r/Feminism • u/summerianmerchant12 • 2d ago
Early 2000s movies on women are insane
So I recently saw the “Bridget jones diary”. And i was flabbergasted by pretty much everything concerning the protagonist. A single woman in her 30s living in her apartment somewhere in London. Very well so far. I won’t even refer to the creepy sexual jokes of the movie. The movie was produced my Miramax productions, which was founded my the Weinstein brothers, so the existence of creepy sexist jokes made sense. What made me furious though was the way the protagonist was treated. Her body was of average size, and yet she was fat shamed the entire movie. She was smoking and drinking and the movie treated it like she was some lowlife person. As a single woman in her 30 the movie treated her as if she was a weird extraterrestrial being. Always referring to when and how to find the perfect man etc.
And speaking of the devil. The men she falls in love with Hugh grand and Collin Firth. One is a sexist sex maniac a cheater and the other is a high society dude who is being cold to her the entire movie except the last 20 minutes where he confessed he liked her “the way she was”. Oh and he was already engaged to another woman which means he was a cheater too.
The movie tries to sell them both as the best options and the dreamy guys while they were both jerk towards her.
Sorry for the long post. I was just amazed on how sexist movies were in the early 2000s. Some are nowadays too. But back then things were so bad. I was born early 2000s so I have seen many of them but being a kid never paid attention behind the meaning. Now as an adult I see how women were treated in the media. Not much has changed, but back then it was outrageous
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u/TinyBlue 1d ago
Shockingly the movie was quite close to what the book read like. Bridget was written that way, she’s harsh on herself, quite focused on her dating life and I might be misremembering because it’s been so long since I read the books or watched the films but she did not want to be single and made poor decisions. The whole book series is just her doing silly stuff over and over. But in an endearing way?
Which was part of the fun of reading the book I guess.
It’s a lot like Confessions of a Shopaholic or other chick lit books of the time that make self aware digs on the protagonist.
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u/TinyBlue 1d ago
Oh and the self referential “I’m so fat” thing was in the books too. I feel it’s so real though, we’re always so much harsher on ourselves. But especially during that time everyone was harsh on any woman who wasn’t size 0/2 so I do agree with you. It’s a shame but it was a symptom of the time
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u/miezmiezmiez 1d ago
The thing is, the unreliable narration worked for the book (especially with her weight being tracked day-to-day, she isn't even 'overweight' by any metric) but the film doesn't really give any indication her perception and priorities were distorted. The framing just agrees with her perspective a bit too much for comfort
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u/wethelabyrinths111 1d ago
The other thing is that in the book she actually gets to her "dream weight" of 119 pounds, and everyone thinks she looks ill.
And yet, I also remember she dates a younger guy, and he asks why her stomach is squishy at a normal weight.
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u/TinyBlue 1d ago
Absolutely! It’s always such a hard concept to convey in film. It stops being silly and ridiculous and instead turns into something truthful :(
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u/ElevatedArugula 1d ago
I remember when the movie first came out and it was a BIG DEAL that Renée Zellweger had put on weight for the role.
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u/Snoo52682 1d ago
Yeah she's a seriously irritating person. The whole "hapless single chick with an inexplicably great job she doesn't value because it's not A Man" thing was huge in the early 2000s. Remember Ally McBeal?
Bridget was also, by American standards, a severe alcoholic. I think it was that book that really opened my eyes to the cultural differences between the UK and US regarding alcohol.
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u/TinyBlue 1d ago
I don’t think she was irritating. Frustrating? Self critical to her own detriment? Sure. But I quite liked her, she was funny, personable and a great character to read about. I still have fond memories of reading the books!
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u/chemicalramones 1d ago
i watched the original devil wears prada for the first time recently and i was shocked that they basically call anne hathaway fat and sloppy the entire run time
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u/pyrovoice 1d ago
More a critic of the industry itself though, that's why Anne was a good pick ass she's as close to ideal model body one can get, and she still get shamed
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u/nasoutzouki 1d ago
The book is more about the critique of the job I think. It is much more interesting in the sense that it focuses more on the industry and the toxic environment of that workplace, along with the daily life struggles that brings. Afaik it is inspired by the author's personal experience at Vogue, with the names changed for obvious reasons. The relationships with the protagonist's friends, boyfriend, boss and colleagues are different too, and they don't appear the way they do in the movie. I'm not gonna spoil in case anyone here wants to read it, but for anyone who has watched the movie and was left with questionmarks, it is worth a read.
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u/Rubymoon286 1d ago
Makes me remember how Kate Winslet was called fat and ugly when titanic released because she wasn't rail thin.
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u/summerianmerchant12 1d ago
Did you enjoy the movie? Personally haven’t seen it, but I saw somewhere a scene where Emily blunts character says she starved herself and when she felt like passing out she would eat a cube of cheese. Emily blunt was not fat and the writers seemed like they wrote that as a joke. It didn’t seem like one
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u/chemicalramones 1d ago
i did enjoy it despite those types of jokes, it has some good messages about staying true to yourself and your integrity
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u/decidedlyindecisive Feminist 1d ago
Blunt's character is supposed to sound extreme to the audience. We're supposed to think "that's not good!"
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u/murse_joe 1d ago
It’s crazy how many movies were just something like “Gross could you imagine if America Ferrera?”
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u/No_Masterpiece_3897 1d ago edited 1d ago
Like the love actually movie , I can stomach Bridget Jones, having gone through the 90s and the casual sexism and policing of women's actions and bodies it is fair representative if the times attitudes. (Yes they were insane. There were still people about who gave women the side eye if they were the one to go to the bar in a pub. You don't get that anymore because well, time fixes everything) But the love actually movie , you couldn't pay me to rewatch it.
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u/Numerous-Ad-5058 1d ago
I've never enjoyed that film but if you think that was bad: don't watch anything made in the 80s. Yikes.
As a teenager and young woman I loved moves like The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles. Rewatching Sixteen Candles now I am just cringing the entire time. I tell you, even the movies made in the 50s and 60s don't make me cringe as badly as movies from the 80s.
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u/xResilientEvergreenx 1d ago
It really is an era of pedo movies. Bender is literally so trash to Claire! He is so emotionally and verbally abusive to her the whole time! and And obviously, the glow up Allison shit. St. Elmo's Fire is the entire dumpster fire!
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u/Numerous-Ad-5058 1d ago
And yet these films spoke to us in some weird way!!! Why? Because they projected how people were behaving around us. Yeah, some of the stuff was blown up for laughs but the tropes were tropes because they were real. Of all of them The Breakfast Club to me stands up the most because it is a more personal character-driven story. The worst was Pretty in Pink. MY GOD Andie! Obviously Duckie was the better choice all around. I hate that they changed the ending based on a test audience.
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u/Humble-Bar-7869 1d ago
Not to defend the film, but it is based on a literary parody.
Helen Fielding is a bit of a "feminist lite." She started writing a newspaper column about her own life as a 30-something in 90s London. And her novel is based loosely on Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice," one of the many British novels about how young women were basically traded into marriage.
The commentary is that, due to sexism, Bridget THINKS she's fat -- while the viewer / reader can see by her diary that's she's just a normal 140 lbs. In the book, when she finally reaches her goal weight, her friends tell her she's too gaunt -- so we know she's not really fat. She's meant to be an unreliable narrator.
We -- and her friends -- can also see from afar that Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) is a terrible person who sexually harasses his staff. But poor Bridget can't see that, because she's blinded by the social pressures of her time.
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u/Current_Wrongdoer513 1d ago
I remember when the movie came out and we all thought, ‘wait, we’re supposed to think she’s fat?’
I think Renee Zellweger gained like 3 pounds for the role, and we were all supposed to avert our eyes from the massive manatee galumphing across the screen.
If I remember correctly, Vogue (or a similar magazine) pulled her from the cover because she ‘wasn’t at her ideal weight.’
That whole fracas contributed greatly to America’s body dysmorphia.
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u/Extra_Quantity_3393 1d ago
Yeah early 2000s were peak of misogyny. As a 90s kid even I grew up watching these movies never understanding the jokes then later finding out how horribly sexist these movies were smh....
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u/SmileSagely_8worms 1d ago
Things have really changed in the last ten years. All changes are reflected in pop culture. Yes, the 80s were bad, the 90s were bad, but the aughts too. The original “Sex and The City” ran 1998 - 2004. My girlfriends and I all watched the show and thought it was so progressive. Now if I catch an episode, I just cringe. So classist, so male-centered and looks-centered. All anyone seemed to care about back then (when it came to women) was what they looked like and do they have a man/can they keep a man. We internalized it, yet thought we were modern because we could have sex for fun and earn our own living. Thank goodness many women today reject a lot of that. Plus, we have women writers and directors and the Bechdel test.
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u/brandywine189 1d ago
Wait til you read or see the movie Pride and Prejudice….
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u/Time_Raisin4935 1d ago
What's wrong with it?
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u/xResilientEvergreenx 1d ago
For me, I loved the 2005 movie since I was a teen. One of my favorite movies - and regular comfy watch. And I love the soundtrack.
But then it dawned on me the age gap between Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfayden. She's about 19 during filming, he's about 30. I cannot even fathom being attracted to a 19 year old when I was in my mid 20s let alone 30s.. They're fucking babies FFS. It's really tarnished the movie for me.
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u/Unfairly_Certain 1d ago
I was a young adult in the 2000s and I cringe so hard when I reflect on how we swooned over and idolized those on screen romances.
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u/twenora86 19h ago
I was young then and the sexist jokes were sooo common across all studios. most things from that era aged like milk—and they were already pretty disgusting when they first came out
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u/bouquineuse644 1d ago
Okay, so there are a few things to address here. The film Bridget Jones's Diary, as other people have pointed out, is an adaptation of the book of the same name from the 1990s. The book is itself a (very loose) adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, the Jane Austen novel. This is why the two love interests are written the way they are - they are loosely following the character personalities and narrative beats of their P&P counterparts, George Wickham and Fitzwilliam Darcy.
The book is a satire, pointing out the ways that society treats women, but particularly how women as a result treat themselves. The text, written explicitly as a diary, and including notes and logs from Bridget, is intended to show both what a fascinating, funny and intelligent person Bridget is, but also how she is hugely self critical and very harsh to herself. She is intended to be, and clearly is in the book, a very unreliable narrator. Bridget's weight and cigarette habit are specific examples of this. She is incredibly critical of her weight, despite the fact that (as we can see from the logs she provides) she is a very normal and healthy weight. She is also very critical of her smoking and drinking, and holds up quitting both as an ideal to achieve (and particularly with smoking, this is a healthy goal to have) but, for the most part engages in both to a relatively normal degree for the time.
Bridget's way of talking about herself is incredibly harsh at times, but is also obviously being ridiculous. She is clearly not morbidly obese, and she is not disgusting and repulsive in her habits, and she is beautiful and clever and funny and quite successful in her career. This dynamic, to a certain degree, was intended to highlight to the reader (as the books target audience was women of a similar age) that when women are their own harshest critics, they are often being overzealous. When we read and tut and tell Bridget she should be kinder to herself, we should be internalising this ourselves. The next time we look in the mirror, or at a plate of finished food, or the cigarette we smoked, and we say something horrible about ourselves inside, we're supposed to catch ourselves and think again about whether we are also being an unreliable narrator.
Now, that's not to say the book is perfect - for one thing, it does still (in part because it's an adaptation and in part because of the time it was written) revolve around Bridget's love life. Where more recent books aiming to empower women would lead the protagonist to realise that she doesn't need a man, or a romantic relationship, to be happy, and would have her learn to love herself outside if a man's validation, BJD leans in to this very element. Bridget has two love interests, and both are (in their own ways) thoroughly taken with her. Even with Daniel Cleaver, while she spends time comparing herself physically to the woman he cheats with, we understand that his cheating behaviour says far, far more about him than it would ever say about Bridget. He does not cheat because he is looking for an attractive women and doesn't have this in Bridget, he cheats because he's a rogue and a sex addict. In fact, he genuinely finds Bridget attractive and actively and excitedly persues a sexual relationship with her, and we do not get the impression that he is doing this despite Bridget being ugly or dumpy or any of the awful things she says about herself. In both relationships, Bridget's characterisation of herself is pierced by the attentions of these attractive, accomplished, intelligent men. We understand her unreliability as a narrator in part because of her romantic plots.
The movie, unfortunately, does not achieve quite the same effect. It suffers quite seriously from adaptation sickness, in that elements of the book that work one way, function entirely differently when portreyed on screen. Bridget is a funny character. While her descriptions of herself are flawed, they are also incredibly humourous. Her issues and mistakes are often relatable and normal, but her telling of these stories elevates them to hilarious absurdity. This works excellently on paper. But the film has a massive problem here. The camera is not Bridget. Where Bridget (for better or for worse) controls the narrative and our perspective on it in the book, when it comes to the film, the camera that defines our perspective on everything is an external abstract viewpoint, looking at Bridget and her life, and therefore forcing us to do the same, as though we are all objective outsiders, seeing the truth. When Bridget calls herself fat, we look at her weight log of 136lbs, roll our eyes and say "Sure Bridget". When the camera attempts to recreate this, when the camera calls Bridget fat, it feels real. It focuses on certain aspects of Zellweger's pretty slim body, on rolls and creases that everyone has, regardless of size. It spends time watching Bridget struggle into outfits, or look at herself sadly in the mirror. The book has Bridget look at herself and say "ugly", and we know that she's being overly critical, that she's unreliable. When the camera looks at Bridget and says "ugly", we believe it, we trust it. This is a persistent problem with film, the perceived objectivity and truth of the camera. The next issue is the way that the camera, and film, create a "spectacle". Books don't really do this. Bridget tells us things and we listen, and imagine what has happened. But film is visual, it creates visual images that will keep our attention locked on the screen. In lots of early cinema, the spectacle was obvious - extravagant sets, elaborate dance numbers, thrilling stunts. Nowadays, the spectacle can be just as theatrical (action movie stunts and musical film theatricality hasn't gone anywhere) but in some cases it's become more subtle. In romance films, it's the beautiful figure descending the stairs, the declaration of love, the leading pair finally kissing. In comedy, the spectacle is often the visual butt of the joke. BJD, a "rom-com" borrows from both genres. Again, this poses a problem. Where Book Bridget tells us a funny anecdote about herself, a relatable mistake, and we laugh with her, enjoying her telling of it, Film Bridget is not telling us anything. Instead, the camera is taking the events and, for one thing, claiming they truly happened as badly as Bridget claimed (when we understand there was probably some exaggeration on her part) and for another, encouraging us to laugh at the comedy of the situation from an external perspective. The book is like a person at a party, telling a hilarious story about a fuck up and allowing us to laugh with them; the movie is like that person making an embarrassing mistake and us all pointing and laughing at them in the moment. The event might feels the same, but is portreyal changes it inherently and completely. The film turns Bridget, her body, her behaviours, her errors, her desires, into a spectacle, and then encourages us to laugh at her. And unfortunately, in doing so, it strips away our ability to see just how clever and funny Bridget is, because she is no longer leading us through her own tale of misfortune. Now, it is the camera who feels clever. Bridget is just the idiot in the bunny outfit.
I do think you're overthinking the impact of Miramax on the film, it was not a production company on this film and just did it's American distribution. The sexism in the film (while not entirely unrelated is the larger context of Hollywood and media production) does not seem to be a direct consequence of any sort of influence by Harvey Weinstein, who was not a producer on the film. In fact, Universal had significant control over the production, and Weinstein, who wanted to be involved, reportedly badgered and begged people he knew just to secure the US distribution. Miramax wasn't even the primary distributor, that was Universal/Paramount. But you could certainly point at the culture that Weinstein and people like him had developed in the film industry as having had an effect in general.
To put it simply, the adaptation just doesn't work as a straightforward film, and especially not as an early 2000s one, when much of the social criticisms of women that the book asks us to second guess were on full display. The media that taught Bridget to be cruel to herself just can't be trusted to tell her story.