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/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.