with her married Australian downstairs neighbour by accident while drunk, categorically his fault, but also the way she writes his accent in the book is very funny. Oh boy. And then there's also a whole sideline story where she pretends to date a 23-year-old to own some of her smug married acquaintances, which is very satisfying, but doesn't add anything to the storyline. The 23-year-old does actually have a raging crush on her. It's really cute.
00:36:07
Speaker
I discovered while researching this episode that a musical version of the book slash movie was created and was meant to premiere in London in 2012. Oh, a long time ago now.
00:36:20
Speaker
Apparently, Lily Allen wrote the score and the lyrics and they got as far as initial workshops with a lead actress who was Sheridan Smith, who people might know from either the cult TV show Gavin and Stacey, or is the original Elle Woods from the first West End run of Legally Blonde.
00:36:36
Speaker
Oh, that's a great musical. Yeah. Lily Allen was apparently quoted in 2014 as saying the musical was fully finished, but she didn't think it would ever be put on stage. Obviously, as a massive musical fan, this is deeply upsetting. But given this isn't Lily Renaissance after her banger of a new album and the success of the latest Bridget Jones film, I want to believe that it can still be revived.
00:37:01
Speaker
Oh, that would be so good. Wouldn't it be so good? yeah I would yeah legitimately fly to London just to see So onto my analysis.
Cultural Legacy and Media Influence
00:37:11
Speaker
It's really easy to see in the threads of our current cultural tapestry, just how engraved Bridget Jones has become. Shows like Fleabag owe a lot of their DNA to the book. A single woman who is hopelessly lost in the modern world and though smart and capable, just keeps stuffing up, mainly because no one believes that she will amount to anything. And she's internalized that message.
00:37:31
Speaker
Her family is awful, her career is going nowhere, and she's attracted to all the wrong men, and her friends, though caring, are mired in their own problems and just as hapless. Sound familiar? Sure it does.
00:37:43
Speaker
It's also really easy to write this book off as a romance that starts and ends with Mark Darcy, as so many naysayers of women's stories for time immemorial have done. But here's the thing. Mark Darcy isn't Bridget's sole purpose. He isn't the beginning and the end of her story. He's a convenient narrative bracket, a very good looking one at that, who functions as a reward.
00:38:03
Speaker
Bridget does the work. She overcomes her own proclivities, pulls herself out of a dead end job and starts to accept herself the way she is, albeit still obsessed with her weight and actually not that different to how she started the novel.
Critique on Weight and Body Image
00:38:14
Speaker
And then as a result, she's in the right headspace to accept when her Mr. Darcy is actually in love with her and offers her a stable, caring relationship as a result. And in the following books, we can see that she carries on an amazing, successful, and sometimes deeply embarrassing and tedious life. But she is fulfilled.
00:38:33
Speaker
And is sometimes he is in it, and sometimes he is not. I'm not commenting on the second movie here, because that sheared off into really awful early 2000s slapstick comedy following the trends of the time, and it is full of...
00:38:46
Speaker
Choices, shall we say. Choices is a good word. she I had a lot of really mixed feelings about this book and coming back to read it after so long. On the one hand, I loved it and I love Bridget.
00:38:58
Speaker
It had a profound effect on me in almost the same way as the original. But it's not all rosy. The insane diet culture steeped into the book, the calorie counting and the obsession with thinness, while a reflection of our culture and genuinely supposed to be a critique of it all, is still really hard to stomach.
00:39:17
Speaker
Especially right now, as we barrel back into extreme thinness, being the most desired body shape once again. It's super interesting to me that as skinny talk takes up the mantle of pro-anid tumbler, Gen z is turning to a literary character from an era of heroin-chic body dysmorphia for comfort.
00:39:34
Speaker
There is a really interesting and slightly click-baity article from Vogue in 2021 simply titled, Did Bridget Jones Make Us Hate Our Bodies? Which is really rough. It's written by Sophie Vershbow and it is about the film, which came out when she was 11 years old.
00:39:54
Speaker
It reads, were this a movie about a woman with low self-esteem learning to love herself, it might've settled differently 20 years on. But it's not just Bridget who is preoccupied with her weight.
00:40:04
Speaker
Does Mark Darcy, played by a thoroughly lovable Colin Firth, really love her just as she is, her friends wonder. Not thinner, her friend Shazza asks. I see your face, Belinda.
00:40:15
Speaker
Yeah. i had blocked that part of the film. ah That doesn't happen in the book. She goes on. When I watch the movie now, I'm struck by the lengths to which it goes to link Bridget's weight to overall health and lifestyle. When Bridget is happy, drinking less and smoking less, her weight is lower. But scenes of her drunken and alone are often accompanied by a voiceover telling us that her numbers have gone up.
00:40:36
Speaker
Fatness has long been defined as a moral failing, based only on willpower and self-determination alone, rather than what it really is, a messy combination of genetics, socioeconomic status, nutrition, exercise, and so much more.
00:40:48
Speaker
One movie, of course, should not shoulder the burden of that widespread narrative. But I was curious to what extent Bridget Jones had affected women of my generation. As a teenager, the weight storyline in the movie made me feel like I was already failing at what it meant to be a woman who was put together, says Jess Kent Johnson, 35-year-old software engineer from Wisconsin.
00:41:08
Speaker
I was 16 and weighed the same amount as a 32-year-old character. Did that mean I was also destined to be a hapless, awkward singleton who needed the miracle of a generous Mark Darcy type to validate my existence?
00:41:20
Speaker
Ooh. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like here is a really fantastic example of why the film is so much more damaging than the book, in my opinion.
00:41:31
Speaker
The film entirely misses what I think is the moral message of the novel and the essential biting social commentary that goes along with all the calorie counting. This is echoed in an article from Grazia by Alex Light in 2024 about how growing up on the films damaged her relationship with her body. And Melinda, I've got a quote here for you.
00:41:51
Speaker
She says, i used to feel a hot flush of panic and disgust wash over me when i saw bridget jones's weight flash up on the screen it was almost a stone less than mine and i was thirteen Riddled with shame and embarrassment, I silently vowed to stick to my diet. Atkins at the time.
00:42:09
Speaker
Better. No carbs for me. Because how am I supposed to feel happy and comfortable existing in a body that weighs a stone more than Bridget's when she is openly disgusted by herself and ridiculed for her weight throughout the entire film?
00:42:23
Speaker
Don't forget the I thought you said she was thin line, not to mention the media's obsession over Renee Zellweger's infamous three-stone weight gain in order for her to play the role.
00:42:35
Speaker
I remember that part as well and everyone saying she had to put in so much weight to play that role. Mm-hmm. So I'll link both the articles in the show notes, but for me these are two just two of many, many articles that videos, reels, TikToks that I found that clearly tell a story.
00:42:56
Speaker
The movie missed the point of the book. In fact, it missed the entire layer of social commentary that is what makes the book such a classic. Because when I think about the book, two scenes are clear in my memory.
00:43:09
Speaker
The first takes place in April. Bridget is not only at her goal weight, but she fits into the tiny pair of jeans that she kept from 1989, which has been her goal just as much as reducing her weight has been.
00:43:20
Speaker
She's at a party waiting to be complimented on her newfound thinness when this scene plays out. And it's long, but it's worth it. Melinda, I've put it in for you to read. It's a diary entry, so some of the syntax and the wording is a little odd.
00:43:36
Speaker
Let's see how much I stumble over it, shall we? Yeah. Went to Jude's party tonight in tight little black dress to show off figure feeling very full of myself. God, are you all right? asked Jude when I walked in.
00:43:49
Speaker
You look really tired. I'm fine, I said crestfallen. I've lost seven pounds. What's the matter? Nothing. No, i just thought, what, what? Maybe you've lost it a bit quickly off your... face, she trailed off.
00:44:05
Speaker
It continued all evening. There's nothing worse than people telling you you look tired. I felt so pleased with myself for not drinking, but I began to feel so calm and smug that I was even irritating myself.
00:44:18
Speaker
I decided I'd better go home. The phone rang. It was Tom. Are you alright? Yes, I feel great. Why? You just seemed, well, flat tonight.
00:44:28
Speaker
Everyone said you weren't your usual self. No, i was fine. Did you see how thin I am? Silence. Tom. I think you looked better before, hun.
00:44:40
Speaker
Now i feel empty and bewildered, as if a rug has been pulled out from under my feet. 18 years wasted. 18 years of calorie and fat unit-based arithmetic. 18 years of buying long shirts and sweaters and leaving the room backwards in intimate situations to hide my bottom. Millions of cheeskakes and tiramisuos. Tens of millions of Emmental slices left uneaten. 18 years of struggles, sacrifice and endeavour.
00:45:07
Speaker
For what? 18 years and the result is tired and flat. I feel like a scientist who discovers that his life's work has been a total mistake.
00:45:19
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And this happens in April. Mm. Before the halfway point of the book. What do you think?
00:45:31
Speaker
It's funny, in my head, everything that I remember about this book was the book was worse than the film. Yes, the film was visual, but there is this whole other way of seeing yourself. I think maybe with reading words you can disconnect a little bit more.
00:45:49
Speaker
I think the reason I've disconnected from the movie a little bit more is we do kilograms in Australia, not stones. Yes. So for me, I'm a little bit younger than you, Steph, not by much, and I remember noticing why is – Bridget obsessed with her weight, she looks fine.
00:46:10
Speaker
But I don't think i connected in my head. Actually, she was completely fine and how unhealthy. yeah how completely unhealthy that was. I definitely knew, I definitely remember going, oh, looking after yourself is a good thing.
00:46:28
Speaker
And that's a whole other mindset you can unpack, whatever. But I don't think I ever actually connected, oh, she's actually tiny because I never, I did actually have a friend. We watched the film fairly recently.
00:46:41
Speaker
And I was like, don't tell me anything. I need to go into this as blind as possible. And she did message me and she said, I just, she's a doctor. She just, she messaged me and she said, I just did the conversion on Bridget's weight. And she was, and I actually can't remember what the number was now, but she was like, she was this.
00:46:56
Speaker
Why was she a doctor? It's like, oh yes. I think that extra layer. And again, i was slightly younger. I think that's just actually spared me from a lot of.
00:47:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. can see that. Just on that, it was very weird because the book is obviously in stones because that's what like a lot of British people still use for weight.
00:47:19
Speaker
But the movie being mainly made for an American audience was in pounds. Ah. She did all her weight in pounds. And of course, to me, hearing them in pounds, it sounds like a she's like 130 pounds or whatever. I'm like, my brain just goes 130 that's weird.
00:47:37
Speaker
I don't know the conversion from stones to her actual weight, but she's somewhere in all of my research. It definitely came up. Someone said she's the equivalent of a UK or Australian size 10.
00:47:51
Speaker
Which is? Which is, you know, the average size woman in Australia right now is a size 16. Yeah. And I think I don't love BMI. In fact, I think it's a measurement for lunatics, but that in and of itself is a whole other podcast. I'll link one in the show notes for you guys to listen to about why BMI is terrible. It's entertaining, but her BMI would be 22, which is towards the lower end of healthy yeah on the BMI scale, which is garbage, but everyone still uses it. So there you go. So yeah, it's rough.
00:48:22
Speaker
So back to this scene, in any other book with a self-fulfillment narrative, this would have been the end. She would have thrown off the shackles of diet culture, become a better, more fulfilled self. But that is the genius of Helen Fielding. She knows that we as women already know the constant maddening rabbit hole of weight loss to the point of extreme thinness as a panacea for all of our problems is futile.
00:48:46
Speaker
And yet we continue. And so Bridget continues for the rest of the book like this scene never happened. She continues to track her calories and lament her fluctuating figure for the remainder of the year.
00:48:58
Speaker
It's a blip. What should be this earth shattering revelation is a blip. And I think that's really realistic. Yeah. So some months go by in the book and another scene occurs.
00:49:11
Speaker
Again, it's long, but I think you'll understand why. Tom started saying he was too fat as well and was going on a diet. How many calories are supposed to eat if you're on a diet? He said. About a thousand. Well, I usually aim for a thousand and come in at about 1500. said.
00:49:28
Speaker
A thousand, said Tom incredulously, but I thought you needed two thousand just to survive. i looked at him nonplussed. I realized that I have spent so many years being on a diet that the idea that you might actually need calories to survive has been completely wiped out of my consciousness.
00:49:44
Speaker
Have reached point where believe nutritional ideal is to eat nothing at all and that the only reason people eat is because they are so greedy they cannot stop themselves from breaking up and ruining their diets.
00:49:57
Speaker
How many calories are in a boiled egg? Said Tom. Seventy-five. Banana? Large or small? Small. Peeled? Yes.
00:50:08
Speaker
Eighty, I said confidently. Olive. Black or green? Black. Nine. Hobnob. Side note, that's a type of biscuit. Eighty-one.
00:50:20
Speaker
Box of milk tray. Ten thousand eight hundred and ninety-six. How do you know all of this? I thought about it. I just do, as one knows the alphabet or times tables.
00:50:32
Speaker
Okay, what are nine-eighths, says Tom? Sixty-four. No, fifty-six. Uh, seventy-two. What letter comes before J? Quick. P. L. I mean... Tom says I am sick, but I happen to know for a fact that I am normal and no different from everyone else, i.e. Sharon and Jude.
00:50:50
Speaker
Frankly, I am quite worried about Tom. I think taking part in a beauty contest has started to make him crack under the pressures we women have long been subjected to, and he's becoming insecure, appearance-obsessed, and borderline anorexic.
00:51:05
Speaker
So first of all, why would the banana ever be eaten un-peeled? Conance that one. Conance that one.
00:51:15
Speaker
Secondly, this scene again points out the absurdity of what we are socially conditioned to do as women. Personally, i have been on both sides of this conversation. i have been the person in the depths of disordered eating, carefully explaining how I count my calories to a horrified friend who looked at me like I was utterly deranged.
00:51:36
Speaker
And I have been the person trying to explain to a friend with even more intense food issues that a tablespoon of peanut butter with a sprinkling of oats and small tin of tuna and beans absolutely did not constitute a perfectly good breakfast and lunch for a fully grown woman.
00:51:49
Speaker
I have been there. in this exact insanity, thinking I was normal. And it's easy to write the book off as glorifying it. I don't think it is. I think it's holding up a very, very uncomfortable mirror and it's easier to write it off as worthless chick lip rather than what it is, a very pointed social commentary that reflects to us what we don't want to acknowledge.
00:52:13
Speaker
And that is why this book is a classic that keeps readers coming back to it as the decades pass.
Social Commentary vs. Romantic Comedy
00:52:18
Speaker
And that is why it is such a perfect successor to Pride and Prejudice. Austen's biting social commentary is what keeps readers engaged with the story and why it is still so relevant over 200 years later.
00:52:29
Speaker
The movie, on the other hand, removes the social commentary layer. And yes, it is a very entertaining romantic comedy, but the diet culture is never questioned. And I hate to say it because I love this scene, but the final... Moment of Bridget's dimpled thighs out in the snow she begs Mark to forgive her, just screams, don't worry, you might also be an immoral, slovenly overweight heifer, but maybe if you're lucky, a man will come along and bless you with enough love to fix you too.
00:52:56
Speaker
oh You're making me re-evaluate this movie and I don't know if I'm happy about it. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, i didn't want to do this. I really wanted the book to be the villain. I was really, really...
00:53:10
Speaker
That's really, yeah The scene with the little black dress and the looking tired and you looked better before was always burned into my memory. But I've always thought it came much later in the book.
00:53:22
Speaker
To read it again and see this at the beginning is really jarring. And yeah, I just, I guess the movie didn't have as much of an impact on me.
00:53:35
Speaker
But then going online and just seeing pages and pages and pages of women talking about how despite the fact they love it and they love Bridget, the movie really messed them up.
00:53:47
Speaker
It's really hard. It's really hard. yeah but Now, because that was really heavy, I'm going to finish on something a little bit lighter. Well, in some regards. Now, as to why the book readers will be better acquainted with it being a Pride and Prejudice adaptation, there are a plethora of references throughout the novel, including plenty of jokes about Mark Darcy's name and indeed one diary entry In October, has Bridget excitedly sitting down on a Sunday night to watch the latest episode of the BBC version as it was broadcast live for the first time. Excellent. And then also getting really weirded out by reading a news story about Firth and Elle dating, which she then uses to her advantage in this following deranged scene from her television office the next day, which I have included just for giggles. And I will read this one for you.
00:54:37
Speaker
On marvellous roll with work. Ever since Elena What's-A-Face interview, seams can do no wrong. Come on, come on, Richard Finch was saying when I got to the office. A bit late, actually, the sort of thing that could happen to anyone. Holding up his fists like a boxer.
00:54:52
Speaker
I'm thinking lesbian rape victims. I'm thinking Jeanette Winterston. I'm thinking what lesbians actually do. That's it. What do lesbians actually do in bed? Suddenly, he was looking straight at me.
00:55:04
Speaker
Do you know? Everyone stared at me. Come on, Bridget effing late again, he shouted impatiently. What do lesbians actually do in bed? I took a deep breath. Actually, I think we should be doing the off-screen romance between Darcy and Elizabeth.
00:55:19
Speaker
He looked me up and down slowly. Brilliant, he said reverently. Absolutely effing brilliant. Okay, the actors who played Darcy and Elizabeth. Come on, come on, he said, boxing at the meeting.
00:55:29
Speaker
Colin Firth and Jennifer L., I said. You, my darling, he said to one of my breasts, are an absolute effing genius. I had always hoped I would turn out to be a genius, but i never believed it would actually happen to me, or my left breast,
00:55:44
Speaker
Yeah, right. I do not remember. The tone the torrent is ringing the bell, right? Because she has such a strong voice. But I'm like, oh, wow, okay. Yeah. yeah but I think, is it in the second book where she gets to interview Colin Firth?
00:55:59
Speaker
I think it's the second book. Yes. And there is an extra on the second film's DVD because they were trying to fit it into the second film but couldn't make it work because obviously Colin Firth is actually playing Mark Darcy. But they recorded it.
00:56:14
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Oh, my God. Hilarious. It is really funny in the book to be reading it now after the movie is so iconic and just all the references in it to Colin Firth. Yeah.
00:56:25
Speaker
Yeah. but perfect Now, for those of you who are as in the dark as I was about the 90s English references that just occurred in that quote, Jeanette Winterston is an English author and her first book, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was a semi-autobiographical novel about a lesbian growing up in an English Pentecostal community.
00:56:44
Speaker
It was published in 1985 and turned into a TV show in the early 90s, so very current for the time of the book. Another tangent here, the insane level of latent sexual harassment in this book is intense.
00:56:56
Speaker
I forgot, like a genuinely, I forget what being a woman in public slash in the workplace was like for Gen X and older women sometimes because it was just horrendous. That I remember in both. That comes up a fair bit in the movie as well. and Yeah. was Yeah, unpleasant.
00:57:14
Speaker
Unpleasant. So what about my rating? I think this book is Austin approved. Well, perhaps controversially, i think the film is somewhere between that rating and most seriously
Final Thoughts and Critiques
00:57:27
Speaker
displeased.
00:57:27
Speaker
oh I've skipped over Not Actually Austin because film actually adds in beats to more closely match the original storyline, and it is good. But also the early 90s body shaming and absolutely no pushback or effort to counter that messaging is insane, and it makes it really hard to watch these days.
00:57:45
Speaker
The book, however, retains the original social commentary, which is still sadly relevant today. But then it also has many references that I just don't think fly these days and are better forgotten about, hence it is not a fine eyes.
00:58:00
Speaker
Apologies to anyone whose enjoyment of the movie I may have tarnished. Look, we still have the fight scene. We still have Colin Firth in his reindeer jumper.
00:58:11
Speaker
Yes, we still have him coming down the studios and saying, i look I like you just the way you are. We still have Moaning Myrtle as one of her friends. Yes. Oh God, that was so funny. As a Harry Potter kid, that was very funny.
00:58:26
Speaker
So, We hope you enjoyed this episode of Jane Austen Remixed. We love exploring this wonderful corner of the literary world with you. Please share the podcast with your friends, family, literary fans and other Janeites, and we would love it if you could leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you are listening.
00:58:44
Speaker
This helps us to reach other fans of Pride and Prejudice and build our community. You can also follow us on Instagram at Jane Austen Remixed, and if you have a question or suggestion for a book, movie, or something you'd like us to review, drop us a line. You can email us at janeaustenremixed at gmail.com.
00:59:03
Speaker
And join us in two weeks when we open up our DMs and answer all of your questions as well as reflecting on the first season of the podcast. Can't wait for that. That one's going be a fun one.
00:59:15
Speaker
Yes. Okay. Okay. Now, Stephanie, it's time for the most important question of our podcast. Yes. Stephanie. Does this Darcy dive into a lake?
00:59:28
Speaker
No. Yeah, I knew the answer to that. Building up the suspense for nothing. No, he keeps his diamond pattern sweater on in the book and the only wet shirt in the first film is Hugh Grant as Daniel Cleaver when he falls out of the rowboat.
00:59:42
Speaker
Oh, yes. Yes, it is. he And on that note, we'll see you next episode.
01:00:00
Speaker
Thank you.